Is this the coolest cottage in Cornwall?

A stay in St Ives gave Claire Irvin and family buzzy beach action, rooms with great views and rainy-day getaways

Getting away from it all is what unites most of us when we’re planning a holiday. The idea of exiting normal life and leaving behind hustle, bustle and, let’s be honest, other people, can be as alluring as a lie-in. But what if you already live away from it all – if your idea of the perfect holiday is getting into it all?

As commuters, my husband and I are not unfamiliar with hustle and bustle. But our family weekends in our countryside home are about as far from the madding crowd as one could want to be. So for our summer holiday we decided it would be fun to take the children (aged eight and five) somewhere that offered a classic seaside holiday, but with a bit of a buzz too. Buckets and spades, of course. A pool if poss – Charley loves to swim but hasn’t earned his ocean stripes yet. Surfing too and maybe even riding for horse-mad Amelie and me, scene-y restaurants and bars (from which we can, quel treat, walk home please!) for fun nights out. Some artsy browsing opportunities for my culture-buff husband. Oh, and we would also require some luxury r&r too, please.

An impossible brief? Not for luxury cottage company Cornish Gems, who proposed Compass House, nestled into the cliff face overlooking Porthminster Beach. Its ludicrously advantageous location initially brought out the cynical side of us (Was it too central? Would its picture windows give passing tourists a bird’s-eye view in rather than affording us uninterrupted views out?).

In real life, to quote Charley, it was hard to find much wrong with it. Its beautifully appointed rooms feature contemporarily nautical interiors and modern art works. An attic “tower”’ room gives up panoramic coastal views, a majestic overview of St Ives harbour and is the bedroom of dreams for a romantically dreamy eight-yearold with a vivid imagination. A newly renovated veranda gives extra living space complete with perfect moving “postcard” views of Porthminster Beach, meaning that come shine or rain (this is Cornwall, after all) you are always part of the stunning scenery beyond – we did, however, employ discretion at all times to avoid any inadvertent Life of Brian moments.

Waking up to a stormy sea, it turns out, can be just as intoxicating as a sun-baked beach – as long as you’ve got enough Uno stamina and local fudge to sit out the rain. (This view also turned out to be my holiday reading downfall – whenever I had a chance to sit and read I’d find myself distracted into idly soaking up whatever action was going on below).

And Porthminster Beach Café just a few steps away provided the most upscale of locals – for breakfast, lunch, dinner, afternoon ice cream, extra clotted cream for a scone, cheeky sundowners on the beach as the children chased seagulls… The list, it seemed, was endless.

So far, so good. Now for St Ives to deliver.

First up: the sea. The first day dawned sunny and cloudless and wetsuits on, body boards in tow, we set out into the waves. Porthminster is the calmest of St Ives’s beaches, with currents better suited to paddle boarding than riding a double overhead, but it proved just enough for Charley’s first forays into the

Waking up to a stormy sea, it turns out, can be just as intoxicating as a sun-baked beach

waves. Demands for “an actual swim” gave us all the inclination we needed to hop aboard the charming coastal branch line train for Carbis Bay, and lunch overlooking the water complete with a dip in the very chichi surrounds of the Carbis Bay Hotel pool and spa. The jacuzzi provided the perfect spot to overlook the children swimming and indulge in yet more people-watching.

And Carbis Bay Beach started off the activity which defined the holiday… DOG COUNTING. I will leave you to imagine the joy of trying to remember if the last sighting was labrador number 23 or 24…*

Previous experience of St Ives meant the day of our trip to St Michael’s Mount dawned with the