I am dictating my post today, Barbara Cartland-style, to my assistant. The reason being I have been on a surfing weekend, and have severely numb arms. Ten of us gathered at Whitsand Bay in Cornwall to celebrate my friend’s 40th. We rented chalets above the beach and had a 2 hour surfing lesson in the thrilling, relentless Cornish waves. I am from the far end of Cornwall, but this little corner, right up by the Tamar river, was new to me. The beaches are stunning – a huge sweeping bay divided by rocky splinters into a series of pretty hidden coves. Very unusually however, the cliff is scattered with cabins. Little wooden lodges, each unique – some ramshackle and tumbledown, some smart and chic with their wood-cladding painted in Farrow & Ball colours – dot the cliff path, each with an astounding view out over the Atlantic.

Image by Pete Sykes, via Flickr

The birthday girls’ brother exclaimed ‘it’s like Big Sur’ as we descended the cliff – he’s lived there, so we took his word. Although Cornwall is breathtakingly beautiful, my observation about it has always been that except the pretty fishing villages (now eye-wateringly expensive) there are few properties actually on the sea. The cliffs are too tall, the winter weather too harsh. Those that are built on the cliffs are almost always pebble-dashed bungalows, built in the grey, featureless, anti-aesthetic style that has predominated in Cornish buildings since the 70s.

But here were cute little lodges perfect for living out those Point Break fantasies, all built on a pleasingly small and – seemingly – temporary scale. Our chalet was more sheltered, and admittedly less salubrious. But so cheap that you could conceivably chuck in your job and live there from the proceeds of a bit of whittling, all the better to pursue your surfing passion. While my friends shuddered slightly at the worn brown carpets I was able to see the positive – a colour scheme so out that it’s about to come back in again. I just been writing some trends pieces on the colours of 2016, and Pantone have named 9 colour palettes they predict will be huge next year. Our chalet fitted neatly into the trend they’ve rather prosaically named ‘Mixed Bag’ – deep reds, yellows and violet.

You read it here first. And as for the surfing – it was amazing, although my childhood of bouncing around in the same waves reminds me that it can be just as fun to be in the surf not attached to a 10ft lump of board by an ankle rope. I’d definitely do it again though – but after 6 months worth of press-ups. Owwww my arms….