I think it's asking for trouble for a lady who is prone to sometimes feel suffocated by London to go somewhere like this for a week and sit listening to the waves and read, amongst other things, Daphne du Maurier's Frenchman's Creek, a tale of pirates and longing, obligations and love, set just up the road in Cornwall:

- a book which, incidentally, swept me along with its perfect combination of story, humour, romance and atmosphere - helped, no doubt, by the sound of waves crashing against the wall behind my head.

Considering it was January, it was lovely weather. And considering it was January, and we were staying in Kingswear Castle, built in the 1500s on the very edge of Dartmouth, it was lucky that Sainsbury's were selling 13 tog duvets for £9.99.

Utterly stunning location at the end of a long, twisty drive. I have new-found respect for the DoveGreyReader who must have to bomb around the fiddly Devon roads the whole time:

It had a little garden with giant trees:

And battlements from where we watched the stars:

A lot of tea was drunk:

The cats would have enjoyed it too but they stayed at home. I think they slept through most of the week and barely noticed we were gone:

Thanks to Matthew and Sarah at the stunning, award winning and quite right too Torbay Bookshop, and the irrepressible Roni at White Ladder Press for their hospitality and top tourist tips, which I have to say were wasted on us since, apart from a marvellous pony trek (ponies! with their soft soft noses) across Exmoor, we sat around the whole time reading, listening (a castle provides pretty a much perfect backdrop for the cure) and staring at the sea. And trying to calculate how many books we would have to sell to be able to afford a castle...