“The grief I’m feeling is heavy and raw, pressing down on me, breaking my chest apart. It hurts to even touch the edges of it. It’s to do with Grandad being gone. The loss of him, and the loss of me. I heard someone say once that grandparents are the guardians of our childhoods, and for the first time I really understand what that means.”

“When I come over the top of the dune I see the ocean and I feel like I’m seeing it for the first time.Today it’s blue, straight and simple. Raw blue.”

“I bury my face in my hands. And then Ryan does such a nice thing. He wraps his arm around my shoulders and pulls me in against him. I can feel his body heat through his cotton T-shirt, and directly in front of me are the worn, faded knees of his jeans. But most of all, I can smell him. And he smells sandy-warm, like a beach. No one can see my face in there protected by his chest. Which is good because I can’t stop crying. I mean, I’m really going for the world record in terms of an inappropriate public breakdown. But it doesn’t matter, it just doesn’t matter. I’m sheltered.”

“I let myself feel good for no reason. I let joy happen right there and then, and it's inside me and around me, it's the lights on the road ahead, the clean black of the night, the cold air coming through the window. It's like hearing a song for the first time and being struck by it, haunted by it, wanting to hunt it down and catch it, because the song sums up something you didn't know you wanted to say, giving you chills and goose bumps. But even as you find out what it's called, and you're thinking you'll download it, you've already lost. Because the feeling was right then and there and it's already fading like a dream.You just have to see those times for what they are: a chance to look down at your life. And when you do, you see it's a skin made up of shiny little moments.”

“And what really struck me was that the woman still meant so much to Grandad after all of those years. She burned in his memory in a way that she never would have if he’d left his wife and sons for her. It got me thinking about how sometimes it’s the people we don’t get to have who stay with us the most.”

“Oi!’I drop in on him the first chance I get.Round three. There’s one coming on the inside and I start paddling for it. He starts for it too, telling me, ‘It’s mine, sunshine.’‘Get stuffed.’As I feel the surge take my board, he grins across at me. ‘Split it?’So we split the peak, he goes left and I go right, and I know, like me, he’s thinking, How good is this?”

“I draw the light with my fingers, and it seems to spark in response. And it’s then that the magic of this place, this night beach, gets to me. Because that sparkling thing could be anything. A fallen star, a little buried sun. I feel like I’m a kid again. When there was so much to see. So much wonder.”