Sand dunes, dune grass, shells, streams trickling across the beach, creating gulleys, valleys and estuaries in exquisite miniature and shades of purple, sienna and puce. Boat sails, surf boards, waves, foam, debris and light. Fish and chips, ice-cream cones, bouncy castles, spades, striped windbreakers. 'Where can I pee-pee? I have to pee-pee!' 'Spot, come away! Come away, Spot!' 'I've cut my foot! Ooh, look, boo-ooh!' And a hinterland of blackberry bushes, rabbit warrens, golf links, hedged meadows, whitewashed, slate-roofed farmhouses—and the motorway flowing all summer with a droning, steady stream of holidaymakers baking in their beetle-backed cars. The White House Hotel alone appeared to take no part in this summer bacchanal. Summer and winter, spring and autumn, it remained the same: an immaculate whitewashed cottage built of Cornish stone, with a slate roof, red geraniums in green windowboxes, and wrought-iron gates shut to the road. Not exactly the kind of place you hoped to find when you came to the seaside—it was not far from the sea, true, but had no view of it.
