Lara King

The illustration shows a smiling couple on a yacht, the wind ruffling their hair and the coastline receding into the distance behind them. Above it are the words: ‘Work out of London – get more out of life.’ Something from the post-Covid work-from-home era, perhaps, or Boris Johnson’s 2019 ‘levelling up’ election campaign? No – this is the work of ‘The Location of Offices Bureau’, set up by the Tory government in 1963 and abolished by Margaret Thatcher. The advert appears on the wall of a decommissioned Tube carriage that’s one of many frozen in time in a warehouse in west London. In the latest issue of The Spectator, Richard Morris writes that museums often have a ‘wealth of treasures… hidden away in storage’ and argues that more should open their vaults.

We’re in the elegant 1820s parlour of a five-star, Grade II-listed hotel. There’s music playing softly, and opposite us, one particularly well-groomed guest is wearing a bowtie.  A three-tier cake stand is brought to the table. On the top tier sits a selection of homemade biscuits and a fluffy cupcake finished with a swirl of yellow icing. Beneath that is a thick wedge of cake with what looks like pink and white buttercream oozing from the middle. And on the bottom tier is a finely decorated China bowl, piled high with… mashed-up meat?

Last summer, when Covid forced the cancellation of our holiday, my husband and I had a staycation. We read books, played games, drank Pimm’s on our patio and invented ever more imaginative ways to avoid our DIY to-do list. Each morning brought the usual bills and junk mail to our door rather than a hotel breakfast tray, and there was no one else to do the washing up or freshen up the bathroom towels. As of this week, apparently, millions of other people are doing the same thing. The Sunday Times heralded ‘the return of the staycation’ as ‘the great unlocking begins in earnest and we are allowed to stay away from home overnight’, while the Daily Mail declared ‘It’s staycation mania!