How to improve holidays with children
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Your support makes all the difference.Iwas never very sporty at school. I once got a detention for filing my nails during a particularly boring netball match. The fact that I am blessed with two mini sports fanatics has been tricky for me. Their dream holiday is to go somewhere they can develop their soccer skills, but they're not fussy - rugby, or basketball, or surfing will do.
So it's a good job there are plenty of places out there that can accommodate their addiction. Take Foxhills (01932 704500; foxhills.co.uk), a luxury family hotel in Surrey which has a scarily extensive agenda of sports lessons and "clinics" for both adults and children. Golf is a speciality.
The Macdonald Cardrona Hotel, Golf and Country Club in Peebles (0870 194 2114; macdonald hotels.co.uk) on the banks of the River Tweed, also offers kids' golf lessons with a resident PGA professional.
Talking of Scotland, if swinging a golf club leaves your little ones cold, how about getting them wet instead, and sending them to a surfing school? Coast to Coast (07971 990361; c2csurfschool.com) offers a surfing programme especially for under-16s, in Dunbar - apparently home to one of the best beginners' beaches in the UK. The kids' programme covers water safety, equipment and surf technique and is open to all levels. The company says it aims to produce surfers who will go on to compete at a Scottish and British standard in years to come. Courses run over most school holidays, and C2C will organise everything from accommodation to evening babysitting.
But if it's true luxury you're after, you need to visit Sandy Lane in Barbados (00 1 246 444 2000; sandylane.com), which offers kids of all ages the chance to learn new sports. There are tennis and golf lessons, as well as scuba-diving courses for children. With eight hard tennis courts, including a show court and three championship golf courses, it sounds as if they'll be junior superstars in no time.
Katy Holland ( k.holland@independent.co.uk) is acting editor of 'Pregnancy and birth' magazine
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