I'm back from my holiday and the out of office is off!
I've been visiting Polzeath, North Cornwall for twenty years - I was pregnant with my first son the first summer we visited this idyllic place.
Polzeath hosts a great surfing beach, and where we stay, we don't even have to move the car. We just walk there.
We've seen some changes as it's certainly got a little more commercialised over the years.I'm so lucky that Cornwall is only a couple of hours away - if the M5 isn't rammed!
Polzeath became my inspiration for Tinners Bay, when I took Sophie and Adam there in Plus One is a Lucky Number. And I liked writing it so much, and my editor wanted me to go back to Cornwall, that I set Meet Me At Wisteria Cottage there, too.Then, in writing a new series, my agent recommended I changed the name, and Polzeath aka Tinners Bay became Kittiwake Cove for what I like to call my Kittiwake Cove series. - which in hindsight is a much more romantic name!
I chose Kittiwake in my love for birds and with a google of Cornish seabirds, Kittiwake came up! Oystercatcher had already been used by another romantic novelist, and is the name of a pub in Polzeath, which I've renamed The Cormorant.
I hope to return to my Kittiwake Cove next year, but with the boys older, it might be a holiday I take on my own.