We’d barely made it past Alnwick when the satnav decided we were better off taking the scenic route through a field of sheep. By the time we found the right turning for Beadnell, the cottage key had vanished somewhere between the passenger seat and a half-eaten packet of Percy Pigs. We pulled up outside the little stone house just as the tide was turning, and I was still patting my pockets like a man who’d lost a winning lottery ticket when a voice behind me asked if I was after “the one wi’ the wonky gate.”

That was our introduction to Margaret, who lived two doors down and had clearly been keeping an eye on the place. She was already holding the spare key on a bit of blue string, and before I could finish thanking her she’d launched into the story of the last lot who’d stayed, the ones who’d tried to light the wood burner with yesterday’s newspaper and nearly set the chimney alight. “Mind you don’t do the same,” she added, handing over the key with a wink.

Inside, the cottage felt exactly right: low ceilings, a view straight onto the dunes, and the faint smell of salt and woodsmoke. We’d only just dumped our bags when there was a knock at the door. It was Dave from the lifeboat station, come to drop off a leaflet about the evening talk on grey seal pups. He stayed for a cup of tea, mainly because Margaret had already told him we looked “a bit lost.” Over the kettle he explained that the best fish and chips weren’t in the village at all but from the van that parked by the harbour wall on Tuesdays. “Tell them Dave sent you,” he said, then wandered off whistling something that might have been ‘Blaydon Races.’

By late afternoon we’d wandered down to the beach and met the woman who walks her terrier along the tideline every day at four. She didn’t give her name, just nodded at the cottage and said, “You’ve got the one wi’ the driftwood mantel, haven’t you? My Frank made that.” We spent the next ten minutes discussing whether the mantel was actually driftwood or just very old floorboard, and whether it mattered. She left us with a warning about the seagulls and a small bag of still-warm scones “for your first proper cuppa.”

That evening, sitting on the bench outside with fish and chips from the Tuesday van, I found myself thinking how quickly the place had stopped feeling like somewhere we were visiting and started feeling like somewhere we’d been expected. The key mishap already felt like a story we’d tell Margaret next time we saw her. And I realised that the best part of arriving somewhere new isn’t the cottage itself, but the handful of people who’ve already decided you belong there, even if only for a few days.