This is a feature I wrote about what makes us happy - million dollar question! - for Red magazine last year. It’s all about why I love beaches and Cornwall, which is where my latest book, It Happened One Summer, is mostly set. 

At this time of year things can deteriorate quickly. All the ingredients for melt down are in place: a fractious husband, three boisterous children under six, an excess of booze, food, noise, people and toys that beep back. There are two ways out. One involves sinking into another bottle of wine and clamping my hands on my ears – tra-la-la-la - and the other is a beach.

Beaches make me happy, in particular Cornish ones, out of season. I love the roar of the angry Atlantic and a horizon. I love having crunchy hair that tastes of salt. I love the space to think. Beaches are particularly good for writers, who spend far too much time holed up, staring at a screen, looking inwards. And a bracing walk on cold soft sand unblocks stuff. In London I can spend hours ‘brainstorming’ futilely at my desk but in Cornwall ideas are often scattered across the beach like shells. 

It helps that beaches are the best habitat for energetic children too, especially windy beaches that drown out their racket. Something about all that sand makes them run madly in circles like puppies, just because they can. My six year old boy will also forage for crabs. My two year old will sit in a rock pool fully clothed. My baby will peek out crossly from beneath her striped blanket with a cold, red nose. To misquote Churchill, we don’t fight them on the beaches. We let them get on with it. So much less stress. 

It’s easier to be happily married on a beach too, rather than bickering at home about who should scrub the roasting pan. Here my husband can swim manfully in a freezing sea without a wetsuit. Or he can build sandcastles, channelling his inner six year old. We can walk along the sand hand in hand, feeling like lovers again. And we don’t discuss the things that bog us down at home, such as who can do the drama club pick up or the need to replace the stair runner. All that falls away because an out of season beach is depilation for the soul, a simple reminder that to be happy all you need is each other, a bit of space, perhaps the odd spade.