We do like to be beside the seaside. And we are going on a beach jaunt this year. But most of our summer will be spent in London. We're lucky enough to have a garden, and it's even got a trampoline. We might invest in the tiniest playhouse we can find, so that the children can have a picnic even when it rains. But whatever we do, it's mainly going to be the same four walls, and a postage stamp patch of green. There are only so many trips to the Natural History Museum even the most dinosaur-obsessed family can undertake. So I've come up with a plan to become an occasional urban refugee. And we won't even have to leave the M25 corridor.
The Grove hotel bills itself 'London's country estate'. And for a couple of nights, it's going to be mine. The location, near Watford, doesn't sound massively promising. But Queen Victoria once stayed here, and more recently Tiger Woods and the England footie team, and if it's good enough for them... 
The hotel's long drive takes you past a canal (you can get here by boat, though it's an eight-hour chug from central London). The main hotel dates to 1878, though it's the newer wings and massive carparks that really hit the eye. Ignore, ignore - you'll soon be playing in 300 hectares of grounds, and possibly hitting an award-winning spa, should you be able to persuade the children into the kids’ club. Not that they should take any persuading. I’ve been there, the sunny holiday when you’ve planned a couple of hours off (that’s all we ask!) to bask on a lounger and read a book. Cue an urgent call from the kids’ club because Jnr hasn’t stopped screaming since you left. Anouska’s Kids’ Club is one of the best I’ve seen – and the two-and-a-half-year-old didn’t want to leave, so I hope that means he agreed. It’s OFSTED-regulated, and all the rest of it, but it’s the attitude of the staff. No bored teens chatting about their boyfriends while handing children the occasional wooden block. Football camps, nature safaris, tennis lessons, swimming sessions in an indoor pool. Plus racing around in a huge outdoor playground with swings, shaded sandpit and enormous fort. It’s more like a nursery school, with all the interaction that suggests, than an add-on kid drop-off area. And it’s a very reasonable £6 per hour per child.
The Sequoia spa takes looking after mummy (and the occasional daddy) just as seriously. ESPA treatments all kick off with a diagnostic chat, treatment rooms are low-lit, and there’s a glorious relaxation room. The pool is enormous, and you could spend at least an hour using the heat treatment area with its menthol lifestyle showers and vitality pool with hydrojets. Apparently, the golf is just as smart, ‘Felt more like being in the US than Britain’ according to someone who knows (and cares) more about these things than I do. And when you want to hang out as a family, there’s the outdoor pool with a real beach. By real, I mean lorry-loads of imported sand, buckets and spades to borrow, and a beach hut dispensing drinks.
There are also loads of restaurants. We tried The Stables (lunch 12am-4.30pm; dinner 6pm-9.30pm), which sits alongside the golf course. Staff ferried over crayons, and didn’t mind a child falling asleep on a banquette. Portions are enormous, so if your child is aged under five, one meal should easily feed two. We also tried an evening buffet option in The Glasshouse, a greatest hits of sushi, ribs, curry, you name it. It was more pile-it-high than haute cuisine, but ideal with picky youngsters in tow. Mixologists, by the way, really know their stuff and their seriously dangerous cocktails are addictive – you’ve been warned. There are only 27 rooms in the original building, the rest are strung out in the newbuild wings. Very comfortable, with large beds and bright bathrooms, many with rolltop baths that could fit a family inside. Not massively romantic though, and as the hotel is something of a conference destination, expect to walk past delegates in the morning as you wend past, possibly with a screaming child under each arm.
It’s a great break, very close to London, and there is masses to keep the entire family occupied. The hotel is also packed with contemporary art, including very cute farm scenes in Perspex boxes. These sum it up nicely. The rural idyll, with none of the mud. As a child brought up on Dartmoor, and now a mum of three, it's occasionally nice to have a break without having to bring along wet wipes by the truckload. 

The Grove, Tel: 01923 296010. Chandler's Cross, Hertfordshire WD3 4TG. The Great Escape is from £280 per night, b&b.  Children stay free when sharing parent's room (adjoining rooms available at 25% off the usual rate). Valid 22 June to 28 August, 2009.