We’d barely turned off the main road when the satnav decided to have a meltdown, cheerfully announcing we’d arrived while we were still trundling past a field of dozy sheep. By the time we spotted the little sign for Gwel An Godrevy tucked down a narrow lane, my partner was convinced we’d end up in someone’s back garden. We pulled up to the cottage just as the heavens opened, and in my rush to grab the key safe I managed to lock the car with the keys still inside and the dog staring out at us like we’d planned the whole thing.

A chap in a bright yellow raincoat appeared from the neighbouring cottage, chuckling as he watched me pat my pockets for the third time. “You’ll be needing Trevor,” he said, nodding towards a battered old Land Rover parked further up the lane. Before I could ask who Trevor was, the man had already wandered off, calling over his shoulder that Trevor would be down shortly with a spare key and a story or two.

Sure enough, Trevor rolled up ten minutes later, a wiry fellow with a flat cap and a thermos of something that smelled suspiciously like whisky-laced tea. He freed the car without fuss, then lingered to chat about the tides and whether the pasty shop in Carbis Bay was still run by “that woman with the questionable fringe”. We ended up swapping dog-walking routes while the rain eased, and Trevor pointed out the shortcut path that drops you straight onto the sand without half a mile of clifftop zigzags.

Later that afternoon we wandered down for our first proper look at the beach. A woman in wellies was collecting driftwood near the dunes and waved us over, introducing herself as Mags. She’d lived in the row of cottages since the eighties and had a running tally of every storm that had tried to claim her garden wall. We spent a good twenty minutes hearing about the time a pod of dolphins came so close you could hear them breathing, and how the local kids still raced crabs along the tideline every August bank holiday.

By the time we headed back, the light was softening over the bay and the cottage felt less like a stranger’s house and more like somewhere we’d already been welcomed. The mishap with the keys had turned into an impromptu welcome committee, and I found myself thinking how rarely a wrong turn leads to such easy company.