Why Our August Family Holiday Matters More Every Year

Me and my family, in Arnave (ariege) a beautiful village in the south west of France.

At 7am, the campsite is almost silent.

My wife and children are still asleep and I am sitting on the terrace of our mobile home with a coffee, answering a few emails before the heat arrives. In another hour or two, the place will look very different. There will be towels hanging everywhere, somebody asking what we are doing today and, almost certainly, at least one person who does not want to do whatever the other five have decided.

For the past four years, this has been our August.

We come to the same campsite near Foix, in the south of France, and stay for almost a month. It sits close to the river Ariège, with the Pyrenees around us. We have a large mobile home – a static caravan, as we would probably call it in Britain – and by now the children know the place almost as well as we do.

They know the pool, the paths and the short walk to the river. They have made friends here. Some of those friends return every summer, and there is something rather lovely about watching the children pick up relationships that have been left untouched for 11 months.

We recognise people too. Not necessarily close friends, but familiar faces. People you wave to because you remember them from last August, and the August before that.

It gives the place the feeling of a small summer village.

Our routine is hardly adventurous. We go to the pool most days. In the evening, we often walk the few minutes down to the river, where there is a restaurant and beach bar with DJs playing most nights. Then we come back and sit on the terrace, sometimes until one in the morning, usually with a game of Uno that becomes far more competitive than any card game involving coloured numbers has a right to be.

Nobody in our family seems to agree completely on the rules, which probably explains a lot.

These are not extraordinary moments. That is increasingly what I like about them.

At home, life has a way of dividing a family into separate timetables. School, work, appointments, homework, shopping, screens, somebody needing a lift somewhere. Even when everyone is in the same house, we are not necessarily spending much time together.

Here, there is simply more time.

I still work. Being self-employed means I never completely disappear for four weeks. I check the website, answer emails and keep an eye on the affiliate business, usually early in the morning while everyone else is asleep.

But by the time the family wakes up, work has mostly moved into the background.

There is another reason we spend August here.

I left France in 1993 and have spent most of my adult life abroad. My parents still live in Foix. My father is 91 and my mother is 84.

When I was younger, I did not think particularly deeply about what it meant to live away from them. There was always another visit to arrange, another year, another summer.

Time looks slightly different now.

Spending almost a month here means we are not simply arriving for a rushed few days and leaving again. My children see their grandparents. They spend time in the town where I grew up. France becomes something they experience rather than simply somewhere their father came from.

And without really planning it, we seem to have created a bridge between the family I came from and the family I have created.

Perhaps that is why this holiday feels more important each year.

Our eldest daughter, Nerea, is 17 and will be 18 in November. The twins are 16. Our youngest is 10.

For years, taking the children on holiday was simply what we did. We chose somewhere, packed the car and everybody came.

Now the maths is beginning to change.

In a few years there will be university, work, partners, friends and holidays that do not involve parents. Spending almost an entire August together may no longer be possible. It may not even be desirable from their point of view.

And that is fine. Children are supposed to grow up.

But you can understand something intellectually and still feel slightly unsettled by it.

It makes me notice things I probably ignored when they were younger: the pile of wet towels after the pool, the noise around the table, the children walking a few metres ahead of us on the way to the river.

Even the supermarket has become part of the ritual. French supermarkets still feel like a small event after living in Britain: huge displays of fresh food, cheese, fruit, bread and the inevitable debate over what everyone wants for dinner.

Then we go back to the mobile home and eat outside.

Some days we drive further. Toulouse is nearby. Andorra is an easy day trip, and the Costa Brava in Spain is close enough when we feel like crossing the border.

Other days we do virtually nothing.

Increasingly, I think those might be the better days.

Of course, four weeks together is not some idyllic exercise in family harmony. Teenagers remain teenagers in France. People argue. Somebody always wants to leave five minutes after somebody else has finally settled down. Six people sharing one mobile home can occasionally feel like at least two people too many.

But that is family life.

By the end of August, we will pack everything back into the car and return to Britain. School will start again. Work will speed up. September will arrive, and Christmas will somehow already seem close.

For now, though, everyone is still asleep.

My coffee is almost finished. The campsite is beginning to wake up.

Soon someone will open the door and ask what we are doing today.

I am not sure yet.

And for once, that feels like exactly the right answer.

Jerome