The Systems Administrator has returned from Cheltenham suffering from a fresh outbreak of the cold we've both had intermittently since Christmas. Fortunately the SA had a good day at the races first, but by the evening had a sore throat and tickling nose, which couldn't be blamed on the dry air of the hotel as they lasted all the way home. An outline plan to call in at Ikea for bargain storage cabinets was abandoned, and I thought I'd better try and be nice and offered to cook the supper. Sometimes I can see why wealthy Edwardians just headed south for the winter, and amused themselves making second gardens on the Med.
Escape to the sun not being an option, I consoled myself with the new National Trust and RHS handbooks trying to imagine where we might go on holiday this year. A weekly rental is cheaper and more restful than hotels or B&Bs, unpack for the week and we're done, with privacy and the freedom to come and go as we like, but it does mean that we need to stay somewhere with enough things to amuse ourselves for an entire week without too much driving about. So last autumn a half-formed plan to finally go and visit the West Somerset railway died a death once we worked out quite how far down the motorway we'd have to drive to get there from Gloucester, and how many roadworks sections we'd encounter along the way.
It makes me think that tourist attractions shouldn't automatically regard other attractions springing up on their doorsteps as rivals for the same consumer pound. They might be, but they might also be contributing to a honey pot effect that brings in more visitors in aggregate than either would ever have got separately. Would you go and stay in Minehead for a week if the only amusement there was the steam railway? Probably not.
I have a dark and lurking suspicion that the preserved railway is the only thing in Minehead. The people who write tourist websites have strange and sometimes desperate ideas of what might attract visitors, to judge from the one I've just looked at that boasted that their high street had a range of national retailers including O2. Sorry, but who is going to choose their holiday destination on the basis of being able to visit a phone shop? I don't think I've ever been to Minehead, and it is quite possibly very pretty, but the map north of the M5 does look rather empty. There is a lot of Exmoor, which would be lovely for a day but not necessarily for a whole week, especially if it rained.
Instead I was eyeing up Dorset. I would love to go and see the exotic gardens at Abbotsbury, but one set of gardens no more a holiday makes than one steam railway, so the question is whether there are enough other things within striking distance of Abbotsbury, apart from Chesil beach, to make up a package. Or rather, somewhere we could stay that puts Abbotsbury within reach but takes in some more places as well, probably somewhere inland. I learned the general principle in O level geography that coastal towns tend to be poor because they have only half a hinterland. I suspect coastal Dorset is an exception to the general rule, but that doesn't alter the geometry of the thing, that if we stay on the coast we have only half as many places within a given driving distance.
I think the SA would like west Dorset. There is a tank museum, and if we are prepared to drive as far as Yeovil there is an aeronautical museum. And there are some nice cliffs, as well as Chesil beach, a couple of other gardens, a smallish steam railway and sundry regional museums. But I won't mention it until I'm sure there really would be enough to keep us happily occupied for a week, and besides, there might be somewhere else I'd rather go instead.
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