Four Seasons Holiday Home, West Wales

One house in deepest rural Wales, three couples, five children under five.
For a week. In March.

As I outlined my plans for a pre-Easter break with the TTR crew to family and acquaintances, reactions were mixed…
My mother: “You’re mad.”
My child-free friends: “You’re mad.”
My friends with children: “YOU’RE MAD.”
My boss: “Er, it doesn’t sound like much of a holiday, does it?”
OK, so I lied about the reactions being mixed.

The negativity got to me, in the end, so it’s fair to say that as our car splashed through the relentless Welsh rain, I was regarding the week as a trial by ordeal (water, naturally) rather than a holiday.
But I had a secret weapon, had I only known it.

The House
Four Seasons is in Plwmp, West Wales.
To be exact – and after a couple of sploshy walks round the local lanes, I can be – it’s probably about ten per cent of Plwmp. There’s one small store (manned by Bill, who receives about ten – deserved - recommendations in the Four Seasons visitor book for friendliness) and, er, some houses.
But I doubt that many of them are quite like this one.

Upstairs…
The six bedrooms mean that, with judicious placement (AKA the Which Kids are Most Likely to Wake Each Other Up? Right, Keep Them Apart Then game), no parent had to suffer the horrors of sharing with their child.

…Downstairs
So far, so good. But downstairs was even better:
An entrance hall big enough to take 11 sets of coats, shoes, wellies and bags, plus the children’s toys meant that we adults could spend each evening pretending we could still stay up late carousing (a theory disproved at six-ish every single morning, as the toddler pack woke up and began to maraud).
The living room was large enough to accommodate everyone without feeling crowded, the sofas were both comfortable (most of us over 5s napped on one at some point) and being leather, wipe-clean.

We all loved the kitchen, which had a brilliant central island unit to sit and gossip at whilst that evening’s dinner preparer went about their task of adding icing sugar to pigeon, Greek-ing up some chicken or heating yet another can of beans, all the equipment you could reasonably ask for (except for properly sharp knives), high stools (much beloved of the lemming-like toddler posse) and led on to a bright dining area seating 12 and overlooking the garden.

Speaking of which, outdoor space might have been somewhat limited – though beyond the garden were views to the sea not to mention the fact of the endless beaches and wilderness for stomping around on away from Plwmp – but the games room (darts board, mini-football, a pool/air hockey table), full-size sauna and divine hot tub, much appreciated by the three mummies (With wine? Us? Absolutely not. Hic…) were far more necessary as far as the adults were concerned.

Out and about
We did drag ourselves away to do some exploring of the countryside – top recommendation goes to New Quay, which has two lovely, sheltered beaches complete with rockpools (and a freezing cold sea to fall in to as Lillie discovered) plus the best café in Wales, the Bosun’s Locker; I would happily do the five-hour drive tomorrow for another slice of the cheesecake.

Even the slight disappointments had something to recommend them (the somewhat under-animaled Cardigan Island Farm Park, which told us apologetically that they’d been unable to get their wallaby back in time for reopening – cue much TTR speculation as to where on earth it had been all winter).

On the whole though, most of our time was spent lounging around at ‘home’, watching toddlers hurtle or laughing at two-year-olds’ attempts to play Wii Just Dance. So comfortable was the house and so thoroughly wet the weather it wasn’t even a strain to do so and cabin fever was at a minimum in the spacious house which was big enough to cause a miniature Bear Grylls-style expedition if one’s husband or wife ran off to catch a sneaky 40 winks in a hidden corner without prior warning.

A return is definitely on the cards for next year. Now we just need to train all five kids to not fall out of bed in the wee small hours…

Luke’s Mummy x

TTR booked their break through Hoseasons staying for 7 nights at a cost of around £280 per family (a total of approx £850)