We’d barely turned off the A478 when the sat-nav decided to send us down a lane that narrowed to a single track with grass growing up the middle. I was convinced it was a shortcut, right up until we met a tractor coming the other way and had to reverse into a hedge. By the time we reached Summerhouse, our nerves were as frazzled as the sat-nav screen, but the cottage itself looked perfect: whitewashed walls, a little slate roof, and just far enough from the beach path that you could still hear the waves without getting sand in the hallway.

We were still brushing leaves off the roof rack when our neighbour popped her head over the low wall. “Lost already, have you?” she called, laughing. Her name was Glenys and she’d lived in the row since the seventies. She offered us tea “to settle the shock” and within minutes we were sat at her kitchen table while her Jack Russell, Biscuit, inspected our shoes. Glenys told us the best fish and chips came from the hut on the harbour, but only if you went before five; after that the queue stretched halfway to Amroth.

Later, when we wandered down for an evening stroll, we bumped into a chap called Dai who was mending lobster pots on the slipway. He asked if we were the ones who’d reversed into the hedge and then roared with laughter when I admitted it. “That lane’s fooled better drivers than you,” he said, handing me a coil of rope to hold while he tied off a knot. By the time we left, he’d given us the name of a quiet cove where the kids could paddle without the crowds and warned us that the tide came in faster than you’d expect.

Back at Summerhouse, the kettle had just boiled when Glenys reappeared with a slice of bara brith “for the journey that never quite ended.” We sat on the little patio listening to her stories about the village regatta and how the lifeboat crew still held a barbecue every August. She asked where we were from and chuckled when I said we’d driven from Cardiff. “That’s not a journey, love, that’s a warm-up.”

I hadn’t expected to spend our first afternoon trading gossip with strangers, yet it felt more like arriving somewhere than simply reaching a postcode. As the light faded and the gulls wheeled over the rooftops, I realised the sat-nav mishap had done us a favour; without it we might never have met Glenys or Dai, and the cottage would have stayed just a roof over our heads instead of the start of a proper holiday.