JOYFUL STAYCATIONS FOR A POST-LOCKDOWN TREAT

When can I travel again in the UK, you ask? Soon, my friend! Boris Johnson recently announced that self-catered holiday accommodation should be able to open from 12 April, while a staycation in a hotel will be possible from 17 May. So what are we booking? See below.

PHOEBE MCDOWELL

ASSOCIATE EDITOr

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Associate EDITOR

PADSTOW

Now is really the time to rediscover England, isn't? You can crab in Devon; charter boats on the Cornish seas; swim in the ice cold lakes of Cumbria; hike mountains on the Isle of Skye. It’s with that, that I and nine friends, decided on a trip to Padstow. We’re staying in an old watermill with a dipping pond at the end of the garden (it looks as magical as it sounds, actually). There’s also an outdoor pizza oven, ideal for when the heavens decide to open. We’re hiring a boat (less catamaran, more engined inflatable) to do some fishing, swimming and snorkelling. Surf school will be booked at an ungodly hour on a Sunday, because there’s nothing to celebrate a hangover on holiday quite like being thrashed about in stormy seas. Much to the annoyance of Padstein’s residents, we’ll slurp an oyster from a restaurant by a man who will not be named. We’ll reflect on the fun we could have been having abroad, and land on the fact that this was best all along.

EMMA FIRTH

ASSOCIATE EDITOr

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Associate EDITOR

BIRCH

Staycation, vacation, micro-cation. Personally, any kind of “cation” requires three things: Doing Very Little. Preferably in a country estate that makes me feel like a character in a Jane Austen novel. I don’t know whether that makes me sound high or low maintenance? Anyway. Being that friend who can’t drive, I feel somewhat guilty suggesting we venture far and wide outside of our London dwellings to seek such an establishment. Thankfully BIRCH - a new urban escape in Waltham Cross, just 30 minutes away by train from London - has opened up and I’m more than a bit excited to give it a whirl. In terms of style, housed in a grade II listed Georgian mansion where you can stay, it ticks that box. Substance: there’s a pick of two restaurants in which the chef is Robin Gill of The Dairy and Sorella in Clapham, a co-working space, three bars, wellness studio; plus, screening, music, and art rooms. Typically, I have an acute allergy to organised fun, though I’m drawn to their ceramic workshop in the pottery studio and glass-blowing sessions, followed up by a gong bath and walk around the gardens. I fear this could be my new favourite place, and I’ll never want to leave. Watch this space.

Birch