We’d only just set off from the station when the heavens decided to test our resolve. My partner and I were barely ten minutes into the drive along the coast road when the sat-nav cheerfully announced we’d arrived—right outside a closed petrol station with no sign of Clarence House or the sea. A quick U-turn and a sheepish walk back to the actual turning later, we finally pulled up outside the little white cottage, raindrops still speckling the windscreen and our optimism slightly damp.

It was mid-October, that peculiar stretch when Llandudno feels half-asleep after the summer crowds but not yet fully tucked up for winter. The promenade lights were already glowing earlier each evening, and the air carried that clean, salty sharpness you only seem to notice once the last of the deckchairs have been stacked away. Clarence House sat just a pebble’s throw from the beach, its front windows catching the shifting colours of the bay as the afternoon light faded. Inside, the heating had thoughtfully been left on low, and the faint smell of woodsmoke from the little log-burner met us at the door.

We dropped our bags and wandered straight out again, hoods up against a light drizzle that felt more like a friendly nudge than actual weather. The tide was out, leaving wide, glistening stretches of sand where a few hardy dog-walkers and their equally hardy spaniels were making the most of the emptiness. We followed the curve of the bay towards the pier, its Victorian ironwork looking somehow more dramatic against the pewter sky. By the time we reached the little kiosk still selling hot chocolates and cones, the rain had eased to nothing, and we stood sipping our drinks while watching the lights come on along the front.

Back at the cottage the sitting-room window framed the whole scene perfectly: the sweep of the bay, the faint outline of the Great Orme, and the occasional light from a late fishing boat heading home. We lit the burner, kicked off damp shoes, and sat with takeaway fish and chips from the chippy just around the corner, listening to the soft hiss of the fire and the occasional rumble of a bus on the road outside.

There’s something quietly restorative about arriving somewhere when the season has already turned. The usual rush to cram everything in simply isn’t there; instead you find yourself noticing small things—the way the gulls wheel lower in the cooler air, how the cottage’s thick walls keep the evening chill at bay, the gentle permission to slow down. I’d come expecting a lively seaside weekend, but found instead this calm, slightly misty pocket of time that felt oddly generous. By the time we turned in, the rain had started again, soft and steady against the window, and I realised I was already looking forward to waking up to whatever the tide and the season might bring next.