Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Learn new craft skills
Learn to dance, cook, knit and write while resting in Latin America, Turkey, Iceland or Tuscany
HOW DO you make a sugar rose? With great difficulty if, like me, you’re all fingers and thumbs. Still, I give it a go, layering curls of pink icing paste around a central bud until I have something that resembles the beautiful bloom.
My tutor in this delicate art is Leah Stevenson, who is teaching me how to decorate the plump little cupcakes I’ve just made in her kitchen at Harrop Fold Farm , near Macclesfield in Cheshire, UK.
At Leah’s Pantry (leahspantry. co.uk), set in an outbuilding off the farmyard, this Cordon Bleu-trained cook teaches the culinary challenged, like me, how to make perfect cupcakes, cakepops and canapés – 11am to 3pm at £65 (R885) – and gives lunch and dinner cookery demonstrations (11am to 3pm and 7.30pm to 11pm; £60), where eager students not only pick up a few tips to thrill their friends, but get to eat the results, too.
Leah’s workshops are only halfday affairs, yet they can turn a few days in the Cheshire countryside into a creative short break.
For this farm, set on the edge of the Peak District National Park, steps from the Gritstone Trail, also features an award- winning B& B (doubles from £95 a night) and a selfcatering barn (weekend breaks from £450), both run by Leah’s mother, Sue.
You can brush up your painting techniques here too, with resident artist Michael Moore (£85 a day).
Creative breaks are growing more popular. From self-catering cottages to hotels and tour companies, there’s no shortage of outlets for learning or enhancing a skill while on holiday.
How much time you want to devote to developing your proficiency in cookery, photography, belly dancing or any chosen subject is up to you.
You might just fancy an “experience”, where you can dip into a subject for a few hours, such as Leah’s workshops.
Or maybe you’re hardcore, seeking tuition for several hours each day, as with the short courses in everything from mosaic-making to blacksmithing at West Dean College (www.westdean.org.uk), where you can also enjoy the setting, a 19th-century mansion on the South Downs near Chichester.
It seems taking a holiday that keeps you busy is the new “relaxing escape”. Vanessa Lanssen is chief executive of GoLearnTo.com, which has more than 1 000 learning holidays in 37 countries, from making paints in Spain to mastering butchery in France.
She says this type of break was forecast to be the number one n i c h e - ma r k e t growth area when she launched her company in 2007.
“And despite the recession, we’ve seen a doubling in demand each year.”
Lanssen was inspired to set up GoLearnTo by her own experience. “It was about switching off, getting my brain out of work mode and into something else. I needed to do something. There’s a feeling of ‘I can’t fail, I’m on holiday, nobody knows me, I’m just going to enjoy it’.”
I can’t fail, I’m on holiday, nobody knows me, I’m just going to enjoy it
She designs her courses so that there’s a balance of activity and relaxation.
“We build in downtime. There has to be that restful holiday feeling. There’s time for you to do what you want, time off from the group,” she says. After all, you are supposed to be on a break.
Cook up a treat
On the Turkish Mediterranean coast, Kalkan Magic (kalkanmagic.
com) has teamed up with Guru Restaurant ( kalkanguru. com) to offer a taste of the country’s cooking. Choose from two-hour, 75 lira (R324), one-day (150 lira) and threeday (500 lira) courses, and private half-day family lessons (450 lira for up to six), and rustle up sigara borek and imam bayildi.
A week’s self-catering in a twobedroom flat costs £395 for a family of four. Flights are extra.
There’s an 11-night Jamaican and Caribbean cookery course for £2 095 a person, based on two sharing, via Motmot Travel (motmottravel.com). Learn how to make traditional curried chicken and dumplings. The price includes British Airways flights from Gatwick to Kingston, transfers and transport, plus full board.
What a picture
See the Saxon villages of Transylvania on a five-day photography trip with Authentic Adventures (authenticadventures.co.uk).
Eighteenth-century architecture, meadow landscapes, shepherds and haymakers at work are subjects you’re shown how to frame by a professional, on visits to Sighisoara, Biertan, Richis and Copsa Mica. From £1 749, with BA flights from London to Bucharest on May 12, transfers, full board and tuition.
A glass-painting course inspired by the Pembrokeshire landscapes