...family takeover of a big house in the country. The FPO's folks have rented a place on the West Sussex/Hampshire border in July, and we're descending en masse. It'll be nice.

Also, it's mine and Mrs Bob's 10th wedding anniversary on June 30th (10! how the hell did THAT happen?), so I'm spending a frankly revolting amount of money on the same suite we stayed in on our wedding night. Since we got married, the hotel has been massively pimped up, as well as changing its name, so it's now crazily pricey. But she's worth it. I'll be in trouble if she finds out how much it cost, though. So we're doing that - dumping the kids on my folks for the weekend, and generally eating, drinking, relaxing, being pampered, and erm... whatever else occurs to us.

2 weeks in the summer. Hired a place near the sea in a town with a decent track record for crepes. We still ferry it as the idea of an airport and 3 year old twins is too much to bear. The drive should be ok (some of the hundreds of pounds we save by going on the ferry rather than a plane, we have invested in a pair of dvd screens for the car).

The kids like to try different foods so cooking and eating out should be fun. Digging on the beach is considered an olympic sport in our family and we should be able to visit a few WW2 sites for my sons burgeoning interest in recent military history.

And the wine will be nice.

- he said rather grandly.

28th May we'll celebrate the GLW's and her twin's birthday bu getting up at stupid o'clock and driving to Aberdeen to get a ferry to Shetland - stopping only to sample the excellent pies at Westmoreland service. Then a week of walking, wildlife watching and conviviality.Not disimilar to Islay but a bloody sight further.

End of July 10 of us are off to France. Not entirely sure where but the GLW tells me it's near Cognac. Oops. 2 weeks of lounging about and stuffing my face. Marvellous.

What's the betting that the drive to Aberdeen and back is harder and more stressful than driving in France?

Here..........

Here's the view from that chair you can see out the front

Yours looks lovely too Hombre.

A week in a cottage in Cornwall, with the GLW and the little scamp. Looking forward to it. Visits to beaches, the Eden Project, parks...and best of all...Cornish pasties...yum.

We are off to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands. Will be there over Christmas and New Year. Very expensive holiday destination that has been a dream for a number of years. Will have taken around 16 months to save for so hope it lives up to expectations.

Mrs Umpire, the junior Umpires and I have just got back from 17 days in California: San Francisco, Carmel, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and LA.

A quite superb holiday, marred only very slightly by the fact that Highway 1 (the Pacific Coast Highway) is currently closed by a massive landslip just south of Big Sur, meaning that we had to go inland rather than driving down the coast. Even that had its up-side as it took us through the heart of Steinbeck country, tying in nicely with a current GCSE reading of his Of Mice and Men.

A wonderful holiday, in a wonderful part of the world.

I'd go for good in the morning.

although it wasn't a particularly warm Easter break.

Going to Ibiza - at 36 I should know better. Must be the start of the midlife crisis...

A lovely place. People were very friendly. Highly recommended.
I hope to get another break in later this summer. I miss my camping holidays so hopefully we'll get the tent out.

taking a coach trip on Route 66. It's actually my job - normally I'm happy to spend a few days at home, but I've only had three week's work this year so far so it's very nice to get back to work.

Visiting the in-laws,a bit of surfers paradise recently. Hopefully get some skimboarding in as there's a brilliant beach nearby for it.

Two weeks in Java and Bali......this was the view from our garden in Java.

Summer will be a couple of weeks driving around Northern Spain, particularly around Santiago.

In the algarve in august.

Lots of cold Super Bock, barbecued fish and playing with the girls in the pool. I'm trying not to wish the months away!

On an eco farm in Tuscany and shorter trips to Cyprus, Qatar, Kazakstan and Armenia.

Every bit as wonderful as this picture suggests. We'll be there in late June for 3 weeks (Chubby Checking? I don't think so!) Then we are on a cruise round the UK & Ireland in September.

I like this retirement lark!

off to majorca, puerto de pollenca in june for two weeks - sun, sea, bbqs and plenty amazing family owned restaurants in thd old roman town sq - lovely - and possibly catamarangue boat trip around the coves and inlets for a few days, heaven!

i'd live there given half a chance, and finances!

a couple of weeks ago, with Mrs Cakes. It was rather relaxing at the time.

This summer off to Orlando, land of infinite fun.

Off to me bonkers bungalow in crackers Krabi (Southern Thailand) as per for my frankly offensive 8 weeks international school teachers Summer Hols. China in the middle there on a bucket flight for a week. Mates over frm Uk, , G and Ts and ipod playlists ahoy on the verandah at 4PM, bt pissing about in the pool and on the dirtbikes previous. Barbeque the odd fish.

For some pre holiday listening I'd heartily recommend two Chris Watson podcasts from the Touch Radio podcasts.

http://www.touchradio.org.uk/

TouchRadio 25 is The Sound Of Islay.

TouchRadio 5 is The Galapagos Islands.

Same as last year and the ten years before. The summer will be spent emptying bedpans and commodes,drying tears and patiently explaining that my Dad is not outside gardening but actually died over two years ago. A little painting will be sandwiched in here and there,the odd book will be read and a lot of music will be listened too. All within the confines of the Hovel.
I sincerely hope you all have a marvellous time wherever you are going,whatever you are doing,with whomever you are with. Happy trails my friends. Have a pint or two for me.

Two people live there. No shops, pubs or stuff to do. There was a heatwave, we saw puffins, seals, sea eagles and a lot of deer. Also a lot of ticks, but you cant have it all.

Later on we camp in South Penquite Farm, in Bodmin Moor in Cornwall. A splendid place.

Having had a few magical holidays on Colonsay, we are venturing to the outer Hebrides this time, to Lewis in fact. If you can get there in the brief window when the midges are looking the other way there is no more beautiful place on God's Earth than the Western Isles. And amazingly the sun does shine some of the time.

they named it twice. We're a small gang going to New York for our first time.

The perfect seaside town

for a week on the beach in the first week of August. Reading in a tent with people pissing just outside (not in an 'Allo 'Allo way) at the end of August.

A poor season in the Alps. Oh well.

Nose back on the grindstone to pay for the next excursion. We'll be doing the Mark Warner thing again come August. Middle-class Butlins. Corsica, I hope. Lovely scenery and I feel relaxed there. Lots of quality childcare so Jr gets as fine a holiday as mum and dad, high PLU quotient so lots of good conversation, decent wine, maybe a guitar to borrow. I'll be happy.

I´ll be right here with my shotgun Kraut Killer.

Oh, the record shops. Still alive and well over there.

So, what have I missed while I've been away. And don't say Royal wedding. There was probably more coverage there than there was here. They were mad for it.

Finally, my first full rock'n'roll tour of the US at the age of 46. Of course it was supposed to be as frontman for my own band that this happened, not as merch seller, box carrier, relief driver and general hinderance to m'verygoodfren' David Ford.

New York, Boston, Philly, Asbury Park NJ, DC, then an almighty dash across country to Dallas and Austin, with a quick stop off at Sun Studios in Memphis.

I am more excited than a very excited thing.

...in the best possible way. My adored little sister (yes, she's 32, but she'll always be my baby sister) is getting married at the end of July.

We normally rent a big house, somewhere in England, in the summer with friends, but all potential holiday dates clash with the wedding. It's even the same weekend as Camp Bestival, which is our normal Summer festival jaunt. So, I thought, never mind, we'll go to Latitude this year, and then what weekend does my sister book her hen weekend for...?!

Hey, I'm not complaining as I'm so looking forward to my sister's wedding, it's going to be utterly ace. And she's asked me to make the wedding cake. All 12 layers and 3 tiers of it, so I'm going to be busy busy the week before.

AND, my best buddy is coming down from Yorkshire to London for a week in July, so it will be wonderful to spend some time with her & her kids.

We could potentially go away in August - my mum lives in France for some of the year so we could go and see her - but I put the passports away somewhere "safe" last July and still can't find them. I'm sure they'll turn up though. Any day now. Aaaaaany day now.

Off to a posh refuge (well it better be posh for that dosh!) in Dorset soon for a week. I like UK holidays because these days, with Internet connections, reliable cars etc, you can just go, and sort yourself out when you get there.
Then at the end of the summer, when the children have gone back to school but when there's still some baseball on, we're off to the States for a shufty round a few civil war battlefield sites and the spot the Wright Brothers first flew as well as a couple of days in DC. Not got anything booked yet... the possibility of BA strike action is delaying our decision (it's BA or Virgin and we would rather go for BA cos Terminal 5 is a relatively relaxed calm way of starting a holiday).

Was moaning to my Mum about worries for jobs & recession earlier this year, but she was adamant that if we had savings, we should forget all that and just do something amazing that we would remember, so ...

... fly drive from Denver, to the Badlands/Blackhills (injuns!), across Wyoming/Montana via the Devils Tower (Mr Mandy's already playing with his mashed potato), Jellystone (before she destroys us all), Jackson, a bit of Utah (dinosaurs) and back to Denver through the Colorado Rockies - in a convertible.

Not until August, but already starting to choose the soundtrack and books.

Made a nest in a big old pine tree in my backyard. It`d be lovely to make a few fotos of the whole family and watching (standing still for hours, etc)the chicks is my idea of a very relaxing escapade. If the things works all right I'll put some snapshots here, as long as anyone is interested.

so to say

Holiday 1: Week in Skiathos. Will be there for my 40th.

Holiday 2: Annual trip to Rhodes. Love it.

Holiday 0.5: Working in Gibraltar for a week at the end of this month. Kind of a holiday as it's bound to be sunnier, and I'll be surrounded by monkeys and stuff, which sounds terribly exciting and scary at the same time, especially as I'll be in a suit most of the time. Suit + sunshine + monkeys. What a mixture.

Edited

oh, odd double post...

Honest Man is rather partial to the Eastern Bloc and soviet states both former and current, and I am happy to go anywhere new (there's nowhere I don't want to go in the world really) so we are thinking about Belarus, Lithuania and Kaliningrad.

Last time we went East, to Ukraine, I was wildly excited about sleeper trains, an ideal that lasted about 3 hours into the first night of being shaken awake every few minutes as the train passed over elderly points!

Still, I love a bit of adventure and if I can get a nap then it's fine...

Aside from that we will visit family on the Isle of Wight, and in Yorkshire and Bristol.

By now I should be into my first full week in Japan. This week would have been visiting Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto & Hiroshima and next week would have been Tokyo Disneyland. The intervention of a terrible natural disaster and radiation plant meltdown has meant the trip has been postponed. So instead It looks like 2 weeks In Orlando in September, meeting up with friends to celebrate the Florida Project that opened 40 years ago this coming October.

As I live in Denmark, I spend practically all my holidays in England, to be more specific: Liverpool. Used to live there a year ago, so love going back to see friends and get a dose of my second home :-)
Going for a few days at the end of May, and then a full 10 days in August for the International Beatleweek festival... love the mayhem and all the people AND of course the music :-)

Also going to a smaller festival here in Denmark in June, only lasts for two days, but it has got some killer acts like Elbow, Suede, Vaccines and local Tina Dickow!

for a week in June, starting with Jerry Seinfeld at the O2. Other than a couple of work trips, this'll be my first time in the capital since a family holiday when I was a teenager. Looking forward to it.

We had sort of planned to go back to Turkey, having enjoyed it last summer, but nothing was arranged as I was very likely to be made redundant in April. In the event, the redundancy hasn't happened (although I'm on a month's trial in a new role) and we really can't afford to go abroad. So we're thinking of a cottage in South Cornwall once the schools breakup in late July, but we may have left it a bit late as they all seem to be booked up....

I had 9 days in the States for 4 days off work; good eh? We visited Charlotte on Easter Sunday (pretty well shut), spent a night in Boone, 2 in our favourite mountain hangout Blowing Rock, and 4 nights camping at Merlfest www.merlfest.org which was fantastic

After 9 days of too much alcohol, US supersized food and not a great deal of sleep I am now seriously in need of a holiday. I'l be trying to keep a low profile at work for the rest of this week

Vince. We missed ya.

10 days in Mull and Ardnamurchan at the cost of just 3 days annual leave.

View from the campervan:

Excellent weather throughout. No midges.

but at the end of the month we are off to Auschwitz and the Wieliczka Salt Mine

As a British ex-pat domiciled since 2001 in a small village in western Norway, I only have to step out of my front door to "go somewhere nice", but my good lady and I are travelling 'oop north' to Trondheim in June where our younger son's band is through to the finals of the excellently-named (if you are English, I mean) Ungdoms Kulturmønstering - a national 'talent' contest that has NOTHING whatsoever to do with Idol or Norway's Got Talent or anything of that sort. Then, a 10-day tour of England to visit family and friends (and, I hope, take in one or two gigs en route). Early August my rockin' good lady and I are abandoning our offspring to get our middle-aged rocks off at the excellent Øya Festival in Oslo. Really looking forward to seeing the reformed Pulp, Explosions in the Sky, Fleet Foxes and (gasp!) Aphex Twin. It's worth living in Norway!!!

Cote D'Azur for us, staying in Nice. Hope to visit Monte Carlo. Hope to see how the glitterati live, you know. Relaxing and people watching. Enjoying the summer sun walking along the Promenade de Anglais. The Maserati Quattroporte is only a lottery win away...Anyone been there, what's it like? Can't wait.

I've been watching Gordon Ramsey's new series, so I'm looking forward to tucking in to deep fried spiders, washed down with a nice glass of Vodka & still beating snake heart. Yummy!

... which always sounds like a terrible thing to say about a place, if you say it in an English accent.

Fortified southern French villages basically, one of which houses my in-laws on a permanent basis and the extended family semi-regularly. This year we're all descending en masse for the in-laws' wedding anniversary, and occupying pretty much every private rental property in a 20 mile radius while we're at it. Should be gorgeous weather, with lots of good local wine and produce. I won't want to come home again!

A friend of mine married a bloke who owns a holiday cottage there. I hope they do postcards :

Yep. trains to and from Stockport armed with a list of the great pubs and odd museums. Sadly, the Salt Museum is closed but we will get to see the Anderton Boat Lift and there will be a day out in Buxton. I knew I'd never convince you...