My brother-in-law(-in-law) shows me round the house he’s built in Shoreham. It’s not his house, though – he built it for someone else. It’s in classic Modernist style: all clean rectangles, open, light, beautiful wood finishes – I wish it were mine. Inside, an open staircase above a mosaic pool leads up to the open-plan living area. Lovely proportions, exquisite attention to detail. Huge smooth-sliding windows form the whole width of the house; all you can see is beach, sea, horizon, sky.

Two minutes away are the houseboats. Not just boats that are lived in: some of them are evolving art installations, with pieces being added, welded on, changed – the inventiveness is exhilarating. One boat is topped by a coach above heart-shaped windows, another has a car set in the side. A gate is made from a salvaged railway-signal, a letterbox from a microwave on a post. A large bomb, nose-down in the mud, is made from a buoyancy float, ‘PEACE’ exquisitely cut into its side. Everywhere there are bright colours, flowers and vegetables growing, amazing juxtapositions.

The ordered and the random; the cool and the wild; design and art.