Icarus Falconry (Holdenby Hall)

My sister and I have just spent a wet and windy half day in the company of Mike, Ray and their birds and had an absolutely brilliant time!! Mike gave us an initial brief on the birds and the centre and even offered us the option to defer our event as the weather was so bad but we chose to carry on as planned and despite getting soaked, as of course the birds did, could not fault the experience. Ray then took over and introduced us to Tom, the burrowing owl, who is a real hoot (sorry!!) in his aviary who happily flew to our hand giving us the initial confidence to handle the birds. From the little fella we went in with, flew to glove and fed Bob the ...  Read the complete review

For many years I had one thing that sat at the top of my 'really really want to do' list with clear water between itself and everything else. That thing was a balloon ride. Previously I'd had bungee jumping, diving and helicopters at the top of the list but had one by one knocked all of those off. I dropped subtle hints about the balloons and when they failed, not such subtle ones. Eventually I got my balloon ride over the valleys of Cappadocia in Turkey and was left with a great big gap in my life – there was nothing else that I still really wanted to do. To be honest, I was a bit lost and I needed something else to yearn for. What's the point of thinking 'if only I ...  Read the complete review