HOLIDAYS

It’s August and traditionally the month to head off into the hills, or down to the beaches, join the chaos at the airport terminals or the hoards queuing for the cross-channel ferry, to scurry off to your personal, family nirvana.  It’s great to have something in the diary to look forward to collectively.  Time when the kids join you from university, or from a paid job, hopefully, somewhere in the country and you can enjoy quality, family time with them.

We head off to Quay Street cottages, Lower Town, Fishguard, Pembrokeshire for the last two weeks of August every year, where we join friends and family who have been holidaying there for the last 25 years.  It’s a religious excursion, but it’s not a cult.  There are close to 30, maybe even 40 of us at times when the children, all grown up now, are joined by boyfriends, girlfriends or non-binary others.

I love to get the paella pan out by the water’s edge and knock up a quick Valenciana, or a rabbit and snail version.  Other families bring bits of kit with them, a pizza oven is a popular pop up and the queue forms early for one of those, freshly built and roasted. .

But to all the digital nomads out there, I have to tell you that May is one of the best times to be exploring the UK countryside and beaches, even April, and November can be quite dramatic.  We went down to Fishguard in May and spent the week working, yes, actually working.  Doing all the digital stuff we could have done in the office but saved it all up for a week away from the distractions of everyday routine.

A brisk walk around the harbour and up to the headland before breakfast puts you in the mood for a morning’s work.  You can tap, tappety, tap away to your hearts content, before breaking for lunch, a pan-fried mackerel salad from the harbour café, 50 yards away.  At the end of your working day, pour out a cold beer, step outside and you’re instantly on holiday, basking in the sunshine and contemplating the joys of the ebbing and flowing tides.

After one day, you’ll swear You’ve been there for a week.  Time just tiptoes along, silently sucking out all your cares and woes.  So after four days of work, you feel like you’ve had a fortnight’s holiday, it’s a total win, win situation, and you can be back home in time for a Friday night scoop in the Raddy and the start of a weekend break.  Rarely does life get any better.