Purple felt tip stain, Whitby bus station

This is a proper family holiday, Mum, Amy and me at the seaside. I remember family holiday routines from my childhood, daily structures, conversational games, I think most families use these techniques to give a holiday a familiar, home from home feel. So each day we visit the beach and must take Amy's secret path, when we get there we have to say hello to the donkey we've adopted as holiday pet, and then it's time for sand castles, always stuck with flags.

It feels right to take Amy to stay in a seaside B&B. I visited Whitby when I was 6, and I expect the place has changed little since then. I made friends with a donkey called, 'Always First' - he never was. Amy's beach friend is called 'Polar Bear' - he isn't, he's a donkey too.

I haven't stayed in a B&B since I was a child, of course I view it differently now. With a cynical eye I decide Mums and Dads escape the 9-5 toil, to deal with 9-bedtime. A day at the beach is a good day's work. If it's rainy maybe they visit some castle or historic monument, and marvel at the olden days where whole families lived in one room with an open hearth, and survived on a limited diet of oats, and fish, when they could catch it. They'd laugh about all this over supper, at a place where finding something on the menu without chips would be a major challenge; then they'd return to their family room at the B&B, with a camp bed in one corner and a cot beside their double bed.

In the morning it's a 'Full English'. You can be proud of your heritage if you eat all this, and toast and cereal too. Mum and Dad will be happy if you can, knowing this means they can get away with a shared pack of sandwiches for lunch, or perhaps just an ice cream or two? Better yet the kids might fill up on their pocket money stick of rock.

At Full-English-Breakfast time there's always someone who tries to be fancy. You can order what you like, but there's never any need for a menu. So much to choose from, perhaps a sausage and bacon sandwich? Or bacon sandwich? Or egg on toast? Or bacon and eggs? Or to make a change why not try the eggs and bacon?

On the dining room wall there'll be a local print. There'll be pot pourri in a bowl (it's lost it's smell.) There'll be almost life-like flowers besides almost-antique china. If you pay more your evening meals are provided, prawn cocktail and melon starters guaranteed. Classier B&Bs have Games and TV rooms. Wise Mum's save up for B&B extras, they mean shorter working hours, 9-bedtime reduced to 9-tea, or 9-TV.

We stayed at an ordinary B&B, in a family room, with no evening meals provided, and no games or TV room. This meant drawing pictures while sitting on the double bed. I got purple felt tip on the duvet and Mum was horrified. Each day she'd dab at the purple stain I'd made, she'd fuss over it, seek advice on the progress she was making, and then hide it under a towel when we left for the beach.

I returned to our room on Friday because Amy had forgotten her bucket and spade. I found the B&B owner in our room, she told me about the shoddy work of the girl she'd hired to clean. She fussed about the girl not turning up that day, and said she'd have to clean herself. The purple felt tip pen stain was still tactfully concealed under a towel. I said goodbye to our B&B hostess, picked up the bucket and spade and left. I told my Mum about the incident - that was a mistake. I'm still not sure if it was just a coincidence, but 5 minutes after I'd told her this story she suggested leaving for York that day.

Everyone knows what to expect on an English seaside holiday, each happy routine mapped out from Full English breakfast, to sunny beach with donkeys, to family room bedtime. There's no place here for purple felt tip pen on the duvet. It would wash out - I didn't worry about it. But my Mum was used to proper seaside holidays, and so her Whitby holiday memories will be forever stained by purple felt tip pen.