Do you ever get asked to recount the favourite part of your holiday? Or to share the best thing about <insert multifaceted, dynamic, diverse country you have just visited>? Usually it’s a question posed upon returning home when people want to take an interest but not too much interest. And it’s a struggle to answer.

As an indecisive Libran who treasures so many little things and rarely chooses favourites unless they come from Cadbury, I find it an infuriating question. Just one thing? However, in true contrarian fashion, this year I may just have settled on something. As memories fade with each day, one that stands out stronger than the rest, when time could happily stand still.

I won’t head there yet because I’m going to resume talking about the weather. A gorgeous morning in Plymouth, clear and calm skies offering the best beach prospect of the entire trip. When Plymouth shines usually the South Hams shine stronger. So there is an even greater feeling of despondency as we drift through sunny villages towards a distinct band of cloud. ‘Typical’ is the exasperated utterance of choice. Why didn’t we go west?!

With glimmers of promise becoming sparser, we decamp at Kingsbridge under an atmosphere of light grey. The mission here is to get a bite to eat, and what a mission when there are nine of us. Still, I was surprised to find quite the high street tucked away from the quay, rising up in a Totnes kind of vein. Not enough bakeries and tea shops but I’d already done some noteworthy coffee and cake down by the bus stop.

The cloud was lingering as we arrived at Thurlestone, a site steadily establishing itself as the South Devon go-to beach of choice, mainly because of reasonable parking and accessibility which was made all the stronger by bringing a footstool for that one last big step down to the sand. The beach here is essentially one end of South Milton and while that area involves regimented National Trust-controlled fleecing and pop up Instabars, this quieter side has more of a traditional bury your kids in a hole after they have mild hypothermia from the water kind of vibe.

Certainly my tippy toe experience ascertained hypothermia would take a matter of minutes. But at least in one direction there was hope on the horizon with acres of overhead blue progressively creeping closer. Finally bright spells transform to basking weather, when the outside temperature is marginally warmer than the sea.

Hope was also on the other horizon, or just over a headland. This meant navigating an increasingly naked stretch of South Milton, admiring some highland cows and other bovines. A couple of undulations later and we overlook Hope Cove, bustling and bursting, a long way from my first acquaintance with the place a couple of decades ago on a cool and cloudy late winter’s day.

There are a few memories from Hope Cove, the most enduring being on that first occasion, retreating to an empty pub and becoming acquainted with the joys of a perfectly baked treacle tart paired with local clotted cream. It’s something that hasn’t been replicated or improved on since. Today, the pub is busy and treacle tart is absent from the menu. I make do with a dollop of Salcombe Dairy from the general store. There will be sweeter, creamier days ahead.

And so that brings us to Trago Mills, undoubtedly not the highlight of the trip but a necessary forerunner. A space to wait out some time as the day warms up, the sunshine bringing extra sweetness to massive trays of strawberries for a pound. I once remember a friendly debate with an Australian when I lauded the superiority of English berries. And while I concede the blueberries and raspberries are broadly on a par, I challenge anyone in Australia to come up with a strawberry as succulent as that of an English summer. My partner, Avery, says she will never eat an Australian one again. We both can’t handle the disappointment.

What goes with strawberries I hear you say? Cream. Cream also goes with treacle tart and brownie and ice cream and plum pudding and meringue and anything really. Scones of course are the natural partner, a marriage made often in Devon. There is always a risk that the second time round will not live up to the first, but I doth my cap to Lustleigh. And forever will pay it homage.

This is an occasion that lingers, but in a way which sets up a perfect moment in time, a perfect holiday memory. Sated in warm sunshine, meandering along the brook in the village orchard. Through clumps of apples, the swings and benches and thatched roofs and church spire cluster around a tearoom. Avery and I wander, attracted by the vivid blue and green demoiselle zipping above the water. Spread out, family are equally soaking in their own little thing, their own quiet corner of contentment. Time feels like it stands still here and you very much wish you could stand still with it. But we have to move on, there are questions to face.