Angel's blog: Family Staycation

I must admit, before my youngest was born (4 years ago) hubby and I were pretty spoiled when it came to holidays. We went everywhere, Cuba, Thailand, you name it. When the eldest was born we took him with us, he was easy to travel with, be it an all-inclusive to the Canary Islands or a relaxing hotel in Mauritius - it didn't matter. Then as many of you second time parents know, when you have another one, it's like throwing a grenade into family life. We planned our next overseas holiday when the dust settled. Sadly, when it did settle, covid had arrived. When all the restrictions relaxed a bit there was so much uncertainty about travel and the fact that we had to travel out of term time we decided a staycation was the answer.

After a search and lots of recommendations from colleagues we booked a caravan in Cornwall. I was not really looking forward to it to be honest. It seemed like you had to pack absolutely everything and there was a lot of mental load trying to remember it all. When I am on holiday I don't want to cook, or clean or make my bed, I want to chill. There was also the research required to find out what to do when we got there and work was really busy the week before so I didn't have the time. Things got real when the roof box went on the car and with the thought of a six-hour road trip ahead with my two boys. I was wondering if we could pull out of it.

We made a rookie mistake of setting off later than planned, the packing took so long that we ended up on the road around 11am. The kids were starving at 12:30 and the first stop off point was found by hubby Googling somewhere quickly. I think this is when the holiday began, the pub was in a quiet village with a play park opposite, we had an amazing lunch and the people were so friendly, and had quite a few opinions. A man told us (helpfully) that we should have left at 5am and a woman told us that the route we were taking was horrific and we would be in a big traffic jam for the rest of the ride! Seeing the kids run around the park and feeling the warm sun on my skin, I felt things were improving and decided to ignore them.

The journey was really nice, the A303 which we had been warned us not to take, was easy -  we didn’t get stuck in any traffic at all. This route is supposed to pass Stonehenge, but perhaps the sat nav took us around it because we did not see it.

We stopped off a few times and arrived in the caravan late at night. We paid more to have a luxury caravan and whilst it was a far cry from the hotels of the past, it was comfortable, 95% clean and we all slept well.

Cornwall was lovely and the holiday park was nice, but we didn't really stay on site. We drove a lot, found lovely beaches, and had fantastic days out with lots of nice food. And whilst it wasn’t perhaps as relaxing as previous holidays, I would recommend it - but yes, most definitely start out early if you don't want to arrive in the dark!.

I wanted to end by saying that we all need time to totally disconnect from work and let go. Even though we work in times of greater flexibility, I find that often work creeps into home life more with hybrid working. On my last day I saw my work phone in my bag. I had packed it because I had gotten used to taking it everywhere (just in case.) I quickly checked it wondering apprehensively what had I missed. I realised absolutely nothing. No one had tried to call me or text me the entire time. I really appreciated being able to have the full break from work and the space not to think about it. My colleagues and managers respected my family time and that makes me appreciate the company more.

Angel is an Executive Assistant and a busy mum of a Lego mad 6-year-old and a music crazy 3-year-old. She lives with them, her husband and two fish in Hertfordshire and when in the office, works in Holborn.

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• Families