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Camber Sands has long since been my favourite beach in the UK. It’s here that I visited at sunrise on my 30th birthday to brave (and squeal) my way through my first cold-water sea swim, and it’s here that I bolted to with my sister when the first 2020 UK lockdown lifted. Nowhere could have made me feel more free. Something about the vastness of the landscape when the tide rolls out, the unsaturated colour palette – soft yellow sand, washed blue skies and minty green wild grasses – feels calming. Arriving first thing in the morning or just before the skies darken, there’s barely anyone here. That’s the beauty of a seaside where there’s no promenade, no town at the sand’s edge, and no garish ice cream van. What’s more? To get here, you have to work for it, and clambering the dunes from the car park in order to see the sea means those laden with pop-up brollies and picnics tend to nestle close to the banks instead of wandering down to the water.
When I stumbled across (read: meticulously crawled the internet for) The Blue House on Airbnb circa five years ago, it went straight into my ‘saves’ and has lived rent-free in my app and my mind until now. The glass-fronted, four-bed house with direct access to the beach did not disappoint. In fact, it was better than I imagined, and it’s been designed to celebrate its unbeatable location. The entire front of the property is glass, and everything – from the kitchen to the bed in the master room – faces out. We arrived as the last few day trippers were leaving, carried our bags and a pre-arranged food shop 100m across the sand and set up camp at the long wooden table on the decking to watch the sun set. With a glass of Kentish sparkling in hand (Tillingham is in pit-stopping distance, after all), I felt the week melt away almost immediately.
Inside, we divvied up the bedrooms and settled in. Upstairs, two enormous masters with swallow-me mattresses, walk-in showers and freestanding baths, and downstairs, a twin and a smaller double that anyone keen to be close to the kitchen would be more than happy with. I struck gold, and when I opened the blackout curtains first thing in the morning, I saw horses galloping in the distance, their riders making the most of the empty stretch of sand and the 6am wash of orange hues across the sky. Interiors are pared-back yet polished, and void of any nautical cliches – think brushed wooden furniture from Loaf, all-white linens and the odd dusky-hued cushion. Downstairs, the open-plan kitchen living space makes this a very sociable place to be. Everything we needed was there, and in true group-getaway style, we’d packed enough to feed an army for a fortnight, so there’s no need to leave. And why would we, when our home for the weekend is The Blue House?
We made a single exception: my brother-in-law’s solo trip to the local farmers’ market and fishmongers, which we deem ‘cultural’. Meanwhile, the kids gather up their buckets and spades and charge full pelt towards the water for a day of shell collection and castle building. At lunchtime, we fire up the pizza oven and decorate our own bases, and come dinner, we cook whole seabream over charcoal and scoop buttery hummus onto freshly bought sourdough. Falling into bed with the scent of the sea air still on my skin, I’m reminded of that feeling of freedom Camber Sands instilled in me post lockdown, only this time I’m cocooned in a house I’ve loved to call home, even if just for two nights.