We’d been on the road since half six that morning, the satnav cheerfully promising we’d be there by lunchtime, which of course meant we rolled up just after three with two hangry teenagers and a boot full of damp coats. The last stretch down the lane to Sea Haze was the bit that did for us: a rogue pothole the size of a paddling pool sent my takeaway coffee clean through the cup holder and straight into my lap. By the time we’d parked on the crunchy gravel, I was wearing most of a flat white and the dog was giving me the disappointed look she usually reserves for dropped sausages.

Still, the first sight of the cottage made the soggy jeans worth it. Painted a soft, chalky blue that somehow matched the sky, Sea Haze sat just far enough back from the path to feel private yet close enough that you could hear the sea if you stood still. The owners had left the key in a little lockbox tucked behind the rosemary bush, and wrestling with the stiff dial while trying not to drip coffee on the step felt like the final test of the journey.

Inside, the place smelled faintly of woodsmoke and fresh linen. We kicked off sandy shoes in the little porch and wandered through, finding a bright kitchen already stocked with tea bags and a pint of milk in the fridge, which felt like the sort of small kindness that makes you instantly relax. From the sitting-room window you could just glimpse the curve of the bay, the tide out and the sand looking almost white in the afternoon light. The teenagers, miraculously, stopped bickering the moment they spotted the bench on the tiny patio; within minutes they were out there with headphones on, and the dog had claimed the rug by the wood burner as if she’d paid the deposit herself.

I wandered down the short path that leads straight onto the coastal track, still in my stained jeans, and stood for a moment watching the waves fold over themselves. It struck me, not for the first time, how quickly a bad journey can be erased by the simple fact of arriving somewhere that feels like it was waiting for you. The coffee stain would wash out, the teenagers would eventually speak to us again, and tomorrow we’d walk the short stretch of beach into town for pasties, but right then it was enough just to stand there, slightly damp and utterly content, listening to the gulls and the distant thump of the sea against the rocks.