We’d barely made it out of the station before the heavens opened, and naturally I was the one who’d forgotten the umbrella. By the time we reached Wagtail Nest, a short stroll from the South Bay, my jacket was doing a fair impression of a dishcloth and our bag of supplies from the little Tesco Metro had taken on water. Still, the cottage looked every bit as welcoming as the photos, with its pale stone front and the faint smell of the sea drifting up the lane.

Once we’d dumped the soggy shopping on the kitchen table, the first order of business was working out what we could actually salvage for tea. The fish had survived, miraculously, so I set about attempting fishcakes while my partner tackled the chips. The oven, bless it, was a bit temperamental; our first batch emerged more “artisan charcoal” than golden, but we rescued the rest and sat at the scrubbed wooden table with a bottle of supermarket white, laughing at the blackened edges.

The next morning we wandered down to the harbour just as the little market stalls were setting up. Fresh crab, smoked mackerel, and fat scallops caught our eye, so we bought enough for a late lunch and carried it home in brown paper bags that quickly grew damp in the drizzle. Back at the cottage I tried my hand at a simple crab linguine while my partner chopped parsley with more enthusiasm than precision; somehow the whole thing came together nicely, and we ate it on the little patio, watching gulls wheel above the rooftops.

By evening the rain had cleared, so we strolled along the front to the Golden Ball, a proper old boozer with good cask ale and plates of scampi and chips that arrived steaming and generous. Conversation flowed easily with the locals at the bar, and we left with full stomachs and the vague promise to try their Sunday roast next time.

On our last night we decided to attempt a full English breakfast for supper—because why not?—and the results were mixed at best. The sausages were slightly too ambitious for the grill, but the eggs turned out perfectly and the local bacon was a triumph. Sitting there with the windows open, the smell of frying still lingering, I realised how little we’d actually done beyond eating, chatting, and trying (mostly failing) not to burn things. Yet somehow that felt like exactly the right way to spend a few days by the sea: not rushing about, just letting Scarborough’s simple pleasures—good food, friendly pubs, and a slightly chaotic kitchen—do the work for us.