Abersoch is so lovely, let’s make a daycation of it
OME hardy Brits – or should that be foolhardy? – are intent on taking their usual holiday abroad this year as lockdown lifts, despite the continuing threat of Covid-19, and a reputation of this country being the sick man of Europe.
In a survey, people in France, Italy and Germany, said they were concerned about arriving Brits because of our coronavirus rates, and 61% of Spaniards wanted us banned. Only China and the US were lower on Europe’s welcome list.
So maybe it’s time for a staycation, a word that comes from the United Station, and we can only thank our lucky stars we didn’t also adopt holistay and daycation, in which every Brit has indulged at some time, being a daft word for a day trip.
When I was a child, all holidays were staycations. Even Wales was abroad.
The first I remember was in the early 1950s when I went with my mum and dad and Uncle Frank and Auntie Nellie and my cousins Maureen and Tony, to a riverside campsite near Knaresborough by bus to stay a week in a double decker without wheels, with beds upstairs. Well, this was postwar.
Us kids had a great time and I almost drowned when I fell off a raft we made from old tyres and planks.
Staycation options have improved since then and the best family holidays we had were at Abersoch in the 1980s which was a time portal to a gentler age. Beautiful country, sand dunes and safe golden beaches, blue skies and sunshine, village shops and an atmosphere from Enid Blyton’s Famous Five with picnics and lashings of ginger beer.
Sadly, our third visit coincided with an unexpected monsoon and we came home early. That’s the one great drawback of holidays at home. The weather can never be guaranteed.
We used to be frequent flyers to Seattle on the West Coast of the US to visit Maria’s mum and discovered most Americans had only a vague idea of the rest of the world.
If they had a passport, it had probably been issued by Disneyland.
Those that did actually travel abroad often visited five countries in four days – “If it’s Wednesday, it must be Holland” – as if a tick list would bestow sophistication when they got home.
So it was no surprise to hear that Seattle residents could visit Bavaria and Norway on the same day by car.
Leavenworth, which has nothing to do with prisons, was a failing logging town in the Cascade Mountains that