Family travel: yoga in Cyprus
Pamela Goodman's busy schedule left no time for yoga, so a mother-and-child course in Cyprus sounded ideal.

I have been trying to jump on the yoga bandwagon for years, but it keeps leaving me behind. On holiday I have dabbled in the odd yoga class and at home I have signed up for regular lessons only to be defeated by the irregular hours of work and motherhood.

Secretly, I'm rather envious of all those people who have their own roll-up mats and co-ordinating outfits, and who can get their heels flat on the floor in a downward facing dog. So the idea of a half-term break on a mother-and-child yoga retreat in Cyprus last winter seemed too good an opportunity to miss.

The children weren't quite so sure that "opportunity" was the right word, fearing that this was to be another holiday experiment with them as guinea pigs. The youngest, a girl aged eight, had wished more than anything to go on the school ski trip; the eldest, a boy of 13, had fancied a week of sleep and lots of food; only the middle one, a girl of 10 who models herself on that queen of sun salutations, Gwyneth Paltrow, thought that yoga was the coolest way to spend half-term.

Yoga retreats are a new departure for the Anassa Hotel. Unlike most Mediterranean hotels which close their doors between October and April, the Anassa battles it out during the winter months, quietly ticking over with a handful of guests who are wise to the pleasures of the southern Mediterranean off-season.