Hotel Manor House.

Hotel Manor House.

Here in the heart of North London suburbia we are now surrounded by hotels, luxury apartments, huge tower blocks and so many noises that you'd be forgiven for thinking that you were living next to a pop music festival in full spate or next to Liverpool's Anfield. Maybe it reminds you of the more geographically correct  and  new Spurs ground which has just opened nearby.  Nobody can possibly foresee an end to all of this building, re-building, hauling, lifting and heaving. Suffice it to say that they could be here for some time. Slowly but surely as they say.

At the moment all you can hear is a constant beeping, grinding, wailing and whining, enormous cranes swinging from side to side in a constantly balletic fashion. In fact there is something distinctly graceful about the whole operation in as much that everything seems to be moving in a very deliberate and orderly fashion.

There is a sense in these parts that by the end of all this wondrously ambitious construction work the builders will leap up and down with joy, throw their hard hats into the air exultantly, celebrate in that very manly way that comes so naturally to men and then do the conga down Green Lanes. They may well converge en masse to  the pub where several amber coloured pints of lager will undoubtedly be consumed.

But across the road from us a brand new Travelodge hotel is taking shape and given the abundance of bed and breakfast hotels around here, it does seem totally in keeping with the character of the Manor House area. Thick blocks of concrete are being driven into the ground and the columns are rising into the air with a robust solidity. There are makeshift fences separating all of the half built bedrooms, builders wandering purposefully around every floor and an overwhelming feeling that here is a work in progress that can only be wholly beneficial to the environment.

Still, the fond thought occurs to you that hordes of tourists and holidaymakers from all over the world will inevitably descend on this North London paradise. The holiday season is upon us and Manor House could well become the new Costa Del Sol or some very exotic location where only a lack of striking palm trees and convivial bottles of sangria sets Manor House apart from its Spanish counterpart.

Sadly, there are none of the sprawling beaches that you would normally associate with the traditional seaside resort. We do have the magnificent Woodberry Wetlands which on a warm summer's day has so much to offer the inquisitive holiday maker. There are small colonies of duck, geese and swans blithely going about their business without a care in the world. At one end of the Wetlands there is a cafe with the very latest in organic cakes and biscuits where families take their children on those incessantly warm summer days. Prams and pushchairs come face to face with cute children's bikes and Manor House will resound to exuberant toddlers just happy to be alive.

 It is quite the prettiest and most heavenly of havens where endless days of summer sunshine will hopefully play host to those seasonal family picnics. Then there are the leisurely walks by a children's playground with its very own wigwam and the elusive butterflies that flit and flutter playfully between the bulrushes. The hotels of Manor House are ready  and waiting to welcome their new guests. It should be quite a summer.