We set off from Cardiff with the boot packed to the rafters and the sat-nav promising a two-hour hop, yet somehow managed to take the scenic detour through every single roundabout in Carmarthen. By the time we rolled into Saundersfoot the tide was already creeping up the slipway and our stomachs were staging a full-scale rebellion. The little 4-bed cottage sat just off the main drag, a short stagger from the sand, and the first thing that hit us was the smell of frying onions drifting from the chippy at the harbour. We dumped the bags, claimed beds with the usual sibling-style elbowing, then headed straight back out in search of something that wasn’t a lukewarm pasty from the petrol station.

The nearest pub, The Captain’s Table, was already busy with locals swapping stories about the morning’s mackerel catch. We squeezed onto a bench and ordered bowls of cockles with vinegar and thick-cut chips that actually crunched. Someone’s idea of “just a quick half” turned into three rounds and a round of Welsh cakes “for the walk home,” which, in hindsight, may explain why the cottage kitchen looked like a crime scene the next morning. Armed with yesterday’s leftovers and a carton of eggs we’d grabbed from the little Spar on the high street, we attempted a heroic full Welsh breakfast. The bacon survived; the black pudding did not. Smoke alarms were involved.

By midday the weekly market had set up along the front, stalls groaning with fresh crab, cockles, laverbread and fat strawberries from just up the coast. We bought a paper bag of the berries and a tub of cockles, then carried the lot back to the cottage to attempt “something fancy” for tea. The something fancy became crab sandwiches with far too much mayonnaise and a heroic quantity of pepper. We ate them on the tiny patio while the seagulls performed low-level reconnaissance missions, and for once nobody minded the sand between their toes.

Later, when the light started to fade, we wandered down to The Harbour Light for a proper sit-down meal—mussels in cider and cream, followed by a slice of bara brith that could have doubled as a doorstop. Conversation turned, as it always does after the third glass of wine, to the noble art of holiday cooking and why none of us ever learns. We’d spent the whole day either queuing for food, carrying food, or attempting to cook food, and still the cottage fridge looked suspiciously empty. It struck me, watching the last of the light slide off the water, that perhaps the real measure of a good break isn’t how many sights you tick off but how many times you manage to feed everyone without disaster. We’d already racked up two near-misses and one minor smoke alarm, so by that reckoning we were doing rather well.