The HOLIDAY from HELL!

The most luxurious escapes aren't always the most enjoyable, as Emma Green discovered - the hard way!

- Emma Green

You've heard of the Dark Ages and the Victorian times. Well, then came the 'Sex and the City era' - the one in which I became a grown-up. A wonderful era for women - a terrible time for eyebrows. During those years, SATC showed us what it was to be a woman in your 30s and 40s. We anticipated a world of phenomenal outfits, hilarious chat, enviable apartments and inexplicable prancing. And wonderful holidays! I looked forward to those most of all. Carrie Bradshaw and her chums had taught me that when I became a proper woman, I would 'summer' places. Yes, summer like it's a verb.

I'd summer in the Hamptons with three of my best gal pals, who'd amuse me with bawdy conversation over an endless supply of cocktails - and we'd do it all while wearing beach-appropriate heels. Afterwards, we'd return to our regular lives of non-stop brunching punctuated by minuscule amounts of entirely satisfying work.

Fast-forward to today. I'm now in my 40s, and I've still yet to 'summer' anywhere. I have been camping 376 times, but now that I've matured, I suspect that the Hamptons is a place of fairy tales, and truthfully I'm glad-because I've given birth to four of the largest babies you've ever seen, and it would take a dangerous number of cosmopolitans to convince me to tuck my floppity tummy-apron into a pair of bikini briefs and display it on a beach full of carefully coiffed Hamptons-types. In fact, I've been surprised to discover that I rather love unsophisticated British breaks, where nobody's fabulous in flip-flops and factor 50, nor are they witty in wellies.  And no one looks cool eating a Cornish cream scone... except maybe Ross Poldark?