I’ve just got back from the most stupendous holiday cottage in Norfolk, tucked away in a sleepy village near the Broads, and honestly, the real magic wasn’t the thatched roof or the wood-burning stove – it was the quirky locals who turned it into a proper laugh riot.

Picture this: first morning, I’m ambling down to the village shop for milk and a paper, and there’s old Reg behind the counter, a proper Norfolk character with a face like a weathered barn door and a flat cap that’s seen more summers than I’ve had hot dinners. “Mornin’, stranger,” he grunts, eyeing my southern plates like I’ve landed from Mars. I ask for semi-skimmed, and he launches into a ten-minute rant about how full-fat’s the only way – “Cows don’t mess about half measures, do they?” By the time I’ve paid, he’s roped me into his theory that the Broads floods are caused by “government spies damming the dykes.” I nod along, chuckling, thinking how I’d kill for that kind of unfiltered chat back home in London.

That set the tone. Next day, we hired a little dayboat from Potter Heigham – classic Norfolk Broads stuff, chugging through reed beds alive with coots and marsh harriers. Moored up for lunch at a pub called the Bridge Inn, and who’s holding court but Madge, the landlady with a laugh like a foghorn and stories for days. She’s on about the time a herd of escaped Konik ponies from the nature reserve gatecrashed her beer garden. “Trooped in bold as brass, nickin’ crisps off plates!” she cackles, pouring me a pint of Adnams. Over my ploughman’s, she quizzes us on city life: “You lot still eatin’ kale smoothies? We’ve proper cheese here!” We’re in stitches, swapping tales of her run-ins with twitchers who mistake her cat for a rare owl.

Afternoons were for gentle wanders along the coastal path near Sea Palling – those vast pebble beaches where the North Sea roars like it’s got a grudge. There, I bumped into Bert, a retired fisherman mending nets on the beach. Proper salt-of-the-earth, with hands like lobster pots. “Storms brewin’,” he mutters, squinting at the horizon. We chat seals – he swears there’s a colony off Winterton that “sings shanties at night.” I half-believe him; Norfolk’s got that otherworldly vibe. Light moment of self-reflection there: chatting to Bert, rod in hand, I realise how knackered I am from office grind, and how a bit of this simple yarn-spinning is just what my soul needed.

Evenings back at the cottage, we’d fire up the Aga for a roast, but the best bit was popping to the local for a jar. There was Pete the postman, who delivers on a bike rain or shine and reckons the royal mail’s secret is “brandy in the panniers.” His tales of lost parcels washing up on Cromer beach had us howling.

Norfolk’s locals are gold dust – eccentric, warm, and full of that dry wit that makes you feel instantly at home. That week chatting with Reg, Madge, Bert, and Pete? Pure therapy. If you’re after a holiday that’s more about people than postcards, book a Broads cottage sharpish. You won’t regret it.