The lap of luxury

We have just got back from a week in Pembrokeshire. This holiday felt totally and utterly luxurious and indulgent and stupendous. We were just in a simple little cottage but after our last two camping expeditions, you really really appreciate basic things:

• like a solid stable waterproof roof over your head
• like having exclusive access to your very own flushing toilet and hot shower just a couple of metres away, and not having to traipse 500 yards across a wet muddy field, only to queue for 20 minutes and then to hover over a wet toilet seat and then get into a cold trickle of an excuse for a shower.
• like going to sleep at night in a proper sand/damp-free bed, without the overwhelming fear of getting wet or blown away in the night .
• like having four hobs to cook with (as opposed to one hob that keeps blowing out in the wind and is rather limiting in the cooking stakes) and the satisfaction that your kids are eating good hearty and varied meals as opposed to bread rolls and cheap sausages from the local shop every night.
• and having a kitchen sink with hot running water to wash up in, as opposed to a freezing cold tap in the corner of a field that sprays all over you when you turn it on, and being safe in the knowledge that Dolly's bottle is squeaky clean and doesn't have traces of cold sausage fat and grass smeared all over it.
• like having a fridge to keep things cold, as opposed to a cool bag, which keeps things cool for about an hour before the cheese sweats, the milk goes off and the fruit starts to smell.
• And having SPACE - space for your kids to roam freely and safely within the walls of your dry warm cottage, space for them to play without nagging you every two minutes, and space that means you are not having to retrieve them from other peoples tents every 30 seconds.

Camping was brilliant, and amazingly good fun, and I still stand by it being one of our best holidays ever, but we were certainly ready to holiday in the lap of luxury.