We’d barely made it off the A55 when the satnav decided to send us down a lane so narrow I had to fold the wing mirrors in. Ten minutes later we were reversing into someone’s driveway while a delivery van squeezed past, and that’s how we arrived at Penholm—slightly flustered but laughing at our own expense. The cottage sat just above the beach in Penmaenmawr, its windows catching the late-afternoon light and the faint smell of salt already drifting up from the shore.

Inside, the kitchen greeted us like an old friend: a sturdy range, a well-scrubbed table, and a fridge that hummed as though it had been waiting for our shopping bags. We unpacked in record time, then set off on foot for the little Spar tucked behind the high street. It wasn’t glamorous, but it had everything we needed—local sausages, a crusty loaf, and a wedge of Caerphilly that looked too good to leave behind. Back at Penholm we cooked our first meal with the windows open, the sound of waves mixing with the sizzle of onions. The sausages came out slightly charred on one side; we blamed the unfamiliar knobs on the cooker and ate them anyway, washing everything down with mugs of strong tea.

By the next morning the tide was out, revealing a wide stretch of sand perfect for an early walk before breakfast. We wandered into the village bakery, where the smell of warm Welsh cakes proved impossible to resist, and carried a paper bag of them back to the cottage to toast on the range. Lunch was meant to be light—just soup and bread—but the sea air had other ideas, so we ended up in the local pub, The Goat, ordering bowls of cawl that arrived steaming and generous. The landlord’s dog slept under our table the whole time, occasionally thumping its tail when a crisp fell its way.

That evening we tried our hand at cooking fish straight from the beach stall. The recipe on my phone looked simple enough, yet somehow the skin stuck, the parsley went in too early, and the result was more “rustic” than restaurant. We ate it anyway, sitting on the low wall outside Penholm with plates balanced on our knees, watching the sun slide behind the Great Orme. Between mouthfuls we admitted we’d probably over-bought at the Spar, but the extra cheese would keep for tomorrow’s picnic.

By the third day the rhythm felt familiar: market in the morning for fresh veg, a quick pint at lunchtime, then back to the cottage to experiment again. My attempt at laverbread cakes was ambitious and only half-successful, but the failures tasted better with the view. Sitting there, fork in hand, I realised the mishap on the lane had set the tone for everything since—nothing quite going to plan, yet turning out just right.