He rushed off, brandishing his walking stick and I carried on towards the beach huts. With the weather finally looking up, I was determined to get a proper look at them.

‘Morning,’ said a young mum, as I skirted around the rockpools, which were almost all surrounded by fascinated underwater enthusiasts. ‘Isn’t it lovely to finally see the sun?’

‘Morning,’ I smiled back, as her daughter began to screech that she’d spotted a starfish. ‘Yes, it is.’

I was almost tempted to stop and admire her five-legged find, but I carried on. I would find out for myself what surprises awaited me in the pools when I decided the time was right to explore them. They, and their intriguing inhabitants, were always such a highlight that I knew it would be worth the wait.

The beach huts were all let, and the majority were opened up, their residents enjoying tea brewed on tiny stoves and reading the morning papers on the little wooden verandas. The huts reminded me of the rainbow-patterned playhouse I had as a child. It seemed to me that, even as adults, we never really grew out of wanting to play house in miniature form.

I stopped and looked towards the back of the one where Joe and I had kissed. I didn’t know what I expected to see or feel, but there was no thunderbolt or golden glow around the magical spot, just sand and a Marram grass backdrop. I wondered if the lack of sparkle was the result of having met the boy and him knocking over the pedestal I had put the cherished moment on by not remembering it at all.

‘You all right, love?’ asked a chap who was sitting in a deckchair just next to where I had stopped.

‘Yes,’ I said, giving myself a little shake. ‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t apologize,’ he said, ‘you looked miles away. Are you sure you’re all right?’

I had actually been years, rather than miles, away.

‘Yeah,’ I said again, ‘I’m okay, thanks.’

I walked back to the cottage feeling a little disappointed, and found a note from Joe on the mat, written on the back of a receipt from an agricultural supplier. He said he would pick me up at one the next day and that he had booked somewhere for afternoon tea.

That sounded far more formal than going out for coffee and I hoped Joe hadn’t got the wrong idea about us. We might have shared a kiss already, not that he had remembered it, but having got my fingers burnt over my feelings for Sam, I was steering clear of all love interests for the foreseeable future.