Time Away Down Memory Lane

When I was a child we holidayed for lots of summer's down in the rolling countryside of the South West's gentlest county - Dorset. I haven't been back since but this half term we took our little men away in our caravan for five nights of nostalgia in Hardy Country.

It was bliss. Weymouth, Dorchester and the pretty Wessex villages around have hardly changed in 25 years. Last time I was here I'd never even thought of having children and to be back on the very same stretch of beach with my little family, doing the very same things, was quite moving.

Weymouth's architecture is as fabulous as I remember. I'd heard the port town had faded a bit but I thought it was looking really rather lovely with fancy new restaurants and boutique shops but is hasn't lost any of its charm. These ice cream houses by the harbour fascinated me as a child, I wished I could have a room on the top floor and sit on a window seat to watch the boats come and go.

Oh the harbour! I love harbours, the busyness, the comings and goings, the colours and the journeys the people onboard are on - and it all began here, sitting enjoying fish and chip teas with my parents and sisters on summer afternoons. So we went straight there on our first evening this week and the chips still taste as good.

The tiniest things brought memories flooding back. Sand ripples on the shoreline, colourful streets and sails on the horizon took me back all those years in an instant.

Even the deckchairs are the colours I remember.

We packed so much into five days, (more of that another time), but just to see this view again was the stuff of my dreams. Happy days.