Tenby

We're packing now because on Friday we are going to Tenby in South Wales for a week.

We have been doing this annually since I was a child: I had my ninth birthday there. And my tenth. And my eleventh. And my - - you get the picture.

It's not that we don't go anywhere else: we do: but going to Park Hotel is like coming home. It has been owned by the Howells family since well before my ninth birthday. Bill Howells, an ex-teacher, built the hotel in the early nineteen-sixties by buying some Victorian houses on North Cliff, hiring some builders and working alongside them to get the place converted into a hotel. In a stroke of genius, he and his wife Edna built an open-air swimming-pool next to the hotel. That was the attraction that made us go there in the first place.

The hotel has a pool at the top of the cliff and a glorious beach at the bottom, with safe swimming and few currents. There are beautiful walks along the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path. Those are the things I like best: but there are many other things too and I'll be telling you a bit about them, once I've packed lots and lots of swimsuits and towels in the Big Red Bag that Connie gave me for my birthday.

Here is a sunset over the sea at the far end of South Beach from last year: some seals are smiling for the camera, little knowing it was too dark and they were too far away.