Staycations are second best – why won’t we admit it?

The vagaries of the great British summer are uncertain enough without a deadly pandemic and lockdown thrown into the mix.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has revealed that, while there is still ‘a lot of uncertainty’ about booking holidays at home or abroad, he has already booked his own summer break in Cornwall.

Frankly, if I wasn’t already put off the idea of a summer break in Blighty, the prospect of bumping into Matt Hancock and his knobbly white knees while paddling in the chilly Atlantic surf was the final nail in that coffin.

I have the most wonderful childhood memories of holidays in the golden age before foreign package holidays were even a glint in Michael O’Leary’s eye. Two weeks every August spent at the Cornish seaside, self-catering (of course), eating damp corned beef sandwiches on a pebbly beach and freezing in lumpy beds at night.

My husband still looks wistful whenever he talks about his childhood holidays in a caravan in North Wales.