Summer Holiday

We’re taking our summer holiday at home this year.

England I mean. We’ll head down to London to stay with family. Next comes Devon for a week and a night on the North Norfolk Coast with friends.

It’s a practical response to my present circumstances.

We’ve spent up large on recent renovations. We’ve foregone free cash in favour of a home environment that’s an absolute pleasure to hang around.

Where are you headed this summer?

Don’t worry if it’s more interesting than mine. I love to live vicariously through my globe-trotting subscribers.

Also, the kids are at an age where they really don’t care where they are, as long as it’s with us.

It could be in the cabin of a long haul flight to somewhere exotic, sure. Equally, it could be a lazy Sunday afternoon beside a sandy puddle at the entrance to our local beach¹, as demonstrated by my eldest here.

I can’t pretend it’s much fun going far from home right now.

Plane rides abroad with kids demand military logistics. If we’re hiring a car at the other end, we need to haul and install enormous car seats. Then I have to drive on a different side of the road in an unfamiliar car with punitive insurance scenarios hanging over my head.²

My friend lived my nightmare a few weeks ago. He lost concentration driving his rental straight after a lengthy flight.

He sideswiped a barrier on the side of a hill road.

In some foreign land.

Not for me. Not this summer.

So we’re taking it easy.

We’re vacating our habitual playbook.

We’re giving ourselves a break.

A break from the traditional demands of a Summer Holiday.

I can’t wait.

I’ll look forward to sending you some light summer reading.

I feel like I’m getting back into my wrighting groove.

1. Sea Palling. Completely ignored by us for four years in favour of storied beaches an extra half hour away, until it was declared among the top 50 beaches in the UK by the Times and Sunday Times, so NOW I deigned to visit, and we will be back a lot more.

2. I’ve written about this before…