Padstow

The weather had picked up and out of the wind Sunday was a pleasant, quite warm day. Just right for catching the bus to Padstow.

I was a little puzzled as to why the bus ride, according to the timetable, took nearly an hour, when it was only about 10 miles away.

It soon became clear why the route took so long, the bus would deviate off the main road to the airport and then to tiny villages, sometimes a couple of miles from the road, to go to stops, where no one either got on, or off!

Not only that, some of these lanes were only wide enough for the bus, so no vehicles coming the other way were going to get by. A lot of reversing had to be done by oncoming traffic.

Then there was the idiot who had gone to church and parked in such a way, there were only about 2 inches to spare either side for the bus to get past.  As the car already had a scratch on it, the driver asked a passenger to get out and take a photo of it.

 In another lane, the male driver of a car coming the other way, didn’t pause in a place where we could have passed, he tried to force his way down the lane, shouting at the bus driver to back up. The bus driver stood his ground and said it was company policy that they were not allowed to reverse round blind bends. Thankfully the bus driver had the patience of a saint and while the car driver ranted and raved, he just calmly sat there saying, he didn’t mind, he was getting paid and would wait all day if need by. The car driver wouldn’t have looked foolish at all if he had just reversed the necessary 5 metres in the first place, instead of making an utter twit of himself for nearly 10 minutes and then getting himself a round of applause from the passengers when he finally did reverse.

Padstow was pretty, although full of tourists. Silly us, it was our first warm, sunny Sunday, should have thought about that.  We had a walk round, enjoyed a pint of local ale, sitting in the sun on the harbour wall and then headed back to the bus station, which conveniently has the Rick Stein, take away, Fish & Chip Shop right by it. What better way to fill the time, waiting for the bus, than sharing a beef dripping fried Cod & Chips? The trip was worth is for that alone!

When we got back to the site, we found we had new neighbours. A lady in a Motorhome and her brother had tagged along with his own bedroom!!

Newquay

Moving on from from Dartmoor, we headed further South on the western side of the leg of land that is Devon and Cornwall.

Next stop, a site called Newquay but actually a short bus ride out, on the top of the cliffs above Watergate Bay.

Going on the beach was fun, as the seas were towering and the dog found it all very exciting and ran around like a loon. 

We had a lovely lunch in Newquay, with a good view over the bay and the Mussels were excellent. 

It was sad to see the massive storm damage from the winter storms, this used to be a usable road.

Over the next couple of days the weather picked up and we were able to plan a trip to Padstow on Sunday 23rd March but that is another story.

All Behind

After 2 weeks of no Site Internet and then coming home for Easter, which meant trying to reclaim the garden after its usual Winter reversion to a wilderness, in just 3 days, then yesterday preparing food for a big family party on Monday, I simply haven't had time to get up to date with our travel Blog.

I hope to do something about that when we start travelling again.

Today is my birthday, so some time for celebrating my 61 years (I always thought I was going to die young!!!) Baking puddings is my main job today and also bathing the dog. So a real mixed bag there then.

Tomorrow is our 30th Wedding Anniversary, which I find hard to believe, I don't know what happened to all those years, they seem to have passed too quickly and incredibly, I have now spent almost half my life with Mike.

Three of the four children will be able to be with us tomorrow, plus grandchildren and there is going to be a special visitor, this will be the first time that Mike's newly discovered half sister will be meeting (other than us) her birth family. So emotions will probably be running high. It will be an interesting day.  

Exeter

17th March we took a trip into Exeter, on the bus.

I've driven past this city so many times but never done more than stop at the Services on the way up and down the country. To be honest, I knew nothing about it and wasn't expecting a lot.

What a pleasant surprise!

For a start, I didn't know Exeter had suffered badly at the hands of the  Luftwaffe, by far the worst bombings there taking place on 4th May 1942. Thankfully the Cathedral and the many ancient buildings around The Green escaped fairly lightly compared to other parts of the City. 

It was a coolish day when we started our walk round but soon found some historic bits and pieces of interest and we started to be rather impressed with the way the ancient had been preserved amongst the modern.

We especially liked the way items found during digs at the site of St Catherine's Chapel and Almshouses were preserved in perspex at the site.

The buildings around the Cathedral Green were impressive to say the least and we even felt we might break our usual rules of not paying an admission price to a Cathedral and paid the £4 each fee, as the age concession there is 60, which meant I could take advantage of it too. So glad we did, Exeter has to be in my top 3 of UK Cathedrals, at least of the ones I have seen and that's a fair number.

Then, when we came out of the Cathedral, we have been given totally different weather, it was like Summer, so we decided to sit outside one of the Hotels facing the green and have lunch, in the sun.

Castle Drogo

We knew that the castle was undergoing major restoration works, as we’d seen it on the telly but as we have a Membership to The National Trust, for the work we do for The National Garden Scheme, we thought we’d go and see what was going on.

The Castle has suffered massive damp, nay, water problems from the time it was first built and to make the building watertight is a massive undertaking. It was interesting to see the Castle in it’s current state as a work in progress but if I’m honest, I’m glad we didn’t have to pay to go in.

These mirrors below, either side of a mock doorway, were the strangest mirrors we'd even seen, they don't give the appearance of a reflection but as if you are looking into another room, where there happens to be people that look just like you. It's a really weird thing to see and apparently due to the extremely high quality of the glass and silvering.