A love letter to Eva

The light is fading. A low yellow moon shines over the sea as we turn away from the the main road. Twisting down the steep road towards the village, the bay opens up before us. We weave through rows of small white cottages with tiny windows and brightly painted doors until we reach the harbourside.

We pass fishing boats bobbing up and down in the neat little port until the road becomes the seawall itself, no wider than a car, with the seawater foaming below.

I wind down the window to hear the waves, and the tyres crackle on the gravel as we reach the end of the road. There is nothing beyond but beach.

This is my favourite place in the whole world.

Eva’s Cottage belongs to a friend of mine. A few times each year we pack the car with food and wine and disappear for the weekend.

There’s no phone signal, no wifi. But there is a pub.

It is very heaven.

The sound of the sea is constant. It’s just feet away from the door. When the tide is high and it is stormy, the spray kisses the windows of the cottage. You can lie in bed and see the tide come and go, and watch seabirds swoop into the waves.

And when you’re tired of doing that you can walk to the next village, which is so tiny and hard to reach that the people who own houses there have to park halfway up the hill from the village and take their shopping home with a wheelbarrow.

This village is also home to the most needless set of yellow lines in the country. Who would park here?

At the right time of year you can see dolphins, puffins and gannets. You can fish off the pier and you can search for crabs in rock pools. You can fly kites on the beach and paddle in the shallows.

It is heart-burstingly, soul-soaringly beautiful.

It is noisy, fierce, peaceful and beautiful all at the same time. It is the best things about life all at once. It is magic.

Ah! what pleasant visions haunt me
As I gaze upon the sea!
All the old romantic legends,
All my dreams, come back to me. 

By The Seaside: The Secret of The Sea, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow