We’d barely made it off the A55 before the satnav decided we needed a scenic detour through half of Conwy. By the time we pulled up outside Ystabl Stable the sun was low, the kids were squabbling over who’d lost the last sweet, and I’d managed to reverse the car straight into a low stone wall that wasn’t even trying to hide. Nothing dramatic, just a gentle crunch and an instant dent in holiday confidence.

The cottage sat just back from the promenade, the sort of whitewashed place that looks smaller in photos until you step inside and realise there’s room for wellies by the door and sand on every rug. A short gravel path led straight onto the beach path, and already we could hear the soft rush of waves mixing with the evening traffic along the front.

We’d chosen Llandudno for no grand reason beyond “close enough to drive before bedtime and far enough to feel away.” First impressions lived up to the promise: a scrubbed kitchen table already laid with mismatched mugs, a faint smell of wood burner even though it was July, and a handwritten note from the owner suggesting the best fish-and-chip spot five minutes along the front. The children raced upstairs to claim beds while I stood in the doorway trying to remember how to switch off work emails.

That first evening we didn’t do much. We walked the hundred metres to the water’s edge, shoes in hand, letting the cold Irish Sea nip at our toes. The tide was out, leaving glassy patches that caught the last of the light, and the pier stretched ahead like an old friend waiting for tomorrow’s ice creams. Back at the cottage the kettle whistled, the sofa proved deep enough for three, and nobody minded that the Wi-Fi password was written on the same scrap of paper as the local tide times.

I caught myself, halfway through buttering toast the next morning, thinking how rarely we slow down like this. The small wall incident already felt like part of the story rather than a disaster, and the cottage, with its slightly saggy armchairs and view of nothing more exciting than rooftops and seagulls, seemed perfectly content to host a family who’d forgotten, briefly, how to do very much at all.