We came down to Devon last weekend for my Uncle’s 70 birthday party. We have since been staying in a holiday cottage on the outskirts of Sidmouth with my family. The cottage is nice and large which is lucky as the weather has been pretty miserable so we’ve spent a lot of time inside. Sidmouth itself isn’t all that inspiring, particularly in the rain. We had a trip out to Otterton Mill for a walk. I ended up sat in the car with a sleeping Emma who woke just as everyone else was forced to return by an ever increasing downpour. The photo is from Branscombe Beach (infamous for the grounding of the MSC Napoli) where we managed to get some sunshine (in between the showers). The sun came out again just as my parents left for home but sadly we were touring Sidmouth looking for a replacement tyre having run over a nail. The following day we went in to Exeter to pick up my brother who, having driven my parents home, had returned via train.
Archive for the ‘Travel’ Category
Wet week in Devon
Thursday, April 1st, 2010Cornish Holiday
Thursday, April 16th, 2009We headed down to Cornwall over the Easter period to visit my brother-in-law and his wife at Falmouth. In a very cosy arrangement their landlord let us stay in one of the other barn conversions where they live. These were previously holiday lets and are still fully fitted out. This meant we had our own space but were still nice and handy. We started our journey down on Thursday, stopping at the Tumbling Weir Hotel for the night. This was nice enough all mealtimes were a bit child unfriendly: dinner service starts at 7pm and breakfast isn’t until 8:30am. Trying to find somewhere else in Ottery St Mary to have dinner didn’t prove too easy either. The suspicion is that the hotel makes most of its money from weddings.
Week in the Peaks
Saturday, March 21st, 2009From Ludlow we move to the Peak District for a short break. The location was mainly chosen so that we could make a day trip to visit Christine’s cousin Cath’s new baby. We’d made a last minute booking at a cottage in Tideswell. The cottage was homely enough but could do with a bit of touching up here and there. It did have an excellent collection of children’s books which kept Emma happy for the week. She might have enjoyed the videos as well but I could only get the DVD player to work!
Weekend in Ludlow
Sunday, March 15th, 2009We’ve spent a very relaxing weekend in Ludlow with Christine’s old boss Russell Cheng. They have retired to a lovely old listed building in the centre of Ludlow from where we could make short forays out in to the town. I last visited Ludlow as a scout when, as a group of patrol leaders, we were remarkably allowed to find our own way to Ludlow from Hertfordshire and then walk from there to Shrewsbury, staying at hostels on the way. I have to confess to remembering nothing of the place! Particularly exciting for Emma was spending the weekend with Truffle and May (a dog and cat respectively). Emma perfected her ‘lie down Truffle’ which was needed frequently during mealtimes (perhaps related to Ann’s excellent cooking!). A small selection of photos are on Flickr.
10 years on
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008Being presented with my “10 year pen” at a departmental meeting on Monday seems like a good excuse for a bit of a retrospective on my career with IBM…
Cornish delight
Monday, October 20th, 2008We spent a long weekend visiting Christine’s brother and his wife down in Falmouth. We headed down on Friday, stopping at Bridport for a lunchtime break. It was like a dream come true for Emma – more pebbles than she knew what to do with! On Saturday we headed over to the massive stretch of beach that is Hale Sands. Lots to see with kite surfing, land yachting, and land kiting (apologies to devotees if I’ve incorrectly labelled their favourite sport!). Emma enjoyed drawing in the sand but was a bit bemused by the rest of the party building a large fort and then proceeding to watch the sea take it over.
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Holey smoke
Sunday, September 21st, 2008I took Friday afternoon off so that we could get a head start on the crowds heading up to the Lake District. I successfully anticipated that the oil warning light would come on and we had already purchased the requisite supplies. Unfortunately after about an hour it became clear that there was growing noise coming from the exhaust. Not withstanding sounding like a boy racer, this started to give me a splitting headache (hopefully not due to petrol fumes!). Consequently, as things started to slow up as we approached Birmingham I was happy to fork out £4.50 to take the M6 toll road – a first for me – which also gave us the option of another set of services (Norton Canes).
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Shipping arrives
Thursday, September 11th, 2008Whoopee – our shipping finally arrived yesterday – a mere four weeks after it was collected in Oslo! It’s amazing how much you miss some really small things. For example, with our weighing scales back we can now start making bread again. (Christine tried guessing weights once and the result wasn’t pretty!) We also have our wireless router back (no more fighting over the internet connection) and Emma has more toys than she knows what to do with (not to mention a cot). Only negative: this morning Christine spotted a couple of inch long slashes in the high chair where it looks like someone has been a bit heavy-handed taking the wrappings off with a Stanley knife. Hopefully it’ll be covered by the insurance.
