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For my mum’s birthday this year, my sister and I decided to treat her to a weekend away (with us and my husband and baby) to escape into the countryside, forget her troubles, and have dinners cooked over a fire! What could be more hygge than a close-knit group talking around a campfire?

If you have been having a challenging year, I fully recommend ditching the all inclusive buffets and airport queues for a quiet weekend with the people who love you most. We wanted to infuse each other’s subconscious minds with a sense of intimacy and security to take home with us. Plus, during a pandemic, a quiet holiday a few hours’ drive from home is ideal.

We booked 3 nights at Penhein Glamping in South Wales, a small site surrounded by ancient woodland. It is very eco-friendly, providing candles instead of electric lights, eco-friendly cleaning supplies, and the tent even had its own compost bin. Simply stepping away from the main grid for a weekend felt good, and my mum and sister soon started discussing how lovely it would be to live this way all the time.

Whilst I personally find that travelling anywhere with a baby is a little more stressful, the trip as a whole was very relaxing. It didn’t help that J woke up in the car and started crying when we were still 45 minutes away, or that Google maps tried to send us down a dead end. We also discovered that trying to get your baby to sleep at his normal bedtime in a tent that has a large (and very beautiful) skylight over the bed is not easy, especially now that we use blackout curtains to get him to sleep at home.

However, initial settling in aside, we all loved our stay and kept talking about how we could try to bring qualities we liked about the glampsite back into our everyday lives. My favourite memories were cooking over a real wood fire (and lighting it in the first place) and swinging in the hammock with baby J. We also spent a lot of time cooking together, walking with J in the backpack, and sat around the fire with warm cups of tea, just talking. It felt great to spend some time together without any internet or TV distractions. We only got our phones out to take the odd photo, and the detox from it all felt wonderful!

The tent itself had a toilet attached (super handy with a baby) and its own shower assigned in the communal block. Since J wasn’t used to showers, we brought his bath along for a bit of outdoors bathtime!

Once he was finally in bed (sometimes very late for him as he waited for it to get dark before finally drifting off), I would flip flop my way down to the communal block for a nice hot shower, before finding my way back in the dark by the light of a solar lamp, listening out for an owl or bats. Candles and soft conversation welcomed me back.