LUCY FOLEY, AUTHOR
Where is it?
The Dorset coast.
Why do you go there?
For glorious summer days on the beach with my little ones spent picnicking, sandcastle-building and fossil-hunting. Such outings have a timelessness to them: families have been doing the same thing for perhaps hundreds of years.
But there’s an even deeper sense of history at work. In the West Country, it feels as though wherever you look there’s some Neolithic structure or place of important folkloric interest.
I really immersed myself in all of that - the weirder the better - while writing my new book, The Midnight Feast.
How often do you go?
As often as I can, but realistically a few weekends every summer.
How did you discover it?
We’ve been going since I was small. My dad went to school in Lyme Regis back in the day. But each time we go it seems we discover something new.
Such as a pub, the Square and Compass in Worth Matravers, with its own enormous collection of weird and wonderful fossils.
Or a different secluded bay that we’ve never come across before. And a wild “swimming pool” set into the rocks. Known as Dancing Ledge, it is in an indent in the rock left by the quarrying of local Portland stone.
What’s your favourite memory?
Going last summer with my then two-year-old. It was actually a pretty chilly day but like most kids he’s apparently impervious to the cold if there’s a chance of splashing about in some rockpools.
I’ve always been fascinated by rockpools: it feels as if you’re peering into a mysterious, miniature universe. I love having the excuse now I’ve got little ones to go poking about in them again. Not that anyone needs an excuse.
Who do you take?
My little family of four.
What do you take?
A book, just in case there’s a chance to read a few pages. Probably wishful thinking, but I’m ever hopeful.
A picnic. I love a breakfast picnic of bacon rolls on the beach, followed by a swim in the sea as that, to me, feels like the essence of being on holiday. Buckets, spades and a net for the rockpools.
What do you leave behind?
A phone signal. Ideally my phone full stop. Bliss.
Sum it up in five words.
Secluded. Timeless. Salty. Breezy. Mystical.
What other travel spot is on your wish list?
I’d love to visit Orkney as I’ve never been. I’ve heard midsummer there is a magical time when the clarity of the light is particularly striking, and the sun never really sets.
The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley (HarperCollins, £18.99) is out now
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