The Side-Eye on holiday truths

What does your dream holiday look like? In theory, mine is all endless white beaches and blue seas, a beneficent yet boiling sun and a smiling man in a white suit bringing me and an endless series of cocktails and delicious snacks. It features rattan furniture, lazy ceiling fans, a private plunge pool and maybe a tiny bit of yoga on the aforementioned white sands. Dinner is served either on a private island or is an international buffet where one can find out just how well fish tacos, refried beans and kimchi go together. My children are wafted off to learn to kitesurf or make necklaces from beach conches.

That’s the dream. This year, as for the last decade, my actual holiday features no tropical scenes but plenty of cold beaches. For me, holiday weather means a bracing mix of downpours, drizzle and the odd sight of the sun. There is no dinky cruisewear boutique – the shop sells pasties and sandwiches, ice cream and plastic buckets – and there is no change in the routine of cooking, dishwashering and childminding that characterises every other week. My holiday wardrobe consists of an unwavering selection of Breton stripes and waterproofs. After a decade, the friends that we stay with are as comfortable as old slippers; we have an ironclad routine of reading, tea-making, beach supervision duties and sandwich making. The dinner rota and the cocktail making schedule is set in stone. You could set a clock by us. And it’s absolutely blissful.

Remember when people used to invite you over to look at their holiday pictures? I’d accept the invitation willingly, always happy to sit through a slide presentation of someone’s Greek Island explorations, their tour of duty of Mediterranean vineyards or their walking holiday in the Dolomites. I am delighted that someone else will walk the Camino or take a boat down the Shannon, because I’m entirely sure that I never will. I’m totally ok with the fact that I will never win an Olympic gold, nor will I decide to take up Alpine mountain biking or cycle through the Ardennes. I don’t like beetroot and I’m equally indifferent to the prospect of a safari holiday. The Northern Lights look nice and all, but I’m happy with lounging about at a beach barbeque on a damp corner of the coastline, thanks anyway.

Like so many things about reaching midlife, the realisation that not only are you unlikely to radically undergo a change of taste or natural inclination but that you are quite happy with your current preferences is incredibly liberating. I don’t love being hot, but there are many temperate destinations after all. My Irish skin is uncomfortable with temperatures that exceed the low 20’s, but who wants skin cancer anyway?

As I shake out an entire beach’s worth of sand from damp towels and prepare to repack the car for the long journey home, it occurs to me that the jet-set tropical beach holiday likely doesn’t start or end with a flask of tea and an argument about who didn’t have a wee before they got in the car. The mammoth amount of washing that marks our arrival home momentarily makes me long for an additional holiday, this time to get over the end of this one.

Yet on balance, I’m content with our bucket and spades holiday. Turns out that what I really enjoy doing is lounging about with a pile of books, a hot or cold drink and a gaggle of content children. This year, more than ever, the sheer normality of this and the blissful privilege of being able to have Our Holiday, makes me feel extremely lucky indeed.

Jennifer Coyle, July 2020.