Have you ever looked forward to something rather more than it deserves? A couple of times a year we go down to a caravan near Hastings on the south coast of England. It’s big enough to be reasonably comfortable but a long way from luxurious. Our little family (five of us for those who didn’t know) went down there recently for four days. Monday to Friday is our habit simply because it means only 4 nights in the small and uncomfortable beds.

Sounds okay? - I still suffer the trauma of a nightmare holiday many years ago when I decided it would be a good idea to grab a cheap caravan holiday in Blackpool; at the beginning of October (fool!). In those days we only had two kids, the youngest still sleeping in a cot. It was three days before I could get the heating working and then I had to get up at 4 o’clock in the morning to give it time to warm up. There were storms whipping in off the Irish Sea and we sat in at night with the caravan swaying and the walls booming in the winds. There were many more horrors to that holiday but they are too awful to recount, suffice it to say that I swore then never to set foot in a caravan again.

Well, time heals and the draw of a short break, in what is affectionately know to us as ‘Grandma’s Caravan’, has enticed me to give it another go. With good weather it’s not so bad.

Hastings is a typical south coast English town. It is a mixture of old traditional housing dating from its fishing community origin and more recent, less appealing, additions such as games arcades. Along the seafront there is a pebbly beach with a short pier. There is also a promenade where we are often found in the evenings, in search of ice cream and occasionally a bag of chips.

We arrived this time around on a bank holiday and the town was unusually full of people. Many of them young with, it seemed to me, strangely unsettling eyes – maybe it’s my imagination.

One quieter evening, while on one of our ice cream sorties, we parked at one end of the town and were greeted (well assaulted really) by the sound of rhythmic drumming. Curious to find the cause we set out in the direction of the noise expecting to find some sort of preschool outing. What we actually found, squeezed between a small museum and a gift shop, was a motley group of people ranging in age from about 12 to 70. Each was equipped with a drum and they were all banging away to a very repetitive rhythm. A man in a chequered shirt, clearly enjoying himself, was doing something which he probably thought of as conducting. Every now and then he would point enthusiastically at one of the group who would obediently bang a bit louder. As far as I could see, once the basic rhythm had been mastered there was no particular skill involved.

After a few minutes and at no particular signal that I could detect, the banging suddenly stopped. At this point one of the crew, a girl of about twenty, was briefly promoted to leader.

She took the place of ‘chequered shirt man’ and launched into an enthusiastic attempt to persuade the group that they should all sway in time to the rhythm. This took rather more coercion than you might expect and after some minutes of demonstrations, practice and exclamations of “oh go on – it’ll be fun” chequers stepped in again. ”Okay” he announced “lets have a go at (some title or other that I don’t recall)” He glanced around at the small audience – which amounted to the five of us, a young couple, three drunks and a dog. When he was sure that all eyes were on him he raised his hands ready to give the signal to start. The air of expectation was underwhelming, and then down came the hands – I couldn’t believe it – unless I’m very much mistaken, it was the very same tune (Hmm, not the right word) rhythmic hammering that we first heard. The dog got up and walked off squeezing a squeaky toy as he went. We followed shortly after, somewhat perplexed.

The rest of our stay went quite well. The weather stayed dry enough for us to get out and about. On a trip to Rye, where we always end up at least once, we found two new areas to explore. The first was the harbour which turned out to have a large nature reserve associated with it.

In the town itself, there is a cobbled hill lined on either side by quaint old houses. Never having been up it and with time on our hands (we’d been in all the gift shops and browsed all the usual old tat) we took it upon ourselves to explore. What we found at the top was a very welcome surprise.  It was the old town with an old church, yet more quaint old houses and a castle.

The castle was a bonus – but only open on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday (we went on Wednesday – no surprise there). Of course that means we will be compelled to go back another time. Maybe later in the year we will take another four days down at Grandma’s caravan. I expect by then we will once again be unaccountably looking forward to it rather more than it deserves.