I have moved house in the past with less gubbins than I am taking to Suffolk for a midweek break, my first trip away with my partner, Adrian, our four-month-old baby son, Jackson, and dog, Possum.
Car seat: check. Buggy: check. Rocker: check. Selection of stimulating squashy- squeaky baby toys: check. Sheepskin: check. Nappies: check. Emergency supply of Calpol: check. Milk: check. Bottles: check. Steriliser: check. Baby clothes for all weather: check. Dog bowls and food: check. Plus, squeezed into whatever room there is left inside what had looked, antenatally, like a sizable estate car, our own bags.
At this point I am enormously grateful that the hotel is providing a cot or Jackson, a bit of a bruiser, frankly, would have to be wedged into the Moses basket he's recently burst out of. That or sleep in our bed. Which would be... er, great. Cosy. Really relaxing.
By 9.30am on a deeply unprepossessing November Tuesday, we're already exhausted. An unrelenting heavy rain sets in before we stutter on to London's North Circular road, there to sit bumper to bumper for what seems a small eternity.
Not surprisingly, by the time we reach the A12, the baby is howling for another bottle and a nappy change, at which point I am reminded that the last hotel I stayed in (way back in the mists of March, when I was five months pregnant and the world seemed a less complicated place) was a Four Seasons in Bali. Hello, real life.
At its outskirts, the little Suffolk town of Orford starts off unpromisingly plain but it turns out to be pretty. It's got a squat church with a bosky graveyard, a small, perfectly formed castle, some desirable residences for sale in the window of the local estate agent-cum-antiques emporium (a smart, one-stop shop: buy the house, kit it out), a lighthouse and a blustery quay overlooking Orford Ness, the 10-mile headland, complete with 'concrete pagodas' and infamous as a secret military site controlled by the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment in the Fifties. Now a bird sanctuary, you can take boat trips out to the Ness during the summer, but in November the marshes are flooded and the view is defiantly Cold War.
The Crown and Castle Hotel was once the hot spot in which nuclear scientists would shoot the atomic breeze over a pint of Adnam's Old Mutant but, since 1999, when proprietors Ruth Watson, the cookery writer, and her husband, David, took over the shabby premises, the hotel has become a foodie haven colonised by weekending urbanites and recently made a guest appearance in Channel 4's Jamie's Kitchen.
The welcome is agreeably warm (Possum is given a dog treat and her own towel, Jackson's cot is ready for him, a baby monitor sits waiting to be charged), while our room, No 3, is light, airy and spacious, with a vast en suite bathroom. Within minutes, we've made it look far too much like home but, even better, back downstairs in a lobby dominated by a real fire, is a light lunch of artfully arranged local seafood, a robust steak baguette oozing onions and very slim, crisp golden chips. This may not be the Four Seasons but I can hardly hold that against it.
And then, by some blessed miracle (though some claim Orford has its own sweet microclimate), immediately after lunch the rain disappears, replaced by dazzling blue skies and a low winter sun warming the walls of Henry II's photogenic fortification over the road. The four of us venture outside, laden with accessories (buggy rain hood? Check, etc) and after a look inside the little four-storey castle - romantic enough for Rapunzel and spooky enough to feature in Tomb Raider - we discover Richardson's Smokehouse, a lean-to stuffed with delectable oak-smoked comestibles where it would be foolish not to stock up on a fabulous-looking ham hock marinaded in black treacle and cider (£4.60), a wild duck (£4.50)and pork and apple sausages (£3.50 per pound).
By 7.30pm, the baby is fed and down for the night, the dog is curled up on her towel in our room's sizable vestibule and I am gagging for dinner. An hour later, after the baby monitor mysteriously refuses to work, I am still gagging for dinner. Half an hour after that, with separate shifts the only option and Adrian downstairs ordering for himself, I am lying on our bed in the dark, wrestling with exhaustion.
Eventually, we reach a compromise when the hotel's operations manager, Helena Doy, mystified by the stubborn monitor, volunteers to babysit in total darkness while we bolt a quick course and a glass of something soothing downstairs. It's kind of her but far from ideal for us all. In the event, I'm wiped out and in bed by 10, while Adrian walks the dog. The baby is, of course, oblivious.
I'd like to say I wake refreshed but I am not a morning person. Jackson habitually surfaces at six and it's very, very dark on the Suffolk coast at that time. Still, after one of the best cooked breakfasts in memory, the day is pregnant with possibility. I'd like to show Adrian my favourite nuclear power station, Sizewell B, a few miles north, but we settle for a more traditional mini-break alternative.
'There's a new £5 million visitor centre at Sutton Hoo,' suggests David Watson, 'and they've just restored Southwold pier in the very best possible taste.' Adrian's never been to either but, unfortunately, on arrival we discover that Sutton Hoo is only open at weekends out of season. Hovering in an empty car park in front of the darkened visitor centre, I am reminded of National Lampoon's Vacation and the Griswold family's memorable arrival at Walley World.
At Southwold, Suffolk's Hampstead-on-Sea, both enthusiasm and blood-sugar levels are restored, alongside the town's chic new pier (the first to be built in Britain for 45 years and voted pier of the year 2002 by some august pier-loving body - members of the pierage, perhaps?). There are genuinely amusing hand-built arcade amusements in the pleasantly bonkers Under the Pier Show, while The Hook Line and Sinker tea-room welcomes small people, has proper changing facilities and - bless them - boxes of baby wipes. Even on a bleak early winter Wednesday, Southwold's dinky protuberance is doing brisk business. Some day, perhaps, all piers will be like this.
Even after a semi-successful outward-bound afternoon, the Crown and Castle's sofa and roaring fire combination is a tough one to beat, though I feel guilty about cluttering the lobby with dog, baby, buggy, bottles and the rest. After all, as David Watson had pointed out, though they welcome (well-behaved) children: 'This is not a family hotel - a lot of our guests are here to escape from children.' And, yes, there is a distinction. For example, though there are TVs with videos in all the bedrooms, kids are not allowed in the Trinity restaurant (they can eat elsewhere) because, presumably, you don't get a Michelin Bib Gourmand by rustling up Alphabetti Spaghetti on demand.
Still, it's a compromise that seems to work, and I hoped I wasn't pushing my luck by feeding Jackson in the lobby and having him nod off in his rocker in front of the fire. And before I get any letters accusing me of Michael Jackson-style parenting, I'd like to state that this doesn't, obviously, mean right in front of the fire like a toasting marshmallow, if only because that coveted spot had already been colonised by the dog.
In our absence, the entire charming staff, with whom we were now on first-name terms, had gone out of their way to solve the mystery of the baby monitor, which appeared to work in every room but ours. Still, no dice. Helena's last-minute solution was to dial reception on our room phone, and let us take the portable reception phone to our table for dinner. Smart girl: this allowed me to eat some scintillating skate and brown shrimps in butter. As there is no room service at the Crown and Castle, any potential guests with babies who aren't planning on fasting for the duration of their stay should bring their own monitor and request any room other than ours.
Meanwhile, I think I'll wait until my boy is in double figures, months-wise at least, before travelling with him again. Obviously, you can take a British winter break with a small baby and a dog, but the cliché rings true: you may need another holiday to recover.
Factfile
The Crown and Castle at Orford, Suffolk (01394 450205), offers a three- nights-for-two winter deal from Monday to Thursday, from 19 January, with dinner, B&B. A standard room is £320 a couple, or £370 for a garden room suitable for a dog.
