No matter how much they love you, even the most devoted child is likely to start daydreaming about walking home from Marseille after more than a few days cooped up in a cottage in the middle of nowhere with just her dad and his dreadful jokes for company. Even if there's a gang of you, self-catering holidays mean somebody still has to cook, wash up and shop. It can all feel like same old routine, new location.
And so it is, that when the holiday season comes around, we tend to opt for the sanctuary and back-up of a hotel and all its attached activities.
You don't need much more than a sprinkling of batty guests to liven the whole thing up and with any luck most hotels will offer a whole lot more, not least other kids for yours to team up with, leaving you time to make an impression on that pile of books.
Kids love hotels. They can't wait to prowl round the breakfast buffet with the eagle eye of the big-game hunter, and they love lying around in bed flicking through hundreds of TV channels. They think it's a hoot that this is one place they really can treat like a hotel and that smiling women appear out of nowhere to fold up their strewn-around clothes and make their beds without yelling at them.
They also enjoy the independence of it all: padding off down the corridor swinging a room key having arranged to meet you by the pool in half an hour, and the thrill of being asked, several times a day, if there's anything they want: simple enough pleasures but hard to beat in the world as it should be according to children. The freebies and miniature packs of everything, from shoe-cleaning kits to peanuts, are also a serious source of joy - not just for kids.
But there is nothing more grown-up and utterly sophisticated than picking up the phone to order room service. I just love it when nibbles are wheeled in on a little tray, so heaven knows what it's like for a 10-year-old girl.
Last year our destination was the Hyatt Hotel in La Manga Resort, 1,400 acres of hyper-plush greenery surrounded by lemon groves, palm trees, and the locations for spaghetti westerns on the Costa Calida in southern Spain. It's one of the sunniest, driest spots in Europe, and that was fine by us. The hotel sits in the centre, surrounded by a series of small villages of self-catering apartments and posh villas (sporting celebs like Nigel Mansell and Kenny Dalglish own property, and you're likely to be tucking into breakfast at the hotel with the likes of Sir Steven Redgrave, Jerry Guscott or Glenn Hoddle, all of whom are paid to act as roving ambassadors for the club. Hoddle was there at the same time as us, and, it turns out, plays a mean game of tennis).
Of course the hotel is fabulous. Five-star stuff (comfort, shops, restaurants, bars and service), but no attendant ponciness. All Moorish courtyards, marble staircases and fountains... but you didn't feel like a prat if you walked in from the (glorious) pool. We loved it, and spent most of our fairly unathletic holiday soaking up the sun and swimming.
Now I would rather eat my feet than play golf, let alone have to listen to blokes in dodgy sweaters bang on about their swing. But in fairness there was precious little of that. Loads of folk had come to play and all seemed to be in paradise. There are three championship courses (five Spanish Opens have been played there), and they looked gorgeous; they even felt gorgeous too when we padded barefoot across grass that felt like luxury carpet to get to a restaurant.
The place is perfect if you want to be active - tennis, squash, horse-riding, a great fitness centre and numerous watersports at nearby Mar Menor. We settled for tennis: the centre is superb (the Fed Cup has been played there a few times) with more than 20 courts. There are all surfaces, well-organised coaching surgeries for all ages and abilities, video training sessions and private lessons. I had a couple of hours pounding the court with the head coach and thoroughly humbling it was too. Other sporting highlights are world-class soccer facilities, which is why Premier League clubs are always sloping off there for some winter training. Oh, not to mention Real Madrid, and Sven's boys as well ... so you never know who you might run into at Spike's Bar!)
We tended to eat out. The resort has about 20 restaurants all in, but we tended to go up to the little vilage of Las Lomas, where there was a great Italian, Luigi's, and a perfectly OK Chinese too. A car is worth hiring: things are a bit spread out, and it helps for a visit to La Cava, a pretty little cove where we skin-dived in bath-warm sea then gorged on lush seafood at the beach restaurant.
Finally, a note for lovers of bad behaviour: the La Manga Hyatt also has a casino, very relaxed and with an appropriate number of girls with low-cut dresses, fleshy Spaniards flashing wads and grizzled farmers down from the hills making sure the Rioja revenue is quickly recycled. I did my patriotic bit to get rid of any surplus cash so I couldn't contribute to a consumer boom. I couldn't have done that in a cottage.
Factfile
Barwell Travel (020 8786 3000) offers one-week packages for £698 per adult and £673 per child (peak season) including return flights (from Gatwick to Murcia), transfers and bed and breakfast.
Prices based on two adults in one room and two children in another, and on travel during the Easter or summer school holidays.
