We’d barely got the key in the door of Sunnyvale House when the heavens opened, and my carefully balanced bag of fish and chips from the harbour slipped clean out of my hands and landed upside-down on the front step. There’s nothing quite like watching your dinner slide down a Whitby doorstep in the rain to make you feel instantly at home. After a quick mop-up and a fair bit of laughing at ourselves, we finally got inside, shoes off, kettle on, and the windows flung open to let the sea air in.

Sunnyvale House sits just a short stroll from the beach, and from the moment we arrived the place felt like it had been waiting for us to slow down. The front room catches the afternoon light perfectly, and we spent the rest of that first day drifting between the squishy sofa and the little patio out back, mugs of tea going cold while we watched the sky clear. No grand plans, no rushing to tick things off a list – just the gentle satisfaction of doing very little in very good surroundings.

The next morning brought proper sunshine, the sort that makes you forget you even own a jumper. We wandered down to the beach with nothing but a blanket and a couple of paperbacks, spreading out on the sand as the tide crept in and out. I must have read the same paragraph three times before giving up entirely and just lying there listening to the waves and the occasional shout from someone’s dog further along the shore. Every so often one of us would mutter something about maybe getting an ice cream later, but neither of us moved.

Back at the cottage the days slipped by in much the same unhurried fashion. Mornings started with coffee on the patio, afternoons with the doors open and the radio murmuring away while we pottered about or simply sat. I’d brought a stack of books I’d been meaning to finish for months, and it was oddly pleasing to watch the pile actually shrink without any real effort on my part. Every now and then we’d stroll down to the beach again, shoes kicked off, feet in the shallows, then wander back when the sun started to dip.

What surprised me most was how little I missed having somewhere to be. Normally I’m the one suggesting we “just pop along” to this or that, but here the appeal was staying put. The cottage itself helped – it’s comfortable without trying too hard, with enough space to spread out yet small enough to feel properly homely. And being so close to the beach meant we could dip in and out of the sunshine whenever we fancied without any complicated logistics.

By the end of the first few days I’d stopped checking my phone quite so often, and the quiet rhythm of cottage life and beach walks had started to feel like the point of the trip rather than a gap between activities. There’s something gently ridiculous about realising you’ve travelled all this way just to sit still, but I can’t say I regretted it for a second.