THE covid MONTHS |BONNES VACANCES

Swaledale

Sarah Clarke packs up to meet her best friends for a week away.

1.     Where do you usually take your summer holiday?

As someone who is stimulated by the new and unknown, I try to do something different every year; go to somewhere I haven’t been before, try a novel activity or see people I have not seen in far too long. However, there are some things that are repeated, either out of desire or necessity. I like to go back to the Midlands and visit my friends from my pre-North Easterly life, I pop in on my parents in York and best of all I take my children to Latitude Festival in Suffolk for a weekend of live music, comedy, wild swimming, dancing under the stars and failing to see Ed Sheeran’s secret set somewhere in the woods at 3am.

 2.    Where are you holidaying this year?

Swaledale in the Yorkshire Dales National Park

 3.    Why did you choose this place?

It’s called God’s Own Country for a reason! Practically, it’s easy for us all to get to and there are lots of things for us to do ranging from a guided otter spotting in kayaks to the Pencil Museum that we have threatened if there is too much time being spent on devices. Added to which the children usually entertain us with Vic Reeves style Yorkshire accents as they serve us Mason’s Yorkshire Tea Gin in the hope that we forget the Pencil Museum

 4.    How are you getting there?

By car, packed to the gunnels as if we are going away for the whole summer

 5.    How long are you going for?

A whole, glorious week

 6.    Is that longer or shorter than usual?

Same as usual

 7.    Who are you going with? 

My daughters (15 and 12) my best friend Jane from 6th form college and her daughter (11), my best friend from adulthood Louise and her son (12). Louise’s eldest son tragically died of leukemia in 2020 but he will be very much with us in memories and stories of holidays past.

 8.    Are these the people you usually go with?

This holiday (known affectionately as “The Van” as we stayed in caravans the first time we all went away together) has been a tradition for the past 5 years, though I have holidayed with each of my friends separately for many, many years before that.

9.  What is the one essential thing you will take with you?

Marks and Spencer’s “Percy Pigs” sweets; essential for bribing grumpy adolescents to climb hills or to visit Pencil Museums

11.   If you could go anywhere on holiday this summer where would you choose?

I have never been to Sardinia. I lived in Italy for 4 years and deliberately didn’t go, thinking I would save it for something really special like a honeymoon. In the end I spent my honeymoon in the Scottish Highlands and still haven’t found the perfect opportunity to explore the fabled Costa Smeralda