The best UK holiday I have ever been on was in the summer of 2016, in Helford, West Cornwall. You know those few precious weeks per year we get in this country where the sun shines wall-to-wall and we sit in our gardens briefly forgetting about the three months of rain that just finished falling yesterday morning? Someone was smiling down on us the week we went to Helford,
because we somehow managed to have 26 degree sunshine for the entire week.
We stayed in a little cottage on the harbour front that was about 30 steps from the village’s only pub - The Shipwright Arms - where I first tried scallops and where we ate dinner for six out of six nights of that holiday: the pub was recently refurbished with an outdoor pizza oven set to the gorgeous river backdrop, but due to its monopoly on the village still had the feel of a cosy, local haunt. Because of the weather, the village was buzzing and every evening the pub’s garden was
full of wine-drinking holiday-makers (except for us, we’ve always been gin fans), lots of cute dogs, and lots of families enjoying slightly extravagant pub-grub by the river.
The village itself is tiny, but at that time my family needed an escape, so its peaceful seclusion was perfect for us. We only left the local area once for a trip into the nearby Falmouth. During the summer months there is a ferry service that runs across the Helford River to the Trebah Gardens, which have their own little beach, two incredible ice-cream parlours, and are filled with gorgeous
tropical plants; and they’re dog-friendly – we went across to these gardens twice with our two dogs, who swam in the sea, and it was all very idyllic.
Before crossing back over the river to our cottage, we stopped for lunch at the Ferry Boat Inn where I had a crab and avocado sandwich that I STILL think about, four years later. A five-minute drive away from Helford is another garden called Bosahan, which has a woodland walk down to its own cove, complete with rock- pools, and is genuinely just the most gorgeous beach I have ever seen – and again its dog-friendly which meant our whole family could get involved.
I loved this holiday, and every Christmas since, me and my family have reminisced about it with such happy, healing fondness.
I have to admit that without the gorgeous weather we may have struggled for things to do, however it truly does feel like an escape from reality and I cannot wait to go back.
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