This summer will you be HFH*? (*holidaying from home)

HFH*?

That’s *holidaying from home – and what most of us will be doing over the next couple of months. And, as Polly Vernon reveals, vacationing in your own house can be a break from the ‘new normal’

as we speak (I write, you read), I should have been lolling around next to a freshwater lake in Portugal, sunlounging it up with my best holiday muckers on a yoga retreat, wondering what the dedicated chef was whipping us up for lunch, and generally congratulating myself for having the foresight to book such spectacular hols way back in autumn 2019, thus giving myself something to look forward to.

As it is, I’m languishing in semilockdown, crying ridiculously regularly, though for no particular reason, wondering if – given wariness around commercial aviation and the on-again-off-again rules on quarantining airport arrivals – I’ll ever feel the Mediterranean breeze ruffle my hair again, and trying not to hate the holidayless half-life we’re currently enduring.

But what if there were ways to holiday up home life? To take a week off whatever this is, then venture into some new emotional territories and experiences, in the way we once ventured to other parts of Greece. I dunno, we could…

RECREATE THE (GOOD BITS OF THE) AIRPORT EXPERIENCE

Get up sickeningly early – like, at an hour that would disgust you if you weren’t GOING ON HOLIDAY! – chivvy your partner/flatmate into the car, drive to your nearest Mcdonald’s, take out a breakfast, then consume it, along with a pint of beer and a whisky chaser, in a nearby car park,

irrespective of the fact that it’s not quite 6am and people are looking at you judgingly, but F**K THEM AND F**K IT! YOU’RE GOING ON HOLIDAY!

Then go straight home (option on stopping off in a Boots for twenty quids’ worth of extraneous health care and cosmetics frippery in miniature formats, because ‘you never know’).

BUY SOME NEW BED LINEN

And possibly towels? It won’t make a five-star hotel of your home, but it’ll make it, say, 15% more like one than before.

PLAN AN EXTRAVAGANT HOLIDAY WARDROBE

Ideally one that would totally work on the Amalfi Coast in the 1950s and revolves around kaftans, head scarves, linen blazers and multiple sunglasses/bikini options…

Then end up wearing the same pair of cut-off shorts every day for a week. (Option on faking the discovery you haven’t brought enough knickers with you, handwashing those you have, then leaving them out on the radiator to dry overnight. You know: for atmosphere.)

ACQUIRE SOME TEMPORARY NEW FRIENDS

As delightful and wonderful and supportive as your long-term full-time friends are, it might be nice to give them a miss for a week, launch a more casual, shallow relationship with some people who don’t know you very well, didn’t witness you full-on melting down in weeks three, six and nine of lockdown, and/or didn’t melt down on you with equal frequency and alacrity. Makes idle, meaningless chit-chat so much easier. Just a thought.

DO STUFF DIFFERENTLY

In normo times, we used to say ‘a change is as good as a rest’, which always made me go: ‘Is it though? Really?’ Right now, however, I suspect a change might be better than a rest. It’s the abject tedium of 2020 that’s got me, in the end. The extreme narrowing of options, which means you end up doing the same things, in the same way, at the same time, all the time. So – let’s holiday from that, shall we? From the monotony of our over-structured, over-planned, tooregularly-revisited corona routines. Get up a little later than you have until now. Choose not to turn the telly on, thereby plunging yourself into the fractious yet somehow predictable hell that is that day’s news – rather, go a-walking (see sub-section ‘Go A-walking’ below for details) in the early morning light. Find a new park, or walk the other way around your habitual one. Take your coffee away, from a different coffee shop; change your order, just to see.

Also:

EAT DIFFERENT FOOD

One day in mid-may, I got so unbelievably bored only eating ‘my food’ – the menus and flavours and textures and themes that characterise my shabby attempts at cooking, and are always there and always the same, even when I try some entirely new recipe – that I just stopped eating altogether, then nearly passed out halfway through Zoom Pilates. Stupid, admittedly: but the wearying faff of meals! And they come around again so quickly, have you noticed? Holiday from your rapidly evolving culinary ennui by sourcing some really excellent tomatoes and some fresh prawns and a nice chunk of Manchego, and if that doesn’t work, avail yourself of an Almond Magnum and a chilled glass of white; call it ‘lunch’.

EASE OFF ON THE ONLINE WORKOUTS

As vital as all that has been in the maintaining of something approaching sanity, and something approaching waist maintenance, fitness can also start to feel a little joyless and relentless and punishing when not regulated by the logistical demands of a normal existence. It’s all gone a bit I MUST DO MY WORKOUT, when: must you? Actually?

So give it a rest for a week, eh? Maybe switch it up for another discipline. Why, only yesterday, I shook myself out of a three-day long melancholy jag by following a How To Do Winged Eyeliner masterclass on Youtube; now, not only am I considerably more cheerful – I can do really good winged eyeliner.

BUILD INCREDIBLY ELABORATE SUNLOUNGER STRUCTURES

My mate Jules – with whom I holidayed at least once a year for 15 years (up until she went to live in a nice bit of France, at which point she became a holiday in herself ) – swore by the importance of making your sunbathing areas as luxurious as possible. While I’d splay myself out on the nearest bit of foam, say no more about it, Jules would recreate a full extravagant cabana experience, with cushions, drapings fashioned from pieces of silk she’d acquired who knew where, speaker systems, a head prop angled perfectly towards the sun, and a bribed godchild to fan air over her prone body with a palm. I’d mock her for it – it took so long and seemed so precious – but then grow jealous as the day progressed and Jules remained perfectly comfortable, while I got restless, sweaty, achy and sandy.

So. You may not have a beach or a pool, but you can create an excellent lounging area in whatever suntrap is at your disposal. (NB: if you too have access to godchildren, consider getting them to bring you Diet Coke from the fridge at regular intervals.)

GO ‘A-WALKING’

Quite distinct from boring old walking: a-walking is a meandering, extended meditative stroll, best accomplished either alone (so as to better appreciate nuanced changes in light and birdsong and shizzle), or with a friend who is of a philosophical bent, so that the two of you might contemplate the nature of existence. It might not be very ‘holiday’ per se, but it is very European.

READ THE CAZALET CHRONICLES

Which I think are my all-time favourite books, and are the equivalent a-walking for your interior life.

DITCH THE NEWS

And Twitter. Just leave the fear-porn alone for a week. Anything you really need to know, you’ll hear about anyway.