An off-peak holiday to Padstow

My husband, daughter and I (plus Hetty, of course) recently had an off-peak holiday to Padstow. My daughter has done her A Levels and is off to university. As she’s our youngest child, it means that we’re no longer tied to school holidays for our family holiday! We’ve had kids at school since 2005 (although we did take holidays in school time when my eldest was in reception, year 1 and year 2).

Not only are we no longer ruled by school holidays, but my husband reminded us that ‘it’s always hot when the schools go back’. Last year, we had a cold and wet holiday to Padstow in July, then a heatwave at the start of September. That first week of September was by far the hottest week of the year. So my husband’s idea for an off-peak holiday seemed like a good one.

We had intended for my younger son to go on holiday with us too. He loves a family holiday to Padstow. But what we didn’t realise when we booked it was that, going into the third year of his medicine degree meant he had to go back to uni a month earlier, as he is in hospital most of the time now. So that didn’t work out well for us!

We booked a dog friendly cottage on High Street, Padstow. We couldn’t get in until 4pm (it definitely used to be 2 or 3pm, the changed was made for Covid and it never changed back). We normally set off for holiday at 6am because the roads are ridiculously busy in the high season. But as it was off-peak and as the weather forecast was bad, we set off at a very respectable 10:30. Nobody had told the motorway that it was off-peak! We were never at a standstill, but the roads were very busy and slow. And Sedgemoor services was absolutely rammed. We hadn’t intended to stop there, but we’d already been in the car for two hours by that point.

We arrived in Padstow just in time for our 4pm arrival.

There was definitely no sign of the amazing back to school hot and sunny weather. Although my son informed me that it was 25 degrees and sunny in Birmingham. But if you go on holiday in September, even though you hope it might still be warm, your expectations for the weather are generally lower than they would be in July and August. Which is lucky, because the weather was pretty poor all week!

The holiday cottage was amazing. The front of the house is two-storey – with a bedroom and bathroom on the first floor and a bedroom and lounge on the ground floor. The back of the house is a huge kitchen with a ceiling which is the full height of the house. It looks like a church, but was apparently an old school. It also has a utility room and a beautiful shower room. And, randomly, TWO staircases – pretty unusual for a two-bedroom cottage. Although only one toilet, which was in the ground floor bathroom. And that’s not great for middle aged people who need to go to the toilet in the night!

Of course, it is a dog friendly cottage. But there were rules. Dogs weren’t allowed upstairs or on the settees, beds etc. So I was relieved about the ground floor bedroom. Hetty sleeps in the hall outside our bedroom at home, but on holiday she gets a bit unsettled if she doesn’t know where we are and also reacts more to noise outside. So she slept on the floor in my daughter’s bedroom – not breaking any rules! (There were stair gates for each of the flights of stairs, so she couldn’t accidentally break the rules.)

When we arrived in Padstow, it was SO QUIET. We love Padstow of course – we go back every year. But it is usually a heaving mass of people. The harbour is always incredibly crowded and the narrow shopping streets are so busy that we usually carry Hetty, so she doesn’t trip people up or get trodden on. Our off-peak holiday was nothing like that and it was so nice!

Although we paid a visit to St Ives on the Saturday and that was still very busy.

And Padstow was still pretty busy in the middle of the day, mainly with older people and their dogs. (There’s always a lot of dogs in Padstow, but it’s next level out of season.) I love seeing older people with their dogs. They just pour all their love and care into their dogs and their dogs give them so much joy in return. This will be our lives very soon.

It was clear how much quieter it was when we went running along the Camel Trail. Usually, the Camel Trail is packed with families on bikes. You can’t move for speeding teenagers, wobbly 7-year-olds and parents towing babies and toddlers in trailers. This time, we’d seen five runners before we saw a single bike. And we’d run eight miles before we saw a cyclist under the age of 60.

There are two types of people who go on holiday early in September – people with babies and toddlers and older people (ranging from mid-50s to late 70s). The Stable restaurant on Fistral Beach was full of the former, while St Ives on Saturday lunchtime and Sedgemoor services were full of the latter.

I’d taken beach towels to Padstow, because I’d naively imagined we’d be sitting on the beach. Nobody was sat on the beach. It was too cold and wet. People were just walking with their dogs or surfing (on Fistral).

For the cheaper holiday and the quiet town, I loved our off-peak holiday. It was very relaxing and just nice to get away and spend quality time with our daughter before she goes to uni. But for the weather, it wasn’t great. Although I have no doubt that it will be back to boiling hot at the start of September next year, as long as we don’t book a holiday to jinx it!