This year it was all about the stay-cation; a mixture of the credit crunch and green one-upmanship was leading the most unlikely types to boast about how they were shunning their usual couple of weeks in the south of France or Tuscany for a fortnight on the British Riviera. Boden catalogues were being thumbed, cashmere cardies and sundresses packed . . .

Well, aren’t we regretting it now. Last week I came back from my two-week summer holiday spent under growling grey skies, sheltering behind a windbreak, where my garment of choice wasn’t my new swimming costume but a trusty North Face waterproof. Sunglasses? Pah. A sundress? Are you joking? I wore my thermals.

First we went to Dorset (renamed Pour-set by my five-year-old because it didn’t stop raining once). Then we battled up the A350 (constant roundabouts and lorries; it took longer than it would have done to get to Turkey) to the Cotswolds. I’d bought a new hammock and I didn’t get to sit in it once. And then the grand finale. Four days in Devon. Optimistically I said to the kids, “Don’t worry - Devon is heaven.” Granted, it wasn’t quite Pour-set: we got two sunny but breezy mornings. And then it rained again. This time it was torrential - and we were camping at a music festival.

One night it was so wet that when I rolled over in my sleeping bag I felt the mud go squelch underneath the tent. Yuck. We looked like refugees caught in some muddy hell. And that was before the walk to the chemically sweet, noxious, heave-inducing portable toilets.

I’m sorry to moan but I know I’m not alone. My two weeks off were punctuated by texts and calls from similarly bedraggled and gloomy friends. “What’s the five-day forecast?” texted one from her camp-site on the Isle of Wight. “Feeling a bit grim - had to pack up at 5am as tent blew away. All soaked. Grrrrr.” I was unable to offer any succour. The five-day forecast on the BBC read: showers, showers, showers, heavy rain, heavy rain.

Sunshine is not a prerequisite for a happy holiday, but in August a little bit certainly helps. I’m not an idiot: I didn’t expect it to be 30C; I know Lyme Regis is not Amalfi. But, honestly, it felt more like November. I’d envisaged sunny days lounging around outside, living close to nature, playing, blowing bubbles - some al fresco dining. In fact the children spent most of the time inside, drawing pictures or watching videos (thank God for Finding Nemo and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang), while I conjured up the kind of hearty mission - wet walks, improving visits to sopping National Trust gardens, riding - that I’d dreaded as a child.

I’m glad to say that we didn’t resort to brass-rubbing (always my mother’s most dire threat). But we did go (oh glamour) to the West Midland Safari Park, which had fantastic white lions and tigers, shivering elephants, a horrific amusement park and obesity on a US scale. The cost was staggering: adults and kids £10.50 each, so including grandma that was £50 before we’d even bought an ice-cream - and the rides were extra.

When it comes to the credit crunch you are better off on a package tour to the Med: a stay-cation doesn’t come cheap. Fleeing the drenched festival, we stopped for breakfast at a Little Chef on the A303: £40, it cost, for a few beans, rubbery scrambled egg and carton orange juice. What a rip-off. I thought fondly of fresh baguettes, confiture and croissants . . .

The food is definitely a downside to holidaying in Britain. At the seaside we ate our body weight in English breakfasts, cream teas and fish and chips - the only food on offer. I sympathised with pals who were giving up on Dorset and going to northern France this week, not because they expected better weather (they were resigned to the drizzle) but because they couldn’t face prowling round another branch of Spar trying to find something they wanted to eat. (Certainly I fell upon the 24-hour Tesco outside Exmouth: rocket - oh joy! Olives - bliss. Decent wine - hallelujah.)

Eating out in rural Britain is generally a joyless experience typified by possibly the worst restaurant meal of my life in a posh pub called The Anchor Inn in Burton Bradstock. It promised local fish lovingly cooked, but was straight out of Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. The food was overcomplicated (everything stuffed with something else and smothered in the same glutinous sauce). Even worse was their attitude: despite turning up when the place was empty at 6.30pm with hungry children, we were told they wouldn't even put our order into the kitchen until 7.15pm because it would irritate the chef. When my pregnant sister-in-law asked for just a potato they said she had to order a main course or go hungry. And the disgusting food was about £20 per main course. This rudeness was unfortunately widespread.

Another notable example was in Budleigh Salterton, where in the driving rain we headed for The Cosy Teapot. Warm cheer was in short supply: instead of a dry perch and a cream tea we were greeted with a sign saying, “No children under 10 allowed inside”. I was livid. If a cafe posted a sign saying no disabled people or no black people there would be an outcry. Then, when I read last week that there are now more pensioners in Britain than there are children, I understood what the future holds.

Expect children to become even more personae non gratae and a nation where grumpy old bags rule the roost with their child-catcher nets at the ready. Large tracts of the south coast are already oldies-only zones where families venture at their peril. It made me think longingly of a sunny holiday in Cyprus where the restaurant owners cheerily played games with our toddler so that we could eat our dinner in peace. I cursed our cold geriatric island.

It wasn’t all bad - we had exhilarating chilly swims (my brave girls going blue with cold); hilarious blitz spirit jokes - I haven’t giggled so much for years; and family chats and cuddles while the rain poured down. We certainly hung out, a lot. And since wet afternoons with small children often seem never to end, I guess my holiday felt longer than usual.

Next year we’ll be heading for the Med. See you there.

+ One great delight in all the rain was reading The Rainbow by D H Lawrence. What everyone forgets in all the Mellors, Lady Chatterley sex/class fog that surrounds this great author is just how brilliantly he describes feeling.

Unlike any modern writer he gets to the heart of what it means to be human, why two souls connect, the essence and flux of passion: how one moment you can hate someone and the next love them passionately. And Lawrence was so ahead of his time in his descriptions of independent women who work and love and live on their own terms.

On Chesil beach briefly, I watched as two rainbows arched over my head; both literary and real, the rainbows were the highlight of my holiday.

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