I’ll never forget the drive to Old Mill House in Brancaster – a proper Norfolk jaunt that started with me spilling my builder’s tea all over the dashboard just as we hit the A149. “Classic me,” I muttered to Sarah, wiping it up with a service station napkin while the SatNav cheerily announced we were only 20 minutes from bliss. It was one of those insignificant mishaps that sets the tone for a holiday: chaotic, but somehow endearing. By the time we trundled down the narrow lane to the cottage, the sun was dipping low over the salt marshes, and I was already buzzing with that first-impression excitement.

Old Mill House is a proper gem – a cosy 18th-century miller’s cottage tucked away in Brancaster, with beams that creak like they’re telling stories and a garden that backs straight onto the dunes. We arrived mid-afternoon, bags barely out of the boot, when the first character rocked up: Reg, the neighbour from two doors down. He’s this wiry bloke in his seventies, flat cap perched at a defiant angle, who’d spotted our hire car from a mile off. “You the London lot, then?” he grinned, leaning on the garden fence with a fag dangling from his lip. No hello, straight in. Turned out Reg’s lived here since the war, or so he claims, and he launched into a monologue about the great flood of ’53 that nearly swept his nan’s privy away. “Mind the ghosts in that mill tower,” he winked, nodding at the ivy-clad ruin next door. “They only come out when the wind howls.” I chuckled, half-believing him, and Sarah nipped inside to unpack while I got the full lowdown on local crab potting.

We hadn’t even lit the Aga when the owner, Jenny, popped by with a welcome basket – fresh scones, clotted cream, and a bottle of Norfolk cider that could strip paint. Jenny’s a Brancaster born-and-bred firecracker, mid-fifties with a laugh like a foghorn and stories that tumble out faster than you can sip your tea. “Don’t you go wandering off to Titchwell without binoculars,” she warned, eyes twinkling. “The seals’ll have you for breakfast.” She regaled us with tales of the village’s smuggling heyday, when her grandad hid barrels of brandy under the church floorboards. “Revenue men never found a thing – too busy supping the vicar’s ale!” By the time she left, we were in stitches, and I was already plotting a pint at the Jolly Sailors down the road.

That evening, as we wandered all of 200 yards to Brancaster Staithe for fish and chips wrapped in yesterday’s Lynn News, we bumped into Madge behind the counter. She’s the queen of the chippie, a no-nonsense septuagenarian with tattooed forearms from her Navy days and a wit sharper than her batter knife. “First time in these parts?” she asked, eyeing my order of cod and scraps. “You’ll be back for the mussels tomorrow – straight from the creek.” Madge launched into a rant about the tourists who complain the chips aren’t “properly British” – “As if we don’t fry ’em in beef dripping!” We bantered about the best beach walks (straight from the cottage gate to the shore, naturally), and she slipped us extra mushy peas “for the road.” Proper character, that one – made our first supper feel like a local knees-up.

Sitting in the cottage garden later, fairy lights twinkling as the tide whispered in the distance, I had a quiet moment of self-reflection. Amid the laughter and tall tales, I realised how rare it is to stumble into such quirky souls on arrival day. In the rush of city life, you forget how a place like Norfolk wraps you in its characters from the off – no pretence, just proper chat and a shared wink at the absurd. Reg’s ghost yarns, Jenny’s smuggler lore, Madge’s chippy wisdom… they turned our first hours into something magical. Old Mill House didn’t just welcome us; its people made it home. Can’t wait to see what day two brings.