What is a mousehole?  Is it a small opening in the skirting board for a rodent? Is it the Cornish word for moeshayle meaning young woman’s brook? Or is it an expression for a narrow harbour opening to a charming seaside town and its tiny sea cave? 

Mousehole, pronounced Mowzul by the locals which starts to come naturally when you say it in a southwest British accent. Go on… have a go. There. See? Mowzul. 

I do believe is a very strong contender for the cutest village on planet Earth.  The writer Dylan Thomas declared it the loveliest village in England and poets know about special things. The lyrical do, after all, put the bubbles on the billboard. I am inclined to agree with Dylan for as soon as I set eyes on this quaint little village I caught a whiff of magic. Higgeldy piggledy buildings on top of one another. Cornish stone. White-washed cottages with pastel-painted windows. Wonky steps laden with buckets full of colourful plants. Cobbled streets and wildflowers. A pretty working harbour with golden sand and turquoise sea playing with little fishing boats. Art galleries and pretty shops entice you with hand-crafted seaside loveliness. Cornish ice cream shops with clotted cream and fudge sticks. And of course, the village pub. It is everything you want a seaside place to be. 

Getting to Mousehole is in itself quite an event. Particularly in a pick-up truck. The roads begin to narrow until the gorse scratches go-faster stripes down either side of your van. Ah, but the commitment has been made and onwards you go, breathing in and ducking because this may make your vehicle smaller somehow. Each bend possibly a near-death experience or a chance to try going backwards around corners when coming face-to-face with the local bus.  Dear Lord. And then there’s the parking in one of the two, rather small and made for Fiat Uno’s car parks on the quay. In fact, I would say that Mowzul could become the epicentre of advanced driving courses. 

I made my way to the Cornish ice cream shop for medication and told of this ordeal to the nurse scooper.

“Ah, yes. In summertime we just sit back and watch the chaos. It’s quite entertaining.”

She gave me an extra chunky fudge stick in my ice cream and a kindly smile. I felt like the protagonist in a holiday best-selling novel. This is exactly how it would be. This is definitely where the scene would be set and where the female character would find herself until the happy-ever-after. If Hallmark did Christmas films in England, Mousehole is where it would be set. 

Yes, I could live here. The place touched me in that magical place somewhere between the heart and stomach and an ember began to fizzle. And then I saw a magnificent house that just so happened to be for sale.  

Keigwin House. Part of a 16th-century manor house with a grandiose Jacobean granite porch, 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms and a walled garden, no less. Not many cottages get one of those in Mowzul. The last, oldest house standing strong after an invasion from the Spanish Armada. A grade ll listed piece of history available right now for offers over £750,000. If 75,000 people bought one of my books I could buy it so please spread the word. 

I needed to sit down with a nice cup of tea to try and work out how I could make this crowdfunding work so I walked along the rocky seafront and up the steps to a lovely little Rock Pool cafe overlooking the bay. Just picture postcard perfect. There’s something soothing about gazing out to sea – it seems to carry all your troubles away and make everything less arduous. 

I strolled back out, taking deep breaths of the fresh sea air and feeling like I really should stay. 

When I went back to fetch the car the fisherman who manned the car parking hut wasn’t there and if you wanted to park your car at that particular time, well tough luck. The chap clearly had more important things to tend to as you can see from his chalked message.

Don’t blame you, sir. In fact, why didn’t I think of that…