The tent, the bucket and me (Kennedy)...and thinking about holidays

I struggled to read much whilst I had mumps, and, having missed my library-book-changing-day, I had very little at home that was new to read. So it was back to the shelves to read things which I had read many times and which were comforting, and to read other things which I'd only read once since buying. Nothing terribly literary, the emphasis was enjoyable.

The tent, the bucket and me, was one that I pulled off the shelves. It's a jolly title and an entertaining book about the writer's family's "disastrous attempts to go camping in the 1970s". The first couple of times they don't even make it to their destination in Wales! A trip to France where they are food poisoned by mussels, falling down camping toilets, dodgy cars and endless endless rain.

I'm writing about this today, because it is approaching the end of September which is the time that we get our leave cards - these show us how many days of holiday we have, as well as which library closed days we get and which bank holidays we have to work. Our holiday year runs October - September and as soon as the cards come out we can start to book for 2012. Because our department relies heavily on frontline staff it's always important to get in early if you don't want to end up with a random assortment of time off! Mr W finds this difficult to understand as he doesn't like to plan ahead for holidays (he reminds me of the time when he arranged to go skiing with The other Mr W, his brother and each thought that the other was booking it; they only discovered 24 hours beforehand but still managed to get away), and also because he works in a different sort of environment where you can ask for time off the week before and generally get it!

But for me it is the planning and the looking forward that is part of the fun. We booked our wedding trip nearly a year in advance and very few days would go by without me looking at the website of the resort or of the hotel and thinking about it. We have already booked 6 days in my beloved Cornwall for my birthday in April, returning to the place we stayed at last year, since staying 20 metres from the beach is probably the only reason that I made it into the sea so early in the year (sans wetsuit). Mr W would like to go on a boys ski trip with the other Mr W, and has also got to attend a week's Open University school. As he gets only 4 weeks hols to my 6, and as I spent quite a lot of my remaining days off this year at home doing the washing, I am wondering if I might be brave enough to go away on my own. Specifically, I am wondering about a swim camp in Tenerife. It would involve 4 hours on a plane (terrifying!), but would mean sunshine in February, lots of coaching from a coach with great credentials, nice food, and swimming in outdoor pools and the sea....ho hum...I shall continue to secretly think about it. That would leave 1 more week for Mr W and I to go away somewhere at the end of the summer - probably self-catering...but where? Cornwall again? Back to the lake district? Where else is good for walks/swimming/national trust properties?