Lovely peace of Cod

We've crossed the Bourne Bridge onto the Cape proper. We're on Route 6 but all we can see are pitch pines and stubby, stunted oaks for miles and miles, and rear number plates.

Hundreds, crawling ahead of us at very low speed on this balmy Friday. There's not even a whiff of ozone. Just fumes and, in the evening warmth, a hint of pine resin. And a strange, sweetly foetid, nostril-clinging smell: skunk.

Oh yes, there's a dark side to the Cape Cod summer evening. There's poison ivy and deer ticks and the hilariously ghastly Route 28 with its plastic flamingos, inflatable crocodiles and Prehistoric Mini-Golf Experiences. We had been warned, too, of dank, sunless days when the fog rolls in and of epic English drizzle.

So what did we get? Day after day of Wedgwood-blue skies and crisp, dry heat. Like the day at Wellfleet: a perfect paradigm of the salty, sunbaked childhood beach day. On the flat foreshore we parked in front of a row of sun-blistered salt-box cabins, their shingles weathered to palest silver-grey. We contemplated a boat charter ("Sportfishing. Experienced skipper"), but instead bought a $5 net from the kiosk on the wharf and set out across the wide sand flats in search of fiddler crabs and a swim.

Later, with the sun firmly on "broil", we hid in the shade of the beach-front oyster shack. "Wellfleet oysters! Best in the world!" insisted the owner. They certainly are good.

We drive back, weary and sated, to our hosts in Chatham, a quiet - and very smart - town on the "elbow" of the Cape. Being house-guests gave us the seminal Cape Cod summer experience. If you can't wangle an invitation, the next best thing is to rent a place of your own. You'll feel like a regular in no time.

But there's one big caveat: if you want to fit in, leave the fashion statements at home. Cape Cod is Boston-on-Sea, not Manhattan at play. It's the Atlantic seashore idyll before Ralph Lauren got hold of it. The Hamptons before "beach house" meant 10,000 square feet of Richard Meier-wannabe modernism.

Hang out at Chatham's sawdust-floored Squire and it's all chinos and boating shoes ... and "evening" means "add a sweater". Go to Falmouth, with its village green and immaculate colonial houses and you'll find Coffee Passion - like a Woodstock-era time warp. Go for sundowners and dinner at Captain Kidd in Woods Hole and you'll find yourself in the definitive New England seashore restaurant - reclaimed wood and laid-back attitude - built on a jetty overlooking a mirror-calm saltwater pond.

Back in Chatham, we'd start our days with a wake-up walk through the silent, leafy streets. Or we'd pack our breakfast into picnic baskets and sit on Chatham Light beach, watching the sun rise over the Atlantic. We stocked up on fruit, veg and gossip at the Tuesday morning farmers' market. We gorged on clambake to go, and joined the locals for the Friday night lobster roll supper at the Methodist Church.

We'd take the boat ride from Monomoy to the sand-spit of South Beach for a day of sun-baking, picnicking and swimming, where the Atlantic water was so cold it almost cracked our ankles and the Chatham harbour side was like a warm bath. We learned to drive as slowly as the locals. We let the days draw out - long, quiet and slow. Some we'd end with a picnic supper on the beach, others just hanging out in the back yard with a barbecue.

One magical evening we loaded children, dogs, beers and dinner into the cars and headed down to Veterans Field for a Cape Cod League baseball game. We spread our rugs on the ground, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas boomed out of the PA between innings, the dogs and children tore about till they dropped with exhaustion and we knew that we couldn't get more American than this.

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