We’d been on the road since half six, the M5 turning into a slow crawl somewhere near Taunton, and by the time we finally swung off the A381 towards Hope Cove I was convinced the satnav had developed a personal grudge. My partner kept insisting we were “nearly there” while the boot was still full of carrier bags we’d forgotten to unpack at the services. Then came the mishap: I took the final bend a touch too keenly, the Tesco bag split, and a rogue tin of baked beans rolled under the passenger seat with a cheerful clatter. We arrived laughing and slightly sticky-fingered, the cottage key already warm in my hand from being clutched for the last ten miles.

Seabrook sits just up the lane from the little slipway, its whitewashed walls catching the late sun like it had been waiting for us. The front garden was no more than a strip of grass and a wooden bench, but from that bench you could already smell salt and see the curve of the bay. Inside, everything felt smaller than the photos suggested, in the nicest possible way: low ceilings, a wood burner that still held last winter’s ash, and a kitchen table just big enough for two mugs and a map. We dropped our bags by the door and stepped straight back out again, drawn by the sound of the waves.

The lane down to the beach is steep enough to make you wonder whether your calves will forgive you by morning. We took it slowly, pausing to let a dog walker pass, and when we reached the sand the tide was on its way out, leaving long glassy stretches perfect for skimming stones. Hope Cove itself is really two beaches in one: the bigger, sandier stretch to the west and the smaller, rockier cove tucked behind the old lime kiln. We chose the rocks, clambering over them with the cautious steps of people who’d spent too long in a car. A couple of fishing boats were pulled up on the shingle, their ropes coiled neatly, and beyond them the cliffs rose in soft Devon red, patched with gorse that still held a few late yellow flowers.

Back at the cottage the kettle had just boiled when we returned, and we carried our tea outside to watch the light fade. A neighbour’s cat strolled along the low wall as if it owned the place, and for a moment I felt oddly territorial myself, already thinking of the bench as “ours.” The journey’s frustrations had melted somewhere between the baked-bean incident and that first proper lungful of sea air. Sitting there, toes still sandy, I realised how rarely we slow down enough to notice a place properly on the very first evening. The cottage didn’t need to impress us with anything grand; it simply offered a doorway straight onto the sort of evening that makes you forget the M5 ever existed.