It’s August, so it must be time for The Bodens Summer Special! Having identified the Bodens as organic middle-class rivals to the Archers, we will now go travelling with them. Reader Stephen McClarence e-mails me: “The question is, where do the Bodens go for their holidays?” He thinks it may be Aldeburgh, in the aspirant Hamptons of Suffolk. “At weekends, metropolitan holiday-homers turn the place into Boden-on-Sea.” But, he claims, other sources have placed Boden-on-Sea in Holkham, Norfolk.

Another group of Boden-watchers insists they rent villas around Lucca in Italy – I’ve certainly had a humiliating Boden moment there, simultaneously spotting three North London families in an obscure trattoria in the wilderness. There is also the Hotel Bodensia at the Bodens Golfklubb in Sweden. Or, as McClarence notes, “Maybe they prefer German spas and go to Boden-Boden.”

Wherever the Bodens are, we are watching them in their linen drawstring trousers and their striped towelling hoodies from the eponymous mail-order catalogue. Any Boden worth his moleskins is of course staying in Britain this year, and being punished by the deluge. “Flying is a bit naff, isn’t it?” says one damp Boden, bravely. “Abroad is so over, what with the school fees.”

But my fellow creator of the Bodens BlackBerries me to deny this: “I sit here in my Boden halterneck summer dress (summer sale catalogue) at a global warming conference on the Greek island of Paros in an eco-hotel – and yes, we did buy carbon offsets for our flights – and you tell me that Greece isn’t Boden enough!”

No, and if she read the Boden-bloggers – who have twee names like Suffolkmum, Blossomcottage, Tattie Weasle and Muddyboots – she would know that she flew too far. Guiltily, she tried to reach her next destination, Avignon, by train, but it cost thousands for five people. “So it’s back to Ryanair with our tails between our legs and more trees to be planted in Guatemala… anyway, this lack of reasonably priced decent train services to the South of France for Bodenfolk has exercised me greatly of late...”

For Bodens, you see, every holiday is a struggle between high expectations (of themselves) and horrible reality. For instance, Mr Boden’s holiday reading is obviously The God Delusion in beach paperback, but he never gets beyond the first chapter because he’s got the new Ben Elton comedy hidden beneath his towel, and when Master Boden leaves Harry Potter VII around, he has a furtive dip into that. Mrs Boden is being bored to distraction by McEwan’s On Chesil Beach, and her distraction is reading Miss Teen Boden’s Luuurve is a Many Trousered Thing.

It is just the same when they bring a pile of classical CDs to educate the children in the car. As the Bodens lose themselves and their hybrid Lexus in the country lanes of France or Cornwall, wondering why their GPS is even more unreliable than Mrs Boden, they actually listen en famille to Great Rock Anthems for the Road and Keane. Rainy-day games are equally disappointing: the children are dismissive of charades, Cluedo, or poker for Smarties. “That is so last century,” they say moaning about the lack of WiFi and taking to their beds to pick their noses and play PlayStation portables.

The trouble is that Bodens, being mostly city-raised, lack that true, hearty Christian love of the country. They suffer instead from Petit Trianon Syndrome – a curious need to style their surroundings to imitate the imperfect-perfection of the Cath Kidston catalogue, Coast magazine or the Country Living summer picnic pages. They imagine large, languid family meals, and forget long, laboursome washing-ups, and secretly they would be much happier going to the seaside chippie. Mrs B stupidly attempts activities – like baking heirloom apple pies – that she would never do at home, because she’s too busy or too drunk in the evenings.

But the studied blinglessness must be maintained. In Boden beach huts, the casual bleached driftwood furniture and ticking covers are actually very expensive and professionally distressed. Even when Bodens fall on hard times, they don’t go on an ordinary camping holiday in a caravan. Instead, they rent an uncomfortable Fifties silver Airstream. As for a tent, it must be a yurt.

The Bodens’ quest for holiday perfection can annoy local folk. I know a farmer in Scotland who waits until the Boden neighbours arrive, then finds his stinkiest silage and dumps it in steaming piles behind their former farmhouse. He also parks a rusty car directly in their view, and ensures the rumble of heavy machinery early in the morning.

For all these reasons, I am leaving the Boden clan. This holiday, I shall be wearing my new wetsuit every day, in celebration of La Niña. The wetsuit and walking boots, a midge-proof outfit for all occasions. Now, if Cath Kidston did a retro floral wetsuit…

kate.muir@thetimes.co.uk

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