I finally made it to Ocean Tide Villa 2 in Woolacombe after a bit of a faff on the drive down from Exeter. Picture this: I'm trundling along the A39, past those rolling North Devon hills, when my sat-nav decides to have a hissy fit and sends me on a detour through some tiny lane barely wide enough for a pram. I end up nose-to-nose with a tractor driven by a chap who looked like he'd stepped out of a 1950s farming calendar—bearded, flat-capped, and grinning like he'd won the lottery. "First time 'ere, luv?" he bellows through his window, as if my city plates were a dead giveaway. I laughed, reversed into a hedge (minor scrapes, no drama), and we chatted for five minutes about the best pasty spots in Braunton. Turned out his name was Reg, and he swore by the one at the village shop. Proper North Devon welcome, that.

Pulling up to the villa just before lunch on day one, I was knackered but buzzing. It's this cracking little two-bed cottage right on the Mortehoe headland, with sea views that hit you like a tonic—Woolacombe Beach stretching out below, waves crashing on those golden sands. The owner, Jenny, was waiting at the gate, a wiry woman in wellies with a face like a wrinkled map of the coast. "You the Londoner?" she asked, eyeing my hire car. I nodded, and she thrust a key into my hand. "Mind the seagulls—they're proper thieves round here. Stole me husband's specs last week." We laughed, and over a cuppa in the sunny kitchen (proper Rayburn stove, mind), she regaled me with tales of the great storm of '93 that rearranged half the beach. Jenny's the sort who knows every pebble's backstory; she even pointed out a seal bobbing offshore from the terrace, "Old Bertie, comes up for a nosey every tide."

No sooner had I unpacked than I wandered down to the beach path—five minutes' stroll—and bumped into Madge, the ice cream lady from the pop-up van near the dunes. She's a Woolacombe fixture, 70 if she's a day, with hair like candyfloss and a laugh that carries on the wind. "Cornish or Devon clotted?" she demands, as if it's a state secret. I plump for Devon, and while she scoops, she launches into how her late husband once wrestled a rogue donkey off the sand. "Bloody thing bit his arse—served him right for skimping on carrots!" We sat on a bench overlooking the surf, her nattering about the surfers who flock here (proper pros shredding the waves at high tide) and the time a pod of dolphins put on a show right by the villa. Madge reckons Ocean Tide's the best spot for it—"views better than the telly, and no adverts."

That evening, as the sun dipped behind Baggy Point, I nipped to the Mortehoe village shop for Reg's recommended pasty. Behind the counter was Tom, the butcher-cum-shopkeep, a bloke built like a rugby prop with tattoos from his Navy days. "Heard you met Reg," he winked, wrapping up a steak slice. "Don't believe a word—his tractor's older than he is." Over the till, he spun yarns about the local lifeboat crew, all characters who'd pull you out of the brine then buy you a pint at the Woolacombe Bay Hotel. Tom's got this theory that the sea air makes folk eccentric: "Keeps the boring ones away." We chewed the fat about the quirky Woolacombe Carnival—fancy dress parades where grown men dress as mermaids—and he insisted I try the crab sandwiches next time.

Sitting on the villa's balcony that first night, pasty in hand, watching the lighthouse beam sweep across the bay, I had one of those quiet moments. All this chatter from Jenny, Madge, Reg, and Tom—it hit me how these locals, with their windswept humour and tall tales, make a place like this sing. I'd come for the sea air, but it's their stories that hooked me proper. Can't wait to see what day two brings.