The pleasure and pain of staycations

In Competition No. 3152 you were invited to supply a poem about the joys — or otherwise — of the staycation.

A poem that transports me back to childhood bucket-and-spade holidays — ‘Half an annual pleasure, half a rite…’ — is ‘To the Sea’ by Philip Larkin (not a fan of holidays abroad). But while lines such as ‘the small hushed waves’ repeated fresh collapse/ Up the warm yellow sand…’ make me long to head straight for the south coast, you lot, judging by the entry, are not relishing the prospect of holidaying at home this summer. Well, most of you. Bill Greenwell reminded me that foreign holidays, too, have their downsides: