holiday planning

Well, the first two weeks of June will be our summer hols this year. Phil booked the time off, but of course, we haven't decided where we're going or what we're doing. We'll spend part of it at home, probably just hanging out and doing some work in the garden, by which I mean, "sitting on the patio, swilling Pimm's or mojitos." We definitely do want to get away though; our long weekend in London last autumn was the first holiday we'd actually gone somewhere in years. I suspect I'm basically a homebody at heart, but I truly am all in favour of going away for a bit, to let somebody else do the cooking and cleaning. I'm not very good at letting things go at home when I'm supposed to be relaxing.

So far, discussions have centred around Edinburgh, York, possibly London again, maybe Brighton -- although Brighton in early June sounds kind of nightmarish for crowds -- or, as an outside possibility, renting a cottage somewhere in Deep Wales. Cornwall or Devon sound tempting as well, but Phil and I are very, very bad at dealing with touristy places in tourist season (this would be why our holidays usually take place in autumn or winter) so we'd like to minimise that as much as possible. Everywhere you'd want to go in Britain is usually thronging with tourists, alas, so probably we should just decide where we really want to go, and then just suck it up and deal with the crowds.

At the moment, surprisingly, I find myself leaning to York. Phil did his undergrad there, and lived there on and off for about a decade, so he has loads of friends there and knows the place well. It's also where we went on our honeymoon, which I really couldn't enjoy at the time, as I was both ill and suffering from post-wedding nervous collapse. Possibly the least sexually-charged honeymoon ever, but I did love the place, and I'd like to see it when I'm feeling well.

Even though I love Brighton, I am not really a beach person, so crappy weather doesn't bother me a bit when I'm on holiday. I can't think of anything more boring than having to slather myself in super high SPF sunblock and then just sort of sit there in the sun. So in Brighton, we walk on the pier, because I must have my candy floss, wander up and down the hills and through the Shambles, and spend a lot of time sitting in nice pubs. Which, minus the pier, candy floss and hills, is probably exactly what we'd do in York, with a trip to the Minster and a walk along the city walls instead. See, now I'm getting very warm to the idea. The fact that I know for sure there is a good yarn shop in York has nothing to do with it.