Who's The Daddy: Bed by nine, sausages by day, all in all a perfect break

A two-room cottage in the middle of nowhere, days out to incredible towns, villages and a stately home that was hosting a vintage car rally, and up and out after breakfast after nine hours of solid sleep, all done dry as the driest of Dry Januaries.

Maybe these old timers are onto something, awake at 7am, do your day, dinner at 5pm, read for an hour or two to the sound of your favourite music and then flat out by 9pm. Clean living, there’s a lot to be said for it.

We spent four nights a few miles outside the North Yorkshire village of Hovingham, a place so stunningly beautiful that at first glance it looks like the set of a Richard Curtis romcom. The last time I saw a place so idyllic it was on the front of a chocolate box one Christmas in the late 1970s.

From there we went to Castle Howard (home of Brideshead Revisted and huge chunks of Bridgerton), York, Whitby, Robin Hood’s Bay, Scarborough, Malton and Helmsley while the summer sun beat down like a Cypriot August.

We walked around six miles a day, and the boy Walter saw some fascinating places and did some fascinating things. Like digging holes on Scarborough beach, being fed sausages in every cafe we went to and fawned over by a steady stream of tourists in some of England’s most scenic spots.

Me and The Boss had a great time, but hand on heart I couldn’t say we enjoyed it any more than Walter. Chasing his football around and lazing on a sunny lawn the size of a tennis court, our undivided attention and lunch and afternoon tea somewhere new every day - mainly sausages.

The only thing he didn’t care much for were the car journeys, only because he thinks he should be sprawled out on the back seat and not in the boot in his bed.

But as for us, we felt rejuvenated. It turns out that walking around in the fresh air all day is like medicine. Who knew? And because everyone else is either at school or at work, everywhere is miles quieter than the madness of the school holidays - The Boss in particular appreciates this aspect of it after she retired from a 32-year career in teaching last summer.

The Who’s The Daddy? column has now been running every week for the past 19 years and began when our daughters were six and four.

Now 25 and 23, and long since grown and flown, me and The Boss are now surrogate parents to a nine-year-old sighthound, who, despite huge potential red flags from the both of us about his behaviour before this holiday, was as good as gold. Like the vast majority of kids are when they get everything they want the minute they ask for it. Well, it’s Walter’s holiday too.

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