TRAVEL

Home & Away with Robert WalsheLiving

Pride of Britain Hotels, the consortium of 44 privately-owned independent British hotels, had three reasons to celebrate at the recent 2012 AA Hospitality Awards. Two Pride of Britain Hotels members were awarded the ultimate achievement for UK hotels - AA Hotel of the Year. The Torridon, an impres-sive Victorian former hunt-ing lodge set in 60 acres in the Scottish Highlands, won the prestigious AA Hotel of the Year - Scotland. And AA Hotel of the Year - Wales was awarded to member Bodysgallen Hall and Spa, a magnificent country house hotel in North Wales with views of Conwy Castle and Snowdonia. in addition, the culinary excellence of South Lodge in West Sussex was recognised; its restaurant, The Pass, was awarded 4 AA rosettes for its innovative cuisine. Located in the heart of the hotel’s kitchen, diners at The Pass are able to wit-ness the captivating mix of creativity and theatre per-formed by the restaurant’s talented head chef Matt Gil-lan and his team. Celebrat-ing its 30th anniversary this year, the Pride of Britain col-lection of independent hotels spans the UK and is proud to be the official hotel partner to The National Trust. www.prideofbritainhotels.com

Holiday Hotspot –www.thehousebarbados.com

The House, one of Bar-bados’ premier west coast hotels unveiled its new look following an extensive five month refurbishment. The boutique, adult-only, 34 suites hotel will showcase contemporary interior de-signs as well as fabulous new room décor, complete with local handcrafted Bajan art-work. The relaxed residential feel of The House, already a key draw in the hotel’s pub-lic areas, will be extended

to each of the bedrooms with an emphasis on the bespoke wooden furniture, including new seating areas and French doors opening on to breathtaking ocean views from spacious balco-nies. All bathrooms will be refreshed with new granite surfaces, makeup mirrors, indulgent rain showers and state of the art shower jets. Soft lighting throughout the property will enhance the cosy ambience and tranquil-ity of the property, offer-ing guests an intimate and private haven whilst on the stunning island of Barbados. The fantastic new one-bed-room suites are 64 m2 and offer another level of luxury for guests who really want to spread their wings when on holiday. The House has commissioned local Bajan artist, reggie Medford to cre-ate unique sculptures hand-crafted from mahogany wood which will be showcased throughout each of the guest suites and will also be avail-able for guests to purchase. reggie has earned critical acclaim throughout the Car-ibbean, USA and europe for his masterpieces and his artwork fits perfectly within the chic home from home environment of The House. The House is in a privileged location on the West Coast of Barbados and is adjacent to daphne’s, sister restau-rant to its world renowned London coun-

terpart, a mecca for food-ies from around the world. Guests at The House can opt to dine on fine Italian cuisine at daphne’s or enjoy options from the menu in the comfort of the hotel. Being an island, Barbados is understandably a mecca for watersports lov-ers and The House has a wa-tersports centre with a host of complimentary activities for guests including snor-keling, sailing, boogie boards, kayaking, windsurfing, stand up paddling, banana boat-ing and water-skiing, located at adjacent sister property, Tamarind. Guests at The House can look forward to the very best body and soul treatments. Upon arrival, every guest at The House can immediately relax with a complimentary jet lag revival massage in

a beach cabana or in the comfort of their room before enjoying complimentary canapés and a reviving afternoon tea. Service is a key component of the ‘home from home’ en-vironment that The House of-fers and is best exemplified by its dedicated The House Ambassador programme. Upon arrival, The House Ambassadors are constantly on hand to look after guests’ every wish and desire. From the initial in-room check-in, the ambassadors become a guest’s personal assistant, bellman, concierge, waiter and friend all in one. The in-timacy of The House means that the ambassadors know what guests want before they do; from providing poolside ice lollies and chilled water

to sun worshippers, to booking personal shopping services at Limegrove Life-style Centre, a round of golf at Ape’s Hill or treatments at the Tamarind Spa, they make it their mission to ensure guests don’t have to lift a fin-ger, unless they want to. iTC Classics has 7 nights from £2,349 per person based on 2 adults sharing a Garden View Junior Suite including daily breakfast, return economy class flights with British Air-ways from London Gatwick and private transfers. Book by 18 december for depar-tures through 2013 www.itcclassics.co.uk elegant Hotels Group owns and oper-ates five of the finest hotels and resorts on the Caribbean

island of Barbados. Together, they offer styles to suit every taste, from clas-sic to contemporary, family-friendly to adults-only and traditional to all-inclusive. elegant Hotels include The House, Colony Club Hotel and Tamarind, as well as the all-inclusive Crystal Cove Hotel and Turtle Beach re-sort. www.thehousebarba-dos.com

Robert Walshe is Travel Editor for River Media newspaper titles across the island of Ireland & a travel broadcaster with the Q Radio Network in Northern Ireland www.robertwalshe.com

Pet’s Corner... with Kathleen Murray

Weekly Best BuyChristmas is the most magical time of

the year and this december you can turn your celebrations into something straight out of a Christmas card with Highlife Ski & Snowboard. Whichever one of Highlife’s world-class resorts you choose for your stay, Morzine, Meribel and Val d’isere all offer a fantastic range of festive entertain-ment for the family throughout Christmas week including holiday parades, ice-skating with Santa, family firework displays and horse-drawn sleigh rides! One of the most delightful things about a Highlife Christmas holiday means that there will be no such

thing as sweating over a hot stove. Your chef will prepare a delicious five course meal with ham, turkey and all the trim-mings for you and your family on Christmas day while you relax and exchange gifts or chill out in the hot tub or sauna. This year, Highlife is offering a range of travel options before and after the big day. regardless of when you decide to travel, you can look for-ward to a great week and excellent value for money with breaks starting from €430 per adult and €358 per child under 12 for four nights but dates are already selling fast so check out www.highlife.ie

n The House Barbados.

n The House one bedroom suite Barbados.

n Christmas Ski fun from Highlife.

Wildlife - feeding in wintereVerYONe is familiar with feeding the birds over the winter. Bird ta-bles are stocked with seeds etc so that when the cold weather, or snow, comes and food is hard to find, the lit-tle birds still have something to keep them going.

People should keep a watch out for unusual birds. Sometimes a pet bird escapes from the house and would surely come to a very cold sad end in this weather. Time is a major factor if a house bird (parrot, budgie, bara-band etc) escapes.

They cannot take the cold at all so need to be found very quickly. Keep a close eye on your bird at all times. doors and windows should always be closed when your bird is out of the cage. What else should you watch out

for in the cold weather? You could watch out for hibernating animals.

Hedgehogs are often in danger be-cause people don’t know that there is one in their garden and may light a fire without noticing the sleeping hedge-hog under leaves or bits of wood. One thing that brings great joy to people at this time of year is the arrival of the swans and the wild geese.

They are beautiful to look at. They arrive in October and leave again in April so enjoy them while they are with us. Watch out for their welfare as swans mate for life and when one re-turns alone it is a very sad and lonely sight. They can get caught in wire or netting, or may walk on broken glass by accident, as they cross a road etc.

if you are an animal lover then you

could leave a little box or crate of some kind in a quiet corner of the gar-den in case an animal wants to rest up for a little bit, out of the wind and rain. Animals often get lost or have accidents on the road and run away in shock.

They are often disorientated and lost. Sometimes they just need some-where to put their head down for a sleep until they are well enough to move on again. if you wake up to a pile of cats from the neighbour that didn’t bother to neuter, then that’s a whole different story. Lift the box and all that’s in it and set it down in the neighbours garden again. Get yourself a new box and continue with your good work. The animals will ap-preciate it.