Autumn with Haven Holidays

Today's post is a guest post, written in collaboration with Haven Holidays.  I am a huge fan of Haven, we have been twice this year and we have already booked for next year. I love the South West, there is so much to down there, any time of the year. So I will leave you to read the guest post, about exciting things to do in one of my favourite places, Cornwall

Celebrating the harvest festival

Cornwall has long been one of our favourite places to go on a family holiday or short break, but autumn is one time of year that we’ve never come to visit this lovely English county. Most people think that the holiday season is over by the time autumn comes around but they couldn’t be wrong. We headed to Cornwall last October and found plenty to do – particularly due to the abundance of seasonal events taking place. That’s why we’re eager to enjoy an October holiday this year and experience the traditional and well-loved harvest festival.

For those who don’t know much about the harvest festival, it’s an annual celebration that takes place around the time of the harvest. Harvest festivals take place all around the world (think America and Canada’s Thanksgiving celebrations) and has been celebrated in Britain since Pagan times. It’s often celebrated in schools and churches and people often make food parcels to give to people in need.

But having a quick Google of what’s going on in Cornwall for the harvest festival, I found there’s much more than just that. In Cornwall they have whole events dedicated to this annual celebration, which sound great for basing a short holiday around. What’s more, Haven’s campsites in Cornwall are open until November so we know we’ll be able to have a great place to stay for when we’ve finished exploring the Harvest festival celebrations.

Indulge at the Harvest Food Festival

Food is at the centre of the harvest festival and one of the events in Cornwall I’m looking forward to most is the Harvest Food Festival at the Eden Project. Running for a whole five weeks from Saturday 7^th September until Sunday 13^th October 2013, this food festival promises to be one of the highlights of the Cornish calendar and I’m certainly not going to miss it.

The whole event is taking place at Cornwall’s famous Eden Project and according to the festival website, each of the five weeks has its own theme.

This makes it easy for you to plan your holiday around the events that interest you most, which is exactly what we’re going to do. We’re avid watchers of Masterchef and The Great British Bake Off so we’re gutted we’ve already missed the celebrity chefs week. And while our taste buds aren’t quite ready to handle the spiciness of chilli week, we are eager to try something new.

That’s why we’re planning our trip to Cornwall to coincide with the Baobab Festival at the beginning of October – a celebration of this African super fruit that contains six times more vitamin C than oranges. This sweet, tasty fruit is grown in the Eden Project’s biome and I know my kids will love all the interesting facts about them. Did you know that some people believe that picking a flower off a baobab tree will get you eaten by a lion, but drinking the water that baobab seeds have been soaked in will supposedly protect you from crocodile attacks? I’m not sure how many crocodiles we’ll meet in Cornwall but you can never be too careful!

Baobab fruit

Source: http://www.edenproject.com/visit-us/whats-here/plant-a-z/baobab?gclid=CPiRydXF1LkCFQMd3godWBgAgg

The Eden Project’s harvest festival celebrations also include events and activities that run for the whole five weeks so we know that there’s certain things we won’t miss out on whenever we go. Every day from 12pm until 2pm there’s a storytelling session where you can listen to harvest tales from the Mediterranean. And if your kids are anything like ours, they’ll love getting stuck in and being creative. That’s why we’re planning to take them to a session that teaches you how to make corn dollies – dolls made of corn that were traditionally made to ensure that the harvest would be bountiful. These demos also run for the whole five weeks so don’t worry about missing out on them either.

My advice is to look up the events before you go – like us you’ll probably have specific tastes, particularly when it comes to food, so plan ahead and find the right celebrations for you!

x Ojo x