In a couple of weeks I’m going on my holidays. Well, staying on my holidays really. A two-week staycation road trip. I can’t wait. I’ve quite possibly spent longer planning and booking the trip than the trip itself will take. I love a good bit of anticipation. I’m a bit like one of those friction cars – the anticipation bit when you pull it back is what powers it to go forwards. 

It’s a tricky balance though. Spend too much time anticipating and looking forward to things, and the reality can be a disappointment. Don’t spend enough time, and, well, that’s just a waste. And then there’s the other side. The anti-anticipation. The risk that all this looking ahead gets in the way of the looking around at where you are. The risk that the holiday is overtaken by also being the run up to coming home again.

Two tactics. A bit of the old mindfulness and having a stab at that ‘being in the present’ malarkey. Not a strength of mine, but the sort of thing you at least have to be seen to be practising in this day and age, if only to justify use of the #righthererightnow hashtag on Instagram. Secondly, and probably more effectively from my perspective, a reminder that coming home isn’t actually anything to dread. In fact, I quite like home. I’ve chosen to live there, after all. 

So now all I have to do is remember to enjoy the holiday in between anticipating my return. And given the inclusion in the itinerary of opportunities to sample the full range of local delicacies (Cornish pasties and Devon cream teas being top of the list), somehow, I don’t see that being a problem.