“We need to get away!” I say, nerves frayed. The seemingly endless days of the summer holiday – when neither waking up nor going to sleep are punctuated with  the urgency of anything important – need to feel the shock of something different to shunt them along into September.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the city in summer, the languorous days spread out in the park picnicking and feeling free. I never pine for winter. But when the picnics get boring and the children cry out for something else to do and my bank balance shows there is zilch left, I start to panic. The city seems to bloat like a saturated sponge, and everything and everybody seems to feel the strain. I become the frantic woman with the grotty children on a bus in rush hour who has not remembered water, sun-cream or, on my most ill-prepared days, my debit card.

Besides, it is my daughter who needs a holiday the most. She keeps telling me that she wants to stay put in her small bedroom at home in the stuffy heat, but I know that’s a sure sign that she means the opposite. Her friends aren’t around and she’s not engaging with anybody or anything that used to make her feel happy. I’m at a loss as to what will help to get her out of this fug.

So I tell her we are going to see her grandparents. Sometimes it’s OK to say, “We need to get out of here!” without feeling like it’s a cop-out, or that we’re running away.

R wants to join us for a while too, which is the first time he’s chosen to come on a holiday that includes extended family. We are all pleased with our decision.

When we arrive, there’s a small village waiting to greet us: parents, my sister and her children (whom we haven’t seen for ages), various cousins and cousins once or twice-removed (I am always unsure of which). It is a clusterfuck, but a bumptious, fun one. The garden fizzes with children’s whoops of delight and shrieks of “he hit me first!” or “she called me an idiot!” The kitchen table is a manic hive of people making supper for first and second sittings.

One evening after we’ve eaten, some of us play Scrabble. I have played only a few times in the past decade, and still think that 20 is a ludicrously high score. My daughter surreptitiously takes one of the Os from another player’s already placed word STORY and changes it to STIRY (“It is a real word!” she says later, when she is found out). With the O she makes COW, which lands on a triple-word score. “That’s what you are,” she says, when I spot her cheat. But we all laugh because it is funny. And then I realise that it’s the first time I’ve seen her happy in a long time.

“I wonder why anyone has a problem with animals licking the plates clean before they go in the dishwasher?” my mother says as she puts the dishes into the slots, the dogs getting stuck in as she stacks. She is always the initiator of controversial debate. My father says he can see why someone might have a problem eating from a plate that’s been slobbered on by an animal that also licks its own bottom. “But the dishes get washed on a 90 degree cycle!” my mother continues, incensed.

And that’s why family ground me. Because although I might not agree with everything they say or do, and I have not always appreciated their company when times were harder, I grew up with their ways. Now, I surround myself with familiarity when I need respite, comfort or to nuzzle into the safety and warmth that my loved ones provide. And R has spent a long time getting used to my family’s peccadilloes (lateness, high ratio of addiction, chaos, the sniffing of everything from knickers to food to see if it’s acceptable to wear/eat) and I’ve got used to those of his family (grinding punctuality, low ratio of addiction, the chucking away of anything even slightly dubious smelling or offensive-looking).

With family, we don’t have to stand on ceremony. The children particularly enjoy being looked after by people whom they love, who are not their teachers or parents. And for us adults, it’s a reminder of our own childhoods; the good and the bad, a time before the pressures and responsibilities of the grown-up world informed our every move.