I'm including this entry as a little reminder of the summer that never was. This morning the village is shrouded in Autumnal mist and the leaves are beginning to change from tired green to brown. I've stacked the wood in the barn and soon enough I'll be packing up the swing seat in preparation for the long winter ahead, but before I get all frosty and thick-jumpered, I'm going to recall a golden weekend from the summer.

In July my girls and I were invited to stay at a friend's holiday cottage in Cornwall. The cottage has been in the same family since 1923, my friend's grandfather bought it, and it seems his choice of location was extremely astute as the cottage nestles in the midst of what is now one of the most exclusive holiday destinations in the country. I rarely travel into Cornwall, which seems ridiculous, as it is a wonderful place, full of beautiful beaches and quaint fishing villages that hug the rugged coastline. But despite all its obvious attractions you can't get away from the fact that it's always teeming with tourists. If I want to go to a beach to sit cheek by jowl with a squillion other people then I can do that quite happily at home, and without the misery of having to sit in a four-hour traffic jam.

My friends Kate and Andy were staying in their cottage for a week and so to be invited to join them for a couple of days of beachery and messing about in boats seemed like a wonderful start to the summer holidays. I know I'll never have the luxury of owning a holiday cottage, but when I get the chance to stay in one with good friends, I rarely refuse.

I had read a good deal about the newfound popularity of Rock with the moneyed residents of Kensington and Chelsea, but until you have experienced Fulham-on-sea you never quite believe how intimidating the massed ranks of the moneyed middle classes can be. We were lucky enough to be situated only a flip-flop hop away from Daymer Bay, and so managed to avoid having to join the long tailbacks of German muscle motors and four by fours that choke the lanes leading to the beaches around Rock. London high society is very demanding, and now you can buy everything from Provencal olives to quails eggs in the local Spar shop. Rick Stein has single-handedly turned Padstow from a small fishing village into the epitome of a gastro town, but I wasn't about to spend my time quaffing Bolly and eating lobster. I had come to eat real food with real people.

Our holiday was a complete joy; Rosie and Alice fell in love with Kate and Andy's little boy, Harry, and played happily with his older brothers Alfie and Ed. We were taken shopping to Padstow, and the girls sat on a barnacle covered rock and munched on a pasty whilst we waited to catch the ferry back to Rock. The children spent a couple of exhilarating afternoons being pulled at high speed around the bay in a large inflatable ring, whilst I sat in the boat cuddling Harry and being towel monitor. Thankfully the weather kindly allowed us a respite from July's interminable rain and drizzle, and so we were able to enjoy the beach like our fellow holiday makers. What marked us out from them, however, was the fact that I wasn't wearing an Alice band, the girls weren't wearing anything stripy from Boden, and neither Kate nor Andy was in wilful possession of a Labrador.

Holidays in Rock hark back to a bygone age when men played cricket, women looked after the children and the dog could frolic in the surf and then run back to the picnic blanket to shake salty spume all over the egg and cress sandwiches. It's like living a world of Enid Blyton; the cut-glass accents are pitched at full volume and you are only truly accepted into the clique if you are showing the White Stuff (preferably with something like, 'I said 'Ya' in the Mariner's Bar - Rock 2004' written on your back). I actually lost count of the number of black Labradors that I saw on the beach, and as Kate was handing out the eurobeers, we could clearly hear a woman just down the beach piping up with the words, 'Sauvignon or Sancerre?'

Kate told me a wonderful story of how she was on the beach a few years ago, when one of her boys expressed a need to dump. Before Kate could reach for the poly bag, her son had done what he'd said he was going to do, leaving Kate with the tricky problem of discreet disposal. Enter a faithful black lab, belonging to a jolly man in claret shorts and a cricket hat. The dog bounded up to the steaming pile and gobbled the whole lot up in one go. Kate then waited for shrieks of horror from the dog's owner, but luckily he hadn't seen what had happened and called his dog to him, whereupon Pippin bounded up to his proud owner and gave him a big, wet kiss on the lips. Yum.

In the evenings we sat outside the cottage and listened to the nightly procession of hundreds of affluent young Londoners who were passing the cottage on their way down the lane to Daymer Bay. Their evenings would be spent sitting in groups discussing which schools were best and what car daddy drives; our evening would be spent trying to hold a decent conversation. It would be a gross understatement to say that revellers were raucous and uncouth, and they seemed to have no regard for the people who might have been trying to sleep at 3.30 in the morning. But that's why they come to Rock; Rodean can mix with Beadles, Cheltenham Ladies' College can consort with Harrow. 'What school do you go to?' is the pre-cursor to any lengthy conversation, it introduces like to like, and weeds out any undesirable elements, as my friend's daughter soon discovered. She soon realised that Devonport High School doesn't open any doors on the beach at Daymer bay - no matter that she's drop dead gorgeous, state school just doesn't cut it in the Rock scene.

Apart from the noise disturbance we had a wonderful holiday with Kate and Andy and we got to enjoy a little slice of London life without having to leave the South West. I left Cornwall, having blanched at the price of a White Stuff sweatshirt. Call me old fashioned, but I bet even Enid Blyton would have though twice about paying £47.00 for a child's top. My memory of the holiday will be filled with images of sandy hall tiles, wet suits and damp towels hanging up to dry, a pot of tea on the Aga and the company of good friends; the joy on Rosie's face as she hurtled over the water in a big, red inner tube, and of holding Alice's hand as we waded in rock pools looking for crabs. Oh, and a really funny story about waggy-tailed Labrador with a shiny nose and really bad breath.


© Kate Boydell 2004. All rights reserved. e-mail: [email protected]. Close window.