A treehouse is a nice place to wake up in. I go out on to the decked platform area, stretch and beat my chest: "Aaaaarrrr-aua-aaaaarrrr-aua-aaaaarrrr…" That's the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan call, obviously. The animals of the jungle stop what they're doing and listen up. Well, a family of Somerset ducks take no notice and carry on paddling across the nearby pond. But I'm allowed a moment of fantasy.
Right, what does a man do about breakfast around here? Maybe I'll go and gather something. Or hunt it, a squirrel or a badger perhaps, then skin it … What's that delicious smell, though? Oh, my girlfriend – let's call her Jane – is cooking locally sourced and ethical oak-smoked bacon. With poached free-range eggs, forest mushrooms and Fairtrade coffee. Followed by a slice of lemon cake made by the lady who owns the B&B, in whose extensive grounds the treehouse sits. Oh well, that'll have to do.
I have to say I imagined a treehouse experience to be more basic, more rustic, more aaaaarrrr-aua-aaaaarrrr-aua-aaaaarrrr. I certainly wasn't expecting underfloor heating in the bathroom. And Wi-Fi! There's a kitchen with all mod cons including a dishwasher. In the living area (the whole thing is like two cupcakes joined at the hip) is a woodburning stove for chilly evenings and winter.
It has been decorated tastefully, possibly with ideas from the pages of an interior design magazine. Tree-jou, you might say. The big double bed has crisp cotton sheets and a plethora of pillows and cushions. At the foot of the bed, in the rounded window, is an enormous free-standing copper bathtub. Who'd have thought it – a huge bath, with high-end bottles of smelly stuff to indulge in, and white fluffy towels warmed on the heated towel rail for when you get out, all half-way up a tree?
Actually we're not really up a tree at all. If I was being very pernickety I could say that technically it's not really a treehouse. The staircase (obviously I was hoping for a rope ladder) takes in a tree, a beautiful Turkey oak, on the way up. But the house itself is supported from the ground by pole, not by the tree. It's a house on stilts then, next to a tree. This probably means it meets higher levels of health and safety and doesn't sway around in high winds (alarming when you're in that bath, I imagine), but I can't pretend the Tarzan in me isn't a tiny bit disappointed.
But still, it is absolutely bloody lovely. 'Er indoors loves it too: this is definitely a Jane-friendly kinda tree house. And even if you're not actually in the tree, you're still up there, among the leaves, with the rooks gossiping and high, high up above, there are swifts – tiny scimitars in the sky – screeching. I can't think of a nicer place to have breakfast.
• Harptree Court Treehouse, East Harptree, Somerset. Book through Canopy & Stars (01275 395 447, canopyandstars.co.uk), from £175 per night (sleeps two, no kids or pets)
