I’ve just got back from the most stupendous holiday cottage in Norfolk, tucked away in a sleepy village near the North Norfolk Coast Path, and honestly, it’s the quirky locals who made it unforgettable. The cottage itself was a dream – cosy beams, a wood-burning stove, and views over rolling fields dotted with those massive East Anglian skies – but it was the characters I bumped into that turned a simple week away into a proper laugh riot.

First off, there was Derek, the chap who runs the village post office-cum-pub down the lane. I popped in for a pint after a bracing walk along the beach at Holkham, sand still in my trainers, and he clocked me straight away as a “proper southerner” (guilty as charged, from London). “You lot think Norfolk’s all flat fields and seals, don’t ya?” he grinned, pouring my bitter with a flourish. Turned out Derek’s a retired fisherman who swears he once wrestled a seal off his boat during a storm. “Big bugger it was, eyes like saucers!” We chatted for ages about his glory days hauling crab pots off Cromer, and how the tourists now outnumber the seals in summer. I couldn’t stop giggling at his tales – proper Norfolk yarns, full of deadpan humour and zero exaggeration, obviously.

Then there was Madge, the WI queen from the next village over, who I met queuing for fresh crab at a stall in Wells-next-the-Sea. She was in her eighties, with a handbag bigger than my rucksack and opinions sharper than a fishmonger’s knife. “Holiday cottage, eh? Bet it’s got one of them fancy hot tubs,” she winked, as we bonded over picking the best dressed crab. Madge regaled me with stories of her glory days entering the World Gurning Championships up in Egremont – yes, really, face-pulling contests. “Norfolk’s got its own weird ways, love, but we don’t pull faces for prizes here; we just scare the crows off the beet fields.” Her laugh was infectious, and she even slipped me her recipe for proper Norfolk fumitory pudding, which I’ve vowed to attempt (though I suspect mine’ll taste like regret).

Wandering the flint-walled lanes near Blakeney, I got chatting to old Tom, a thatcher who fixes the reed roofs on cottages like mine. He was up a ladder, hammer in hand, when I asked about the “wicked” winds that whip in from the Wash. “They’ll strip the thatch faster than a politician’s promises,” he quipped, before launching into a monologue about how Norfolk folk are born with webbed feet from all the flooding. We ended up sharing a thermos of tea, him perched like a bird on the roof, me feeling a right townie below.

Reflecting on it now, amid the chaos of London life, those chats grounded me – a gentle nudge that real connections beat scrolling any day. And the best bit? Derek invited me back for next year’s crab festival. Norfolk’s magic isn’t just the Broads or the bird reserves; it’s these eccentrics who make you feel like family after five minutes. If you’re after a holiday that sticks, grab a cottage here and let the locals work their charm. I’m already counting down.