The holiday cottage that holds a special place in our hearts - Ian McMillan

The cottage was small and simply furnished and it was within walking distance of the sea. My wife and I had a marvellous week there and a couple of years later we booked the cottage again, and as the years spilled over the pages of the calendar of our lives. we booked it again and again.

Maybe everybody has a special place like that cottage, a place that always seems to welcome you, to know you, to have become part of a shared history.

My wife and I loved the fact that nothing seemed to change in the cottage; there was always the same fridge magnet on the huge and humming fridge, always the same books on the shelf, always the same art on the walls.

As we grew older the cottage never seemed to; it stayed the same age, although we couldn’t decide what age it really was. All we knew was that there always seemed to be rabbits running on the lawn, and there always seemed to be the same birds whirling in the sky.

Once, disconcertingly, the TV switched itself on in the middle of the night when we were fast asleep. We woke up thinking some kind of row was happening outside, a row accompanied by rhythmic music but then I stumbled into the lounge and there was someone reading the news.

I unplugged the television at the wall and it never happened again and we thought that maybe the cottage felt comfortable enough with us to play a little trick on us because it liked us as much as we liked it.

So then, earlier this year, we decided to see if we could book the cottage for a week in July; sadly, it wasn’t available. I checked on the website of the cottage company and to my amazement it wasn’t available until January 2025.

My wife and I couldn’t believe it; it was as though a much-loved relative had cut us out of their will. We decided that the family who owned the cottage must be living in it for a while, and we determined to book it again in 2025.

A cottage just across the road from our favourite was available, however, and we booked that one. It was very nice, very nice indeed, but it wasn’t like the one we loved best.

Each morning of the holiday we would go for a stroll and wander past the cottage that seemed to hold so much of our lives under its low and unchanging roof and, to our amazement, there was nobody in it.

Nobody’s car was parked outside, nobody’s beach towel flapped on the line. We gazed longingly at it, and felt rejected.

I know, I know; it’s only a holiday cottage and there are other holiday cottages. It’s only bricks and mortar and books and a fridge magnet. Yes, but it was booked up and there was nobody in it. Let that sink in: it was booked up and there was nobody in it.

Maybe this could indeed make the start of a novel; I’ll start it now and then I’ll go back to the cottage and finish it in January 2025.