Advertisement

My smug enthusiasm for the staycation ran out as soon as the weather turned

 - istock
- istock

Just a fortnight ago, I was surfing a wave of smugness about my British-bound holiday plans this summer. It was gratifying to opt out of airport chaos and spare myself the stress of second-guessing surprise quarantine regulations (since international flight bookings are essentially raffle tickets for the Great Holiday Lottery 2020).

I truly believed I’d turned over a new leaf as a traveller, morphing from an itchy-footed and spoiled millennial globetrotter into a contented, socially and environmentally minded British patriot. But nope, it turns out that the weather was just sunny.

As Storm Francis swept through the British Isles this week, blowing sand and grit into our optimistic sandwiches on beaches and hillsides, eviscerating hopeful barbecues in parks and gardens, lashing plucky tents and foolhardy tipis with ice, wind and disrupted Wi-Fi, the gale-force gusts stripped me of my flimsy stoic staycationer façade.

I was struck, full-force, with six months’ worth of pent-up wanderlust. All it took was a bit of a breeze, and I wanted to leap aboard the next flight to LA. As the wind battered the single-glazing of my flat in Margate, I could smell the coconut and chlorine emanating from the poolside bar at the Madonna Inn (madonnainn.com), my favourite kitschy Californian poshed-up motel.

As the rain pounded the pavement outside, wrapping my hands around a mug of dreary tea, I wistfully remembered sipping a cortado in the morning sunshine at Castello di Potentino (potentino.com), a British-owned Tuscan castle and vineyard where I drank my way to my first wine qualification with former River Café sommelier Emily O’Hare (emilyoh.wine).

Most of these are impossible dreams right now. But my big summer holiday plan for 2020, a week in a Welsh yurt in mid-September, is no longer a delightful daydream. A fashion editor friend called me from Cornwall, which a week ago seemed as glamorous as Mustique.

“The wind is blowing sand between our teeth and our hotel smells like damp dog,” she wailed, as my blood ran cold. Camping in Wales no longer looks fabulous, but you know what looks worse than Wales? My personality. This week has reminded me that I’m rubbish in bad weather, and if I’m really going to become a dedicated domestic tourist, a stoic UK staycationer, I need to be able to enjoy a British break in the rain.

The truth is, I’ve never developed the habit of concocting a wet-weather plan for holidays. My Plan A = perfection; scorching sunshine, al fresco dining and blue-skied Instagram stories. My Plan B = sulk. Having grown up in Northern Ireland, spending summers in soggy tents on the banks of Loch Erne, I should be better equipped for this. But I suspect my years in a notoriously damp and grey corner of the UK gave me this thirst for international travel, propelling me far from home to spend summers working in steamy American cities, and winters embarking upon exotic adventures in south-east Asia and Central America.

So I’m grateful for this week of wet weather, a warning that I am not a natural born British holidaymaker. Consider this an open call for ideas; I am currently crowdsourcing strategies for enjoying a British break when the weather turns bleak.

My high-flying friend Jade has salvaged sodden holidays by doing online courses, workshops or business plans. “If you can come home feeling like you’ve achieved something, it hasn’t been a waste of time,” she says.

I’ve duly signed up to masterclass.com, so I can spend my week in the yurt in Wales being taught to play the guitar by Carlos Santana, or creative writing by Joyce Carol Oates. But it’s my grandmother’s attitude of cheery acceptance that I’m really working on.

I remember her packing sandwiches and Thermos flasks of sweet tea for “car picnics”; where we’d be flabbergasted if we actually got to sip our Capri-Suns outside. I remember my mum checking our rucksacks ahead of a week at the Share Activity Centre in Enniskillen (sharevillage.org), and if the contents weren’t 50 per cent galvanised rubber, we were told to repack.

After all, Wales is Wales, not a close California or cheap Costa Rica. And I need to learn to love Wales, whatever the weather.

To read more articles by Anna Hart, see telegraph.co.uk/travel/team/anna-hart