Cornwall's idyllic seaside makes for the perfect staycation

I AM A bit like a bird designed to flee Britain for holidays, but my husband does not share my views.

This year he managed to sway the popular vote in our house, resulting in a democratic decision that half-term should be spent in Cornwall.

And so it was, with a very excited dog packed into the car, we headed for the south-west coast to St Mawes.

The final part of our five-hour journey was on a ferry but not any old ferry. The King Harry Ferry is one of the last chain link ferries in operation and its 300-metre crossing of the Fal River saves us a 27-mile round trip.

More significantly the ten-minute sail adjusted us emotionally, allowing us to decompress, leaving behind the hectic energy of London.

We yearned for the slow, tranquil life of Cornwall, where locals nod and wish you a good morning, where if your journey is delayed by a herd of cows ambling leisurely down a single-track lane, it doesn’t result in road rage.

The fishing village of St Mawes on the Roseland Peninsula makes you realise the perfect seaside towns on chocolate boxes are for real. Lots of crooked houses, each in their own hue of white with windows in various colours, clutter a steep hill overlooking a horseshoe-shaped harbour. Shops selling clotted cream and fudge abound, interspersed with signs for freshly-caught crab.

True, it is the British seaside as imagined by tourists but it happens to be utterly authentic.

I’d overheard a whispered conversation between seven-year-old Ludo and five-year-old Iona about how daddy had told them about fudge, something they had never tasted. In order to extend their patience on the long journey, we agreed that our first stop would be at Fudge & Moore for a taste of this Cornish food of the gods.

We were heading to Penolva, perched above the sea and just a five-minute walk to town. The house sleeps eight in extreme comfort.

Privately owned by a family with small children, it is ideal for two families, with two huge master bedrooms at each end and two smaller but-no-less cosy twin rooms in-between.

With various colour schemes and all with en suite bathrooms, four couples would be impressed with the layout too. The house is built around the magnetic view of St Mawes harbour, with sash windows offering views that would delight even the most well-travelled.

The huge living room has plenty of nooks in which to nestle up with a book and a cosy TV playroom at the back of the house, with a selection of toys and fancy-dress outfits, would keep our brood happy in case the weather turned nasty.

Terraced gardens bursting with all the plants Cornwall’s gardens, warmed by the gulf stream can nurture, were filled with palm trees, agapanthus and hydrangeas. A narrow stone path led down to the rocky foreshore on which a jetty enabled the sensitive footed to avoid an undignified clamber into the sea.

The afternoon of our arrival heralded a sunset that lit the sky with a pink so vivid that the Fogles could not resist a swim. However while it looks like the Bahamas, the moment you dip a toe in, you realise with a huge shock that we are a lot further north.

Afterwards, swiftly wrapped in towels, we scooped up our brave children and, teeth chattering, raced back to the house and straight into piping hot water in a claw-footed bath, watching the sunset from the generous windows.

In such a perfect house I would normally be delighted to stay put. However on the sun-bleached scrubbed oak kitchen table was a list of things to do in the area.

From the best rock pool spots (Tavern beach) to where to get crabbing bait (the kindly butcher), from the best cream teas (Miss V’s) to a day’s mackerel fishing aboard a commercial fishing vessel, the owners of the house had compiled a list of their favourite activities. Looking down the list, it dawned on me that a week would not be enough and so we got planning.

The children’s vote was for crabbing so we called Chris, a local RIB owner. He delivers us to the Pandora Inn, known for its crabbing and for its food, in adrenaline-charged style.

There’s nothing like a 20-minute blast of sea air and the joy of whipping across a grey sea to make you enjoy a plate of steamed Cornish mussels. In the gentle sunshine we drank Cornish ale while the children flung smelly bait into the water, hauling an impressive amount of crabs into their waiting buckets.

The following day we wound our way towards the hidden cove of Portloe by car.

Widely considered to be one of the prettiest villages in Cornwall, its steep-sided valleys have ensured it escaped the development that has blighted much of the rest of the coast. As we explored the doll-sized port, we stopped to watch a group of boys hurling themselves of precipitous rocks into the icy Atlantic below.

Skirting the entire six hundred odd miles of the Cornish coast, this trail is better than any adventure playground.

As we heaved ourselves up the steep climbs, our children raced ahead yelping with glee, clambering over rocks, peering over vertiginous drops into the wild sea below all the while imagining the adventures of long lost pirates.

THE KNOWLEDGE

St Mawe’s Retreats (0800 088 6622/stmawesretreats.co.uk offers seven nights at Penolva from £4,500 (sleeps eight). Cornwall tourism: visitcornwall.com