Latest news with #KerryHudson
The Herald Scotland
10 hours ago
- The Herald Scotland
Want to follow the hottest new trend? Book yourself a coolcation
Of course, unlike my Swiss-raised husband, I grew up in Scotland. I know the shadow side of these rare sunny days. No, you will not get a lovely suntan, but turn the same livid pink as a 1980s prawn penny sweet after an hour in the sun. Yes, it's all fun and games while you're enjoying your third spritzer in your new summer dress patterned with some sort of citrus fruit. But after a day and a half, we all know it is the social if not legal contract of all Scots to retreat home, complain about how hot it is, how Scotland has no air conditioning and blame climate warming. I am, true to my Scottish genes, a mess in the heat. During a trip to Florence last year in August, I reacted so strongly to the sun that my face blew up like I'd done five rounds with Ken Buchanan, despite my broad "I'm a perimenopausal Scottish woman" straw hat and slathering on enough sunscreen to resemble a mime artist. Read more by Kerry Hudson And it seems I'm not alone in finding cooler climes, where your holiday photos won't make you look like a sweaty slab of cheese left on a windowsill, alluring. In fact, many travellers in Europe are eschewing crowded beach resorts for a "coolcation" to more clement Northern countries. While the coolcation became particularly popular last year it shows no signs of slowing down with Scandinavian Airlines data showing Stavanger, Norway, has seen a 38% increase in arrivals from Spain, Italy, and France in 2025. We also chose to visit Norway after seeing it billed as the "ultimate coolcation destination". I had never been to Norway before for the simple reason I always imagined it to be perilously expensive. But with the Norwegian krone at a historic low against the pound now is actually the most affordable time in a long time to go. With some budgeting, I don't think it cost us any more than visiting, say, Paris, Rome or Barcelona. This, I convinced my husband, was our best chance to see spectacular landscapes and enjoy what the Norwegians term "friluftsliv" – literally "open-air life". Because anyone who's travelled with a four-year-old boy knows they have more energy than a Duracell Bunny after 15 Red Bulls and you want that wee boy outside, running, jumping and swimming his way to an early night so you can have a glass of wine and peace to read your book. While it was very tempting to experience the midnight sun in the North we chose the ease of city-hopping along the West Coast starting in Bergen before travelling on to Stavanger and Oslo. Bergen is a beautiful mountain town with picture-perfect white, wooden houses. We were lucky enough to be there for Norwegian Constitution Day when everyone dresses in "bunad", old folk costumes, and I do mean everyone – I saw a punk wearing one with no irony whatsoever. This is also the last day of the legendary partying month for Norwegian teens and let me tell you, the drunken scenes outside a 3pm McDonald's rivalled anything I've seen in a British seaside town at 2am. However, Bergen is also home to one of the most beautiful mountaintop parks we've ever been to, with hidden wooden trolls for my little boy to hunt, a crystal clear lake to swim in and their own herd of adorable, friendly mountain goats. In Oslo, which the Wall Street Journal called the "newest capital of Nordic cool" and one of the most walkable cities in the world, we visited the achingly hip Munch Museum, marvelled over the stark modernism of the harbour and visited the absolutely unmissable Deichmann Bjørvika, Oslo's Central Library, where our boy played happily (and quietly!) for two full hours. We also ate some excellent pizza at Chicago and Brew, and went for a family swim with views of the city from the 37th floor of the Radisson Blu Plaza. But it was in Stavanger where we truly fell in love with Norway. Stavanger bills itself as "The edge of Norway". And during our few days there, we took a trip through the fjords, just one of over a thousand in Norway by the way, to see waterfalls, more mountain goats and Pulpit Rock, where Tom Cruise faces off with his nemesis Henry Cavill in Mission Impossible: Fallout. A view of Oslo, the newest capital of Nordic cool (Image: PA) But as an Aberdonian quine, it wasn't the majestic Norwegian fjords that held my attention, it was the city's legacy that I understood so well. It's former fishing port blessed with an oil boom in the 1970s and 80s that changed the small city in so many ways, and now with oil wealth on their side they are wondering what they will do next and how to invest in green renewable energy for future generations. I loved visiting, confounding all my expectations, both the Norwegian Canning Museum and the Norwegian Petroleum Museum, both modern, interactive and suitable for every age. As I walked the famous Fargegaten street, a long row of wooden houses painted in a carnival of colours, I felt a strange kinship with this town, hard to explain, unless you have also come from a city where the fishing industry has been completely surpassed by the boom of oil. For us, our Norway trip was a "coolcation" in every sense of the word and we have fully caught the addictive spirit of friluftsliv'. As the world heats up, I predict we, and many others, will keep seeking out coolcations. Kerry Hudson is an award-winning, bestselling novelist and memoirist. You can find her on Instagram and on Threads @ThatKerryHudson
The Herald Scotland
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Want to get kids away from screens? Put them inside one
It's true though, that now I'm a parent, I've developed a whole new appreciation for playgrounds. I like to think of them as the sibling of libraries – truly egalitarian spaces, where everyone in the community can go for free, stay as long as they want and are expected to give nothing in return. When we consider how much social isolation is part of our new modern lives and as we struggle with trying to get children away from screens, as housing in many cities becomes ever more cramped, they become vitally important. We have a running joke in our family, which is that we might not be able to tell you where the best restaurants are in any given city, but we could pinpoint every excellent park in Tokyo, Paris or, in this case, Helsinki. Read more from Kerry Hudson: In fact, I've traveled specially from Sweden by ferry to a specific Helsinki playground because it's the first computer themed one in the world. It combines STEM education with creative, imagination-based play. There is a huge 'computer-processor' climbing frame, a racing track painted to resemble code and a stage shaped like a phone screen. The concept is inspired – get our kids away from staring at a computer screen by letting them run around inside one. On the sunny May day I visited Playground Ruoholahti, inaugurated on the 1st October 2024, they were trialling having a permanent, and hugely enthusiastic, educator, Miriam, onsite. Her job is to help facilitate and engage the many school groups who come daily. Besides this, she explains, they have their own communal building where they can hold activities, and each summer, rain or shine, they serve a free daily communal lunch to every child. Playground Ruoholahti is the passion project of Finnish children's book author and illustrator, Linda Liukas, known for her books on coding for children and her international efforts with Rails Girls, an NGO designed to get girls, 'Started in Tech' with, 'sketching, prototyping, basic programming and introductions into the world of technology.' I asked Linda, who is also currently in talks about outdoor play with Education Scotland regarding their Curriculum Improvement Cycle, what her ultimate goal with the design was: 'To show that computers are not just screens. They are made of ideas we can move through and explore with our bodies. I wanted children to feel curiosity and confidence around technology.' Of course there are challenges with any pioneering project she tells me, she was careful 'to keep the wonder. It was hard to balance learning with play. We didn't want to explain too much. We wanted children to discover things on their own or with their school or kindergarten group'. Playground Ruoholaht combines STEM education with creative, imagination-based play (Image: Sakari Röyskö) What she is sure of is that playgrounds are absolutely essential to communities, 'because they are where thinking begins. Children imagine, investigate, solve conflicts, meet others, and learn how the world works. A playground is a small society and already embodies many of the values we'd like to see in schools'. Perhaps what is most notable about this incredible playground is how it keeps on evolving. They now have curriculum guides in both Finnish and English to enable teachers to take children there and follow a range of games or activities based on several different learning styles. It is truly a resource for the whole community, with all ages covered. I asked Linda what other countries, and specifically Scotland, might be able to take from the model of her Helsinki park. She was already impressed with our educators' engagement with outdoor play: 'Scotland's curriculum already supports outdoor learning as a means to enhance engagement and understanding. Use what is already there: local stories, weather, landscapes. You don't need good weather to build good play, we in Finland know it! Look closely at how children already play, whether in the digital or physical world. And let children help with the design. 'This is not specific to Finland. My family have visited other parks taking that extra step to bring value and education to their young patrons and our travels recently – in Stavanger, an oil town in Norway, familiar to me as an Aberdonian Quine, there is a playground entirely constructed from leftover sea and oil equipment outside the petroleum museum. Even in our hometown Malmö, we have a sprawling playground of makeshift frames, swings, ships, and dens made from scrap wood, metal and tires with tools and materials on site so that children can, as they wish, constantly add and adapt the space for themselves.' Read more from Kerry Hudson: Playgrounds can be the heart of a community. They not only bring children together, provide adults with the respite and something to do to fill the hours on the weekend or after school, but they provide points of connections in neighborhoods where people might not otherwise cross paths. Playgrounds are about exercise and education yes, but also feeling a sense of appreciation and ownership of your patch. And of course, they are about socialisation, which feels ever more important in a world where we are all stuck behind our screens barely looking up to meet the eye of the person in front of you. While some people might spend their time traveling, discovering the latest Michelin star restaurant or seeking out local artisanal boutiques, I think there is as much art, humanity and narrative in a beautiful, thoughtfully designed playground. Playgrounds offer one of the greatest opportunities to gain insight into local life and isn't that what we travel for? Kerry Hudson is an award-winning, bestselling novelist and memoirist. You can find her on Instagram and on Threads @ThatKerryHudson
The Herald Scotland
13-05-2025
- The Herald Scotland
We're clearly not a fancy hotel family. How do other people manage it?
I. Am. Exhausted. AH, the dulcet tones of our night in a fancy hotel in Stockholm. A delight for us and, I imagine, those sharing neighbouring the hotel rooms. Our wee boy is four now and thanks partially to my job and us country-hopping to try and find secure housing, he's extremely well travelled. Four is a "good age" – he's fun, engaged and chatty. At this age, you can reason, bargain, share your favourite 90s pop and get them excited for the trip in advance. However, you cannot change the fact they are, in fact, four. My boy is sweet, he's polite when reminded, but he is still also a stinky, sticky fingered agent of chaos who lives in the very tactile, sensory moment of touching, and occasionally licking, whatever takes his interest. I will also personally take full blame for his joyful bellowing of Britney Spears and constantly asking when the next snack is coming. Before I had a kid I believed, as many parents do, that we were simply adding something to our old lifestyle; "Nothing has to change, they can adapt to our way of life". In the language of post-parenthood this translates literally to "Hubris, denial, hahaha." Read more by Kerry Hudson Still, I have always felt that parents deserve nice things too. Surely we aren't expected to just never eat in a good restaurant again? Or, in this case, stay in a fancy hotel? Especially those of us with no grandparents babysitting or parent pals nearby. Do we wait 18 years for a night in crisp, white hotel sheets? As for other guests, my thinking was always do as would be done unto you. Pre-children, in stylish spaces where I've sat reading and having a martini, I often smiled benevolently at kids throwing wild tantrums and handfuls of spaghetti, offering a kind word to the harassed-looking parent so they would know I didn't mind, "Weren't we all children once? These are, theoretically, all good and sound principles. But, theoretically, my kid has got through 98% of breakfasts without smashing something and 78% of bedtimes without throwing tantrums of Linda Blair-Exorcist levels of malcontent. But theory and reality are not the same thing. For this, I owe the good people of the Stockholm Stadshotell an apology. Picture the scene: a well-rested, casually but impeccably dressed family stroll through the hip, creative Stockholm, Södermalm island district. They arrive at Stockholm's newest and most stylish design hotel carefully renovated from a building that was built between 1873 and 1875. The emphasis is on arts and crafts and every single element from the teaspoons to the mini-shaving shaving balm are painstakingly chosen. The heritage baths have been shipped in from the UK. The bed linen is "hand-constructed by artisans in European ateliers" and renowned Swedish filmmaker Kritian Petri made a short film about the ambience of the hotel. This family checks in, enjoys a cocktail in the sumptuous clock lounge area, sleeps a solid eight hours and then descends in the wood-paneled elevator for a breakfast of freshly baked pastries on crisp linen tablecloths. This family is not us and never will be. Now, picture our family. Loud by nature and dishevelled, my wee boy wearing tiger leggings and Care Bear charm-adorned Crocs. We've caught the train from Malmö and look and feel like crumpled paper bags in need of a wee and a snack. We drag our much-travelled neon yellow suitcase through a courtyard of impossibly chic Swedes, drinking aperol Spritz while the sunshine accentuates their gift of good bone structure and very, very expensive highlights. We step into the absolutely beautiful calm and hush of the hotel reception and so, our 24 hours of trying to get our kid not be a kid and well, our family not to be our family, started. Our son, God love his curiosity, wanted to touch everything at this hotel. And it is clear that everything is luxury. A quick Google reveals the orange Bluetooth speaker my son wishes to swing around like a handbag is worth a princely sum of almost €600. Suddenly our perfect room is not somewhere to while away an afternoon appreciating each carefully-curated detail but a place we must keep our kid from destroying at all costs. We go out for ice-cream, we get a Max Burger –Sweden's McDonald's – for dinner. There is no cocktail reclining in velvet armchairs, instead we drink cans of beer sitting at the top of a skatepark ramp while our son makes friends with a little girl dressed as a "Mermaid diva". We do sleep beautifully and in the morning, we do have our linen tablecloth breakfast designed by chef Olle T Cellton, including freshly-made cheese scones, cream cheese and marmalade that made me almost weep with happiness. But to do this we gave our son his tablet and promised him a great many sweeties on our ferry ride later that day. Towards the end of our breakfast a family walked in, a variation of shades of neutrals, quiet children who took their seats, placed napkins on their laps and delicately sipped apple juice while surveying the menu. Clearly, a family who hadn't spent their night acting like they were trying to stop a small bomb from detonating and arrived at breakfast looking like a cast from The Hangover. We conclude as we pour our third cup of coffee that we are simply not a fancy hotel family in spite of all the care and attention given by the hotel to my son and his needs. The classy bar area of the Stockholm Stadshotell (Image: Kerry Hudson) It seems every family is as unique as the teaspoons at Stockholm Stadshotell. According to Euromonitor's Voice of the Consumer: Travel Survey, 56% of luxury travellers do so with their children so it is possible. Perhaps it is simply a matter of practice, or not feeling guilty for the sticky thumbprint on the startlingly white duvet. But I love my son, and our family, just as it is in all its dishevelled, unpredictable chaos. I wouldn't change that for a thing. Parents do deserve nice things though, and that's why I'll be returning to Stockholm Stadshotell again when I'll drink cocktails, listen to Britney Spears on €600 speakers and weep over freshly made cheese scones at breakfast… blissfully alone. Kerry Hudson is an award-winning bestselling novelist and memoirist. You can find her on Instagram and on Threads @ThatKerryHudson
