A week in Devon/Cornwall

Saturday 12 September

Today we were up early and ready for our holidays - after a long and stressful week it has been very much needed so we were both excited for it. We set off at about 8am heading for Devon. It was a long journey and both of us were ready to be out of the car as we rolled out at the Elements cafe just outside Bude. We had a really lovely lunch of antipasti looking out to the sea from a lovely garden area. All of the staff were really friendly and social distancing was well maintained. For desert I had spied what looked like the most amazing rocky road cake in the fridge so we just had to have a slice. There was also some amazingly gooey flapjack as well so we shared a bit of each. By the time I had had that as well as a hot chocolate I was absolutely stuffed. We met my in laws there after numerous messages on the way to say how our journeys had been and where we were and had the first holiday drink together watching the sea and catching up. It was about time by this point to head on over to the cottage that we had booked for  the week and get ourselves settled in. It’s a really amazing place - absolutely huge, with gorgeous furniture and fabulous hosts. They had left us a welcome note on the wall and afternoon tea on the table as we arrived. What a wonderful surprise. We had a wander over to meet the local residents (chickens, ducks and a goose). We had a look outside the front door when it was dark and the stars we could see were incredible. The sky was so clear and everywhere was so dark, it was brilliant. This evening we were all pretty tired so after some chatting, a good dinner and a drink or two we were all well and truly ready for bed (which is where I am now writing this with my eyes half closed!

Sunday 13 September

Today was a lovely day weather wise so we headed down to the beach this morning. We found a little stony beach called Duckpool Bay which I absolutely loved. There was loads to explore - climbing over stones and looking in rock pools we found some little fish, sea anemones, loads of winkles, tiny shrimp and limpets. We sat for a while after exploring to have a drink and chill out watching the surfers as there were quite a few down there by the time we got back up the beach. We headed off at around lunch time just as it was starting to get really busy and back to the cottage for a chilled out afternoon. 

I went out for a little walk with Dad L and - after getting shouted at by one farmer - found a nice little circle through a cow field (which we didn’t see until we were leaving the other end of the field!) and back up the little road to our cottage. It wasn’t hugely far - only 2km - but a lovely little loop none the less. Tonight we had a lovely BBQ and played some uno before heading off to bed for an early night. We play sled a lot of rounds but Dad L didn’t win a single one - I’m sure they’ll have to be some Mickey taking for that over the next few days! It must be the sea air but we were all shattered at 9pm!

Monday 14 September

Today I woke up feeling really anxious. It was planned as a beach day as Mum and Dad L love nothing more than sitting in the sun and baking themselves. Yesterday we weren’t even out too long and I got a little bit burnt. Also at the minute I haven’t been feeling too great which I think leads to me not being able to just sit and do nothing - even while we’ve been watching the TV in an evening I always have to have my cross stitch on the go with me. It turned out to actually be a really nice day. We went to the beach at Bude called Summerleaze. I forgot my cap which added to my worry as I realised on the way to the beach but luckily Mum L didn’t want to wear hers so I could borrow that for the day. When we wandered onto the beach it was pretty quiet but slowly throughout the morning it really filled up. While the area open to the sea wasn’t hugely wide it was a really deep beach area so there was still a good amount of social distancing going on between where people had set up camp for the day. I wasn’t sure how I was going to cope with sitting still so as soon as we arrived we dumped our stuff and me and Adam went for a walk down to the sea. We watched dogs playing about in the water, had a bit of a paddle (it was actually surprisingly warm when you got used to it) and then headed back up the beach via the sea pool that was there. That didn’t look hugely appealing- while I’m sure it was probably a lot warmer than the sea it was also very green and I’ve no idea how deep as you couldn’t see the bottom. Once we got back up the beach Mum and Dad L went for a wander while I freaked out a little but by the time they got back I had got into reading my book and was fairly happy sitting in the sun. I still went a bit pink by lunch time and had to borrow Dad L’s t-shirt to put over my knees like an old lady but I was relatively happy there still. After lunch we headed back via the lovely cafe that we stopped at on Saturday (Elements) and a supermarket to have a lovely chilled afternoon back at the cottage. I had had enough sun so after a bit of a planning meeting for the next few days I had a shower and sat inside sewing and reading my book. It was then our turn to cook dinner so we made a chilli which was lovely and tonight we played Azul (I think Dad L was still grumpy from not winning a single game of uno last night!) It was a lovely evening finished off with a small glass of whisky before bed. Tomorrow we are heading out up the coast in the opposite direction up to a glass works and possibly finding some more beaches to watch the waves at. It should be another good one. Night night.

Tuesday 15 September

Today the weather wasn’t supposed to be quite as good as it has been so we decided to have a bit of a drive out to look at some places. We had a lovely cooked breakfast of scrambled egg and smoked salmon on bagels. We even went post and added a little bit of caviar and a bottle of Prosecco with it as there was no rush to get out today. It was lovely. We then headed out to Dartington Crystal where mum and dad L got some glasses. By the time we came out the weather wasn’t too great - in fact it had even started to rain slightly so we carried on a bit in the car to find some places on the coast that might be pretty to drive through instead of beaches to go down for a walk on. We drove through some nice looking places on the way but eventually stopped at Hartland Quay. We drove down to the car park at the very end and had a nice little wander around before the rain started up a little again. The cliffs were really impressive with all of the different fault lines in them. It was great just standing and watching the waves for a while. As it started to rain slightly again we headed back to the car for a coffee watching over the cliffs.

As the rain had come back again slightly we set off again in the car down the coast road, past South Hole and then back inland to the Tamar Lakes. We parked up at the Upper lake, had a lovely ice cream (Kelly’s of Cornwall - I had strawberry flavour and Eton mess flavour both of which had proper chunks of fruit in and the Eton mess one had lumps of meringue as well) had a wander across the dam wall and back then headed back to the cottage this afternoon.

We got back at about 3:30/4-ish which was lovely as it meant we had a nice long evening when we got back as well. We all sat down and watch Blades of Glory (the daft ice skating film) then had a chilled evening of chatting, eating, a couple of rounds of Uno (Dad L actually won a round!!) and a game of cribbage too before bed (Dad L was disappointed when he just about got lapped on the score board). Considering I didn’t really know what I was doing I didn’t do too badly which I was pleased about and I got more into it as we went along. It was a lovely day all in all - everything was done at a nice leisurely pace and everyone was very chilled out. Let’s hope for another similar day tomorrow - the plan is to head out to Padstow and go on the little ferry that’s there before having a wander round. It should be another good one.

Wednesday 16 September

Today the plan was to head down the coast to Port Isaac and Port Quinn before heading to Rock to get the ferry over to Padstow. We drove to both Port Isaac and Port Quinn and both looked very busy with little or no parking close to the beach/village areas to be able to stop for a walk around. It was also really foggy out along the coast. We headed straight over to Rock once we’d discovered that they were a no-go to aim for the ferry over to Padstow and a wander around the town for the day. Unfortunately when we got there at around 11:30 it was an unusually low tide and the ferry had stopped for a while until the water level rose slightly. The 11am ferry had already been cancelled and the 11:30 had just been as well. We could have hung around for a bit and waited until they re-assesses at 12 but we decided that it was already pretty busy there too and trying to get 3x the number of people on one ferry would somewhat limit how much social distancing was able to happen. We thought it was better to give it a miss especially given the fog that was around and the fact that the low tide meant that you had to walk along the sand further to get on the ferry and make it a shorter journey too. Instead of hanging around or trying to visit any more town-ish places on the coast with the fog we thought it would be better to head inland a little and see if it cleared. It did as we headed towards Bodmin Moor. We drove around quite a lot for the rest of the day struggling to find many places to stop but we did eventually make it to an old pit site and had a wander around there. It was impressive seeing what was left of the old buildings and also looking down into the old shaft which had been covered in a metal mesh top. There were also a couple of standing stone circles there which were really impressive to see - I wonder what they were for or why someone put them up there in the first place. We headed back after that, unsuccessful in our search for an open pub en route and got back to the cottage at not long after 3/3:30.

I still felt like I needed to move about a bit as although it had been a lovely day of seeing stuff we didn’t really get out of the car much today. I felt like a kid who needed to run around a load and burn off some steam so when we got back we had a quick drink with Mum and Dad L and then went back out for our own explore. We knew it would be high tide so we went down for a wander on the beach at Duckpool Bay. It’s amazing how different it looked from the other day when we were there - no rock pools in sight at all. The waves were crashing in covering any hint of sand that there was and all of the part that we were climbing on earlier this week. We sat down there for ages watching the tide come in the final little bit - it was amazing how quickly it moved up the beach. It was lovely to see a little girl playing in the waves with her Dad just down the beach from is as well. The fog came back in and the wind picked up a little so as we started to get slightly we moved on. We drove round to Sandymouth Bay for a little look there before heading back inland - we knew there would be a bit of a drop down to the beach from the car park but hoped we could see the sea and maybe find a loo. It was good to have been and seen it but unfortunately the cafe was closed so no loos available and we couldn’t see the sea from the too due to the fog that was still around. The cafe looked like it should be lovely when it was open though. Somewhere definitely worth a visit another time when we come back down here again. The lack of loos and not being hungry for dinner yet meant that obviously the only logical thing to do was to find a pub to visit on our way back. Not really on route but we knew we liked Elements just the other side of Bude so we headed there. They were shocked when we said we wanted to sit outside and just have a drink in the fog but were happy to let us which was great. We just had one drink and sat chatting before heading back via the chippy to collect dinner. We got dinner for the evening as well as some Cornish pastors for tomorrow lunch as they looked lovely and homemade despite being from Holsworthy which is technically in Devon and not Cornwall...

Tonight’s game was Azul which Dad L actually won - I think he definitely prefers this to UNO!

Thursday 17 September

Today was planned as our Dartmoor day. Adam was driving which meant me navigating to get around and see a few things on the way. We stopped first at a place called Two Bridges - there wasn’t too much there other then a very old fashioned hotel serving cream teas etc. We had some very nice coffees and I had a good cup of hot chocolate while we were there which was good then we went for a wander down the side of the river. We found a good latch on the gate down there and had a lovely walk - we didn’t go far but the river was really pretty and looked fairly shallow there too.

Once we were happy we’d been as far as we wanted to go we set off again to try to find Dartmeet where 2 rivers join - my navigating failed and we went past it over the moor where we met some wild horses who were so tame that we could stroke them.

We had a brief stop off here to make a fuss in them and then carried on to Hound Tor - there was supposed to be a deserted medieval village there but we never quite made it that far over the hills. We wandered up which Mum L did a great job of when we had persuaded her she didn’t need to carry her huge handbag with her and saw some stunning views. We also tried eating some of the gorse flowers which taste weirdly like peas and are lovely (I made sure I went for high up ones to avoid any potential dog pee!) before heading back down towards the car. We fetched our picnic out and sat with a lovely view to enjoy eating our pasties and other snacks.

I directed us from there back to Dartmeet which I had missed earlier - it’s where 2 rivers meet and was supposed to be really pretty. We didn’t actually bother wandering over the road to see the rivers meeting as it didn’t look too impressive but me and Adam had great fun climbing about on the rocks at the edge of the river. We even took our shoes off and had a paddle, dangling our legs in from some rocks near the edge. It was very cold but refreshing and crystal clear water too. I think that was my favourite part of today although it was all lovely but the pair of us behaving like big kids is always my favourite.

This evening we had a BBQ again to use up the last of the meat that we had brought with us - I sneaked a few leftover chips from last night on with my burger which was great. After dinner we tried out a new game called The Good Life that I won from the games expo last year. It was pretty good - a lot like monopoly but with pigs and chickens and some funny things in the Green Fingers cards (like chance in monopoly) We did have to set a time limit to end the game otherwise it may have gone on all night but because of that I won as I had the fewest gaps in my allotment. It’s been a lovely day and great week - I can’t believe tomorrow is our last day and we need to do all of the boring things like packing etc ready to go home on Saturday.

Friday 18 September

Today was a pretty chilled day. We got up and went into Bude in the morning as we hadn’t wandered around there and it was our most local beachy place. It was nice to have a wander - I got a couple of bargain tops from Fat Face in the sale which was good and we found a lovely little cafe on the side of the river that goes down into the sea. Me and Adam had some nice drinks in there and a much needed loo stop. We found this lovely sign that someone had made on a bench on the way back to the car.

Once we were done in Bude our intention was to head out to Elements again but we got our directions a bit wrong and ended up heading back towards the cottage instead so we stopped at the Ryden Inn instead. It was surprisingly nicer inside there than I thought it looked from the outside. We got a lovely table out the back surrounded by the smell of freshly cut grass as they were mowing it while we were there. They also had Thatchers Haze on draft too - my favourite - so I was well happy. We stayed for 2 pints in the end and Mum L had to drive us all back.

On the way to the cottage we stopped again in Holsworthy hoping to pick up some Cornish pasties for our lunch on the way home tomorrow. Unfortunately the bakery/fish & chip shop was closed but we found a lovely cheese shop instead which didn’t sell pasties but we got some black pudding to take home, some different cheeses to try and some pork and apple pie for lunch tomorrow. We had a nice chilled afternoon and evening back at the cottage watching a couple of films and having a big buffet dinner to try to eat up as much of the fresh stuff as we could so we didn’t have so much to take back home. We did a fairly good job of finishing off a fair bit.

Saturday 19 September

Home today. We got up fairly early and set off home at about 7:30. The traffic on the way down looked pretty bad going the other way so we wanted to avoid that as much as possible and also be home at a reasonable time to unpack and have a chilled afternoon/evening. We did. It was nice to be home and chilling on our sofa in the afternoon. Why is travelling so tiring even when I wasn’t the one driving?! We had a really lovely week - I think our favourite day was the one up on Dartmoor. It was incredible seeing the wild horses and cows and we found plenty of things to stop and look at too. Ooh and we got to dip our feet in the river/stream that we stopped at at the end of the day too which was amazing. Thanks to Mum and Dad L and to Adam for a really great week.