The People of Dedham are Revolting

 This is the year of the staycation!

Some people who write this line to sell holidays in the UK are lying. What they want you to do is vacation in Britain. However, this is the year of the staycation for many people. They are staying each night in their own bed - £100 a night hotel rooms are out of their budget or they are still too frightened to go far.

The weather is helping and local economies (apart from areas heavily populated with offices) are growing. The more rural the better. If this carries on much longer we could see a complete turn around in the fortunes of those poor seaside towns. Money will flow in and everyone will wonder why Felixstowe has the best SATS results.

People are also making the most of the holiday at home experience by putting tents up in their back garden. There has been a massive increase in the sale of camping and outdoor equipment, which has allowed manufacturers to reduce their prices. Someone tweeted a Guardian article about this with the caption, “This really is the summer of discount tents.” I love a Shakespeare related tent pun.

People living in the lovely areas of Britain are a bit cross. They moved to these places to get away from the hoi polloi (or house polio, as my autocorrect tried to insist I typed). Suddenly, their rural idyll has been shattered. There was a lady from Cornwall on the radio, who was incandescent about visitors to her town. We were surprised because Cornwall is always busy in the Summer (is how we settled on Pembrokeshire) but I think there’s a combination of holidaymakers and staycationers. I have seen that locally to us the people who live in Constable country are also weary of the huge numbers of visitors.

I do feel a bit sorry for them. You don’t spend a million pound on a two bedroom cottage overlooking a river to watch teenagers jumping off bridges into the cow poo soaked water, leave their barbecue remains behind (Well, it is disposable) and have your nostrils invaded by the smell of weed and special brew. You hadn’t signed up to hoards of families cracking out the picnic blanket and tucking into their Billy Bear sandwiches, while the dad takes his top off, proudly displaying his 17 weeks of furlough tan.  (I’m expecting to see this reddish-brown shade all the rage in upper class home design stores next year)

I would like to apologise to those people of Dedham because yesterday I was one of the hoi polloi. We parked at Flatford, walked through Dedham to Stratford St Mary, stopping for a fantastic lunch at Milsoms. Ok. We were middle class hoi polloi. Maybe you didn’t mind us but I really enjoyed seeing people of all classes having fun, even noticing that the corporate lunch, complete with handshake isn’t dead.

I would like people to take their rubbish home with them but that’s another problem. 

It is a beautiful part of the country and worth upsetting the locals if you are staycationing.