My beach holiday is out. Ill forgo the palm trees, but I draw the line at camping – The Guardian

My first holiday memory was potentially a horror story. I was five and my parents had taken us to Deauville, an oddly fateful holiday that led to me writing a book 35 years later (have I mentioned, Ive written a book?). But it also could have been the holiday that doomy movie music, whirl to camera ended life as I knew it.

It was the last day of our vacation and I, chubby as a tomato, pottered off to look for shells. (People with children, you may want to look away now and rejoin in two paragraphs time.) Alas, I failed to inform my parents, because they were being extremely boring, talking to a couple theyd met on the beach and possibly glancing through three-day-old newspapers (note to younger readers: befriending strangers and reading out-of-date newspapers was how people distracted themselves on holiday before the smartphone). Too late, I realised Id lost sight of them and was now lost in northern France, where my language skills were limited to pain au chocolat useful at the hotel buffet, less helpful in getting me back to my mother. I calmly walked on, in the wrong direction, while my poor parents hysterically scanned the ocean. I spotted some French children, who seemed enormous to me but were probably all of 10. I cant find my parents, I said. Miraculously, one spoke English. Come with me, she said.

Spoiler: she did not lead me to a circus troupe, and I did not become a tiger trainer named Mademoiselle Sans Peur. She took me to the authorities, who announced over the speaker that an American child had been found. I still remember how the boardwalk bounced as my frantic mother ran towards me.

While my parents continue to suffer from PTSD, this experience was so formative and so devoid of any negative associations for me that the one lesson I took from it was that holidays mean beaches. Deauville was my first small taste of independence and self-sufficiency, and I still celebrate my adult landmarks on the beach, including my 30th and 40th birthdays, and the first big holiday I took with my boyfriend, to a beach in Sri Lanka. On the first morning, post buffet breakfast, I flopped into a sun lounger, picked up Slashs autobiography, ready to settle in for the next two weeks, when my boyfriend said something odd.

So is this what you do on holiday? he asked. I looked at him as if hed asked if I would have a pia colada before 10am: ummm, yes? Obviously this is what I do on holiday. What else is there?

For Sartre, hell is other people; for me, hell is other peoples holidays. When I was young and eager to please, I agreed to go on holiday with friends. This turned out to mean, horrifyingly, a cycling holiday a contradiction in terms. From then on, I dragged people to the beach with me or often went on my own. My boyfriend is generally happy to join me, but I (sort of) accept that I occasionally have to go on his idea of a holiday, too, which is a decidedly English one. Namely, it doesnt count if there isnt some kind of discomfort to overcome.

How about camping? he asked early on. I explained that this was impossible because we Jews have bad associations with camps, and to question this was a form of violence. I once interviewed Nick Jones, the founder of the Soho House chain, and he said something that I have thought about at least three times a week since: Why go on holiday to somewhere worse than your home? Some people get their mantras from wise gurus, I get mine from Soho House. And while my house is messy at times, it does have a functioning toilet, meaning its a hard no to camping from me.

But since having children, my grip on holidays has been slipping. Its expensive to take three children on a beach holiday, although my boyfriend has tried his best. The first year, we took a (6am! Death!) ferry to Deauville, where the beach was a lot colder than I remembered, although at least I didnt lose myself or a child. The second year we went to Cornwall, which is lovely but the weather was dismayingly English for all that money. Next year, I promised myself, sheltering behind a windcheater, I would have palm trees and coladas, even if I had to sell one of the children to get there.

Well, we all know how that turned out. By default, my boyfriend has won this years summer holiday. Yes, he makes sympathetic clucks, but he thinks I cant see him gleefully Googling campsites within driving distance. Treacherously, my two older children are excited about this, suggesting they may need a maternity test. God knows the coronavirus has had worse side-effects, but the beach is where I blow off steam. So now here I am, full of steam, a kettle without a spout.

This year has become, for me, about compromise, but also about knowing myself. For our summer holiday, the boys will go camping with their father, while I stay home and watch movies with the baby, revelling in my indoor plumbing. Then he and I will go for a one-night mini-break. After all this, 24 hours in a Kent B&B will feel like a fortnight in Barbados. And if thats not growing up, Ill eat a palm tree.