This is just a short update to highlight some good deals we've spotted at Parkdean Resorts holiday parks on the Isle of Wight.

Generally, I'm not a big fan of 'last minute deals' at holiday parks. I find that you usually get the best deals by booking very early rather than very late.

The reason is that a holiday park has several grades of accommodation which differ hugely in price. The early bird gets the pick of the grades whilst the last minute deals are for whatever accommodation is best. You may well end up paying for upgrades you don't really need - such as an extra bedroom.

Anyway, the last minute deals page on Parkdean Resorts is currently showing these deals on seven night breaks:

That compares very favourably to the price for a three night break around the same dates. Nodes Point is £599 for a weekend or £619 for a whole week - only £20 difference! 

At Lower Hyde Holiday Park you can have a whole week for £319 or £289 at Thorness Bay - that's almost half the price of the three nights at Nodes Point. Lower Hyde gets slightly better reviews than Thorness Bay, but the latter is closer to a beach.

At Lower Hyde, there are several types of caravan at that price. I would go for the ones with the green square saying 'New On Park' as that means they are less than three years old.

If you just want a weekend, then I would look at Lower Hyde or Thorness Bay which are £199 and £189 for July 15th (i.e. tomorrow).

There are also some good deals for glamping. You can either have three nights for about £300 during school holidays or seven nights for £300 outside of school holidays. 

​Here are the term time prices:

For more information on the four different Parkdean Resorts on the Isle of Wight, check out this comparison guide.

A couple of months ago, I bought myself a drone. I managed to persuade Mrs Guru that it would be a valuable tool in 'generating content' for this website and she signed it off. I find that using phrases like 'generating content' are more convincing than 'larking around'. 

It's a wonderfully clever thing which seems like it should cost more than a new car considering the way it can hover with precision and whoosh around the sky.

For anyone interested in the technical stuff, I bought a DJI Mini SE Fly More Combo for about £350. It seemed to be the cheapest drone by the market leaders and came with three batteries, each of which last for about 20-30 minutes. It's exceedingly light so there's very little chance of it injuring someone. I had to spend £10 on registering it with the Civil Aviation Authority, took a theory test and bought insurance which was about £30 for a year.

The theory test taught me that I shouldn't fly it whilst drunk as a skunk and shouldn't fly it towards an Air Ambulance. 

And so, I set out on a series of early morning walks around the West Wight. I found that 6am was an excellent time to fly the drone since there was no-one around and I could sneak out whilst the children were asleep. 

In a splurge of new-toy excitement I did some filming at Freshwater Bay, Compton Bay, Shepherd's Chine (near Brighstone), Brook Chine, Tennyson Down, Colwell, Totland and Yarmouth. 

So far, I've had three small disasters including:

1. crash landing the drone on my mother's neighbour's roof. She allowed us to retrieve it by climbing through the window of her en-suite. Mrs Guru was mortified. The children thought it was great fun and followed me onto the roof via her vanity unit.
2. flying it into a tree because I pressed the wrong button on the controls. Some fancier drones have collision avoidance. Luckily it just cut a few leaves and wasn't damaged.
3. losing signal whilst hanging over a particularly high cliff at Tennyson Down. The signal loss was only a few seconds but it was what Sir Alex Ferguson would call 'squeaky bum time'.

After collecting hours of footage, I then had to chop it up as no-one wants to see all my outtakes. 

I settled on Adobe Premiere Elements which is an el-cheapo version of Adobe Premiere Pro. It cost about £50 as a one off, whereas the pro version is a monthly subscription. It suits my needs for now, although I've not compared the two side by side.

My first finished video was Compton Bay, which I jazzed up by making it more of a music video. I spent much time ensuring that every single edit was in time with the music and agonised over the best order in which to present my masterpiece.

"How long would it take to go viral?" I wondered to myself. 

And yet, after a month or so it has had a grand total of 36 views. I would guess that half of those are people with the same surname as me.

This was a little disheartening when videos of people opening Kinder Surprise eggs get around 90 million views. Still, my mother liked it.

My second effort was something more topical. I hacked together my footage of Totland Pier being rebuilt, chose the least annoying piece of free music on the editing software and presented it to the world.

On this occasion, I had much more success, mostly thanks to it featuring in articles by On The Wight, the Isle of Wight County Press and Isle of Wight Radio. 

1000 views is not quite 'viral', but it's better than 36.

After the success of focusing on something specific rather than general nice shots, I went for the landslide in Totland. The music was gradually getting worse, but I hoped no-one would notice.

How's it going? Well, after two days it's had a whopping 13 views, which means that it will equal the 90 million achieved by the Kinder Egg video in around 38,000 years.

​As I write this, the Isle of Wight is at the start of a 10 day heatwave. Such occurrences and sparkling seas look glorious in photos but do somewhat get in the way of doing anything too energetic - particularly if you have young children.

Here are my five suggestions of days out in hot weather on the Isle of Wight which won't have you wilting.

​It's tempting to rush straight to the beach on a hot day. From a distance, everyone seems to be having a great time and the water feels genuinely refreshing rather than bracing.

However, most Isle of Wight beaches are completely lacking in shade. You can bring along your own parasol which you've borrowed from your patio dining table but it will probably fall over or take off and fly into the sea.

The best Isle of Wight beach we've found for a very hot day is Appley in Ryde. It's not usually in my Top 5 Isle of Wight beaches as it's a bit busy and developed rather than rustic and natural (my preference). 

However, there are great big trees which provide very welcome shade. The car park is only a few metres from the beach and there are shops selling ice creams. Last time I went there was even a public water fountain for refilling bottles. I'd not seen one of those since primary school.

Getting to the water at low tide takes a long time at Appley. The sand goes out towards the end of the pier but there are some nice shallow pools of water on the way which you can paddle around in.

An alternative beach with shade is Priory Bay, which is backed by trees. However, it's a right old effort to get to it. On a hot day, you'll be swearing like Malcolm Tucker by the time you reach the beach. 

Meanwhile, Shanklin doesn't have any natural shade but there are deckchairs and parasols for hire which should do the trick.

My personal preference is to visit the Isle of Wight's beaches in the late afternoon or early evening during a heatwave.

The temperature has cooled a little and most people have gone home. If it's low tide then the little pools of water in the sand feel like walking into a bath. I realise that 5pm isn't a great time to take children out to the beach.

The air conditioning at Brading Roman Villa isn't really there for the benefit of sweaty visitors like you and I. It's actually there to preserve the Villa, which I'm assuming would combust if it crept above 20 degrees. 

Regardless, you can wander the villa around on a hot day without your legs sticking together. Make sure you spend a reeeally long time reading all the information boards so you get plenty of time in the cool environment.

Suggestion number three takes us back to Ryde, which has a swimming pool with a retractable roof. On sunny days they slide it open, so you can enjoy an outdoor swimming pool with indoor changing rooms.

We've found that a woodland walk is a pretty good all-weather activity. If it's pouring with rain, you get a bit of shelter and if it's blazing hot then you get a bit of shade.

At the risk of sounding like a tree hugger, I'm going to suggest that a woodland full of native deciduous trees will provide better shade than a forest full of coniferous trees (i.e. Christmas tree types).

Your options include:

• Parkhurst Forest near Newport is a mix of 'ancient woodland and heathland'. That means you'll get shade in the ancient woodland bits, but you'll get severely burnt in the heathland. Perhaps you can run between the two.
• Firestone Copse near Ryde has 'English Oak and Ash as well as coniferous Douglas, Cedar and Scots Pine'. That means you'll get nice shade from the oak and ash and then get sunburnt underneath the coniferous trees.
• Brighstone Forest in the West Wight. I've not been for a long time, but my mother says it is shady along the paths.
• Borthwood Copse near Sandown is an 'ancient oak woodland with sunny glades' so it should give good shade.
• America Wood near Shanklin is mostly 'high oak forest with downy birch' so it should have plenty of shade.

Please comment below if you can offer further insight. Perhaps we can determine which Isle of Wight woodland is the most shady.

Alright, alright, spending two hours in a dark room may not be making the most of summer on the Isle of Wight.

However, if you've spent a summer living with hayfever then a cool dark room and a huge cup of cold Fanta may be just what you need. I get it, brother.