We'd barely turned off the A487 when the satnav decided to play silly beggars and sent us down a single-track lane that narrowed with every hedge. By the time we spotted the little wooden sign for Piglet Cottage, my partner was reversing into a gateway for the third time and I was clutching a lukewarm pasty that had somehow migrated under the handbrake. We arrived laughing, slightly flustered, and starving, which turned out to be the perfect mood for the weekend.

The cottage sits just a short stroll from the beach path, and the first thing that hit us was the smell of the sea mixed with woodsmoke from somewhere nearby. Inside it felt instantly welcoming: a compact kitchen with a proper little oven, a scrubbed pine table, and a welcome hamper that included local butter and a crusty loaf from the village bakery. We unpacked in record time because the priority was clearly lunch.

A ten-minute walk brought us to the nearest pub, where the Sunday roast was still being served at half three. We squeezed onto a bench by the window and shared a plate of slow-cooked lamb with extra roasties, washed down with halves of the local ale. The landlord’s dog wandered over for scraps and I ended up feeding it most of my Yorkshire pudding, which felt like the correct Pembrokeshire welcome.

Back at Piglet Cottage the real adventure began: attempting to cook with whatever we’d grabbed from the tiny Saturday market in the next village. We’d bought cockles, a couple of fat mackerel, new potatoes, and a bunch of wild garlic. I volunteered to do the fish, promptly set off the smoke alarm with over-enthusiastic butter, and spent five minutes flapping a tea towel while my partner opened every window. The mackerel survived, just, and tasted brilliant with a squeeze of lemon from the tree outside the back door.

The next morning we wandered down to the beach café for bacon sandwiches so good they made up for the previous night’s culinary theatrics. We sat on a bench watching the tide and planned the rest of the day around food: a late lunch of Welsh cakes from the market stall, an early dinner at the pub again (this time the fish pie), and a final evening back at the cottage trying to recreate that pie with slightly more success.

By the time we left, the cottage kitchen had seen more smoke alarms than successful soufflés, yet every meal felt like part of the place. I’d gone expecting a quiet beach weekend and came away with a new appreciation for how much of any holiday is really just deciding what to eat next and laughing when it doesn’t quite go to plan.