At last, my dreams of a house by the sea were fulfilled. Granted, the village would likely be overrun in the summer, but that was a small price to pay for the view, not to mention the enormous garden with its full size tennis court. I was also delighted that the previous owners – the same people who sold us our first house in Birmingham – had left some items in the huge garage, including a couple of bikes and a big lawnmower. The only issue with the property was a drip coming through the ceiling at the back door, but TPR was onto that.

I wandered down to the pub on the seafront to meet some of our new neighbours and their dogs. There I learnt about the village ‘picker-upper’. This traditional role was assigned to a woman whose main responsibility was to cure the ill. She also made public pronouncements on the death of locals.

The first real social event of our new life on the coast was the New Year’s Day double wedding of two of my third cousins twice-removed. Anita and Out were the grand-daughters of my cousin NA and his wife J.  J reminded me to bring my pyjamas to the ceremony, although she was at a loss to explain why I would need them.