Pure theatre for kids in Cyprus

When my children ask if there are going to be others of their age on holiday, it is said in the same tone in which normal children might ask if there are going to be blood-sucking vampires under the bed.

So it was as lambs to the slaughter that Maudie, 12, and Tabby, eight, approached the children's club at the Hawaii Grand in Amathus, Cyprus.

Things did not get off to a good start. Nadia and Katerina, who run the club, are Russian - so were the other 10 children attending "bracelet making". And assuming that Maudie and Tabby were also Russian they launched straight into instructions in their native tongue. Tabby launched simultaneously into floods of tears.

But when I returned an hour later, the friendship bracelets had lived up to their name. Maudie and Tabby were surrounded by Russian girls chattering in shamefully good English. Could they go down to the sea with their new friend Anya? Could they go to the pool bar for an ice-cream? Could I just, like, get lost?

The children's club is aimed at ages three to 12, but many of the activities may seem a little tame for the more sophisticated London child. "Be a chef", for example, involved rolling and cutting out some ready-made biscuit dough: eating them afterwards was rewarding.

There was a heavy emphasis on art activities of the cut-and-paste variety, which were better suited to the under-sixes - but anything which involved consumption, like "make your own cocktail" (an excuse to get behind the pool bar and create havoc with the Slush Puppy and fruit juices) was a hit. With four different activities each day, it is best viewed as something to dip in and out of - and a useful retreat from the blistering heat - rather than a full-time childcare facility.

What the children's club lacked in sophistication was made up for by everything else the hotel had to offer spoilt junior Londoners. Why would they want to watch cartoons at the club when there were real-life caricatures to watch by the pool - the Russian women with Barbie doll hair and racehorse legs were a revelation to my two. "Mum, why are those beautiful ladies with those wrinkly old men?"

For hotel novices, Maudie and Tabby were getting the hang of five-star living alarmingly quickly, demanding personalised cocktails from the delightfully laconic Christoforou at the pool bar and rushing the alfresco buffet breakfast to lay claim to the best loungers under the palm trees.

It was when they started criticising the exact angle at which the maid was leaving the carnation on our turned-down sheets that I thought it was time we got in touch with real life again. We took a rickety old bus from nearby Limassol to see the ancient ruins of a second-century theatre and fifth-century villa at Kourion, just under an hour away. Unfortunately, I had timed it so that we got there at midday, with no bus back for three hours.

Tabby was wearing her "old monuments" look - the one which can strip paint at 50 metres. "Grown-ups just pretend to like old things," she snarled, "but really they're bored, too." It was time for a Hideous Kinky moment - we hitched a lift down to the beach. "Oh God, Mum, this is so embarrassing." Not half as embarrassing, though, as having to go into the sea in our underwear because I had left our swimming things at the hotel. But it was worth it: Kourion beach is miraculously undeveloped, with just a couple of restaurants serving cheap food.

On Thursday we booked a "Jeep safari" to the Troodos mountains. "You go with Peter - he crazy guy," laughed the driver who picked us up from the hotel at 8am. My bogus Hideous Kinky persona was replaced instantly by the resident Paranoid Protective Parent as 10 of us crammed into a beaten-up old

Land Rover with no seat belts which was driven by a madman.

In fact Peter, an Australian Cypriot, was crazy in the nicest possible way: he teased, cajoled and flattered the girls - stopping to pick flowers or fill his hat with plums for them - and fed me delicious titbits of gossip about the Russians. He shared his island with genuine pleasure, like all the Cypriots we met - the waiters who took it as a personal failing if we left food on our plates and deducted it from the bill, and the hotel staff who were mystified by my amazement that a purse lost on our first day at the hotel should be handed in intact.

By now accustomed to scaling down expectations, Tabby didn't sulk when it became clear that this safari was to see a waterfall, an old stone bridge and Kykkos monastery. She simply accepted that lions and giraffes were thin on the ground that day.

Way to go

Dinah Hall and family flew to Larnaca with JMC (0870 555 0440, www.jmc.com). Returns from Gatwick from £345pp (children £315) during June half-term. A seven-night package at the Hawaii Grand Hotel and Resort in Limassol with Olympic Holidays (0870 429 2020/ www.olympicholidays. co.uk) costs from £659pp B&B (£285 per child sharing with two adults, under 12s free), including flights and transfers. Ascot Jeep Safaris (025 329 388) run trips to the Troodos mountains for about £25pp (half price for children), including lunch - book a day or two in advance.

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Destination guide: Cyprus