What I Did On My Holidays

OK, the holiday...

The drive down was pretty good under the circumstances I guess - it took us about an hour to get around Bristol but I guess that's par for the course in the summer. The place we stayed was a little cottage on the edge of a farm. The owner who showed us round was a bit of a right-on back-to-nature type, I think. Anyway, we settled in nicely, and soon discovered the coolest thing about the place.

Right outside the living room window there was a couple of bird-feeders hanging. Right outside, only about three inches away from the glass. Whenever we were sat around during daylight we ended up just watching them come to feed. Blue Tits, Great Tits, Siskins, Green Finches (vicious fuckers), Chaffinches, and even the occasional Sparrow. By the end of the week we were refilling the seeds at least once a day, sometimes more. Those of you who are thinking 'yeah, so what?', have you ever seen a Chaffinch up close enough to see him turning a sunflower seed over in his beak, cracking the shell to get at the kernel? No? Didn't think so. Truly amazing.

So...

Sunday

Walked down into the village at the bottom of the hill (Chagford). Had a cool lunch at the local pub, with a fantastic lemon cream dessert. I love subtley flavoured lemon desserts. Yum. Bought FHM (always important). Oh, there were Morris Dancers down in the village too. The walk back up was exhausting, but not as bad as we expected. In the evening we walked up into the farm's top field and watched the sun set. It is the first time either of us remember consciously watching the sun set.

Monday

The sniffle I had all day Sunday officially became a cold. We drove across to Castle Drogo (the newest castle in Britain, built c.1910), and wandered around the gardens there. They were fantastic. Saw a fantastic number of bees on certain flowers, and spied out several plants that we're set on having in one or other of our gardens in the place. One of the really cool plants was one I'd not really heard of before - a plant with flowers that smell of chocolate. Fantastic :-)

Tuesday

Felt really really grotty on Tuesday morning. We went into Exeter for lunch and (I think) had lunch in Caf� Rouge (ever had a citron press� in there? LOL). In the late afternoon we walked up to the top of the hill we were staying on (nice views) and at the least appropriate time our solicitor rang up with some questions for us about the house - we were waiting to exchange, OK? I took my mobile everywhere! Then just as we got back to the cottage he phoned again with an offer of a different completion date from the vendors, which we accepted. He then said that exchange would hopefully go through early the next day.

Wednesday

Once again woke up feeling really shit and decided that I was going to try and get an appointment to see the local doctor. At about 11 we got a phone call to say that we'd exchanged, at which point we both came over all giggly and kept looking at each other and saying "our house". Awwww :-)

In the afternoon we drove over to Newton Abbott because we wanted to visit the nearby Hedgehog Hospital (softies that we are). We got to the place eventually at 4pm, and on reading the 'last admission at 4pm' sign ran up to the kiosk, only to be told that really they only let people in up until 3.30, when the last talk of the day started. Crappy advertising. We sulked. Then we got over it and went to Bovey Tracey, where we looked around an art gallery and Alison found yet another opportunity to treat herself to a coffee, although for a change it was a cappuccino not a latte.

Thursday

Saw the doctor. I described my symptoms, at which point he said "haven't you just described a cold", which made me feel about two inches tall. I guess he had a point though, I reckon you always feel iller than you really are when you're ill on holiday.

For the rest of the day I'd persuaded Alison that we should drive up to the North Coast of Devon and visit Appledore, where I stayed a number of times with my family when I was younger. It was a lot less strange than when we went to the Isle of Wight in the spring (which I last visited when I was 11), it was much easier to recognise places. Actually walked down the back of the Appledore to find The Doll's House, a quaint little cottage where we stayed when I was 14 - the cottage was only about fifteen feet across! - and was relieved to find that it was still there. The caf� where two years before that we saw John Rhys Davies (Gimli in Fellowship of the Ring, amongst other things) was not there anymore, sadly. That would've been 18 years ago, folks. I seem to remember much of the time on that holiday was spent playing Sabre Wulf, if that helps you place it...

The return to Westward Ho!, the next town along (and only place in Britain with an exclamation mark in its name), was far less nostalgic. Alison and I had a 7-game air-hockey match, which she won in the 7th deciding game. Feh.

Oh yes, and when we had lunch in Bideford (on the way to Appledore) Alison had a latte.

Friday

Made a brief trip to Okehampton Castle, before it got too wet for us to want to be wandering around. Then went for a wander around Okehampton, which involved a brief stay in a coffee bar, where Alison had a latte. I want to make it clear that I'm not trying to make out she's developing an addiction, because measured up against Anne, Alison hardly touches coffee. I just think it's odd to say that you only drink coffee as a treat and then to have it 4 or 5 days running. Oh, and a PokeyLittleRecordShop(TM) yielded both CD Singles of Sneaker Pimp's 6 Underground which has a damn funky cover, based on the old Space Lego moonscape plate. The CDs were 99p each. Like the guy in the shop said, it was almost worth it just for the covers :-D

Saturday

So we went home. Naturally my cold had pretty much cleared up by this time. The journey home was an indirect one. First we went to my parents for lunch, then across to Stow-on-the-Wold to go to the legendary Scott's of Stow shop to get some housey stuff for the upcoming move. It was on this leg of the journey that I got caught by a speed camera, taking my grand total of points up to 6. Terrific. From there we just headed home, where I found a lovely Lego set waiting to be built. Also in the post while we were away I heard back from National Savings about my old Post Office account that was last known to have �37 in (in 1987). The current (closing) balance is 140quid :-) which nicely tied in with the Lego, so it can pay for that.

Other Highlights

I wrote a lot of my current Buffy fic while I was away, although I wasn't quite as prolific as I was on the Isle of Wight in March (where the ramp up to finishing HBL really started).

We played Boggle a hell of a lot. I am obviously a glutton for punishment, because it would seem that Alison is much better at Boggle than me. Still, regardless of scores we both got attacks of smug pride when we found ReallyCleverWords(TM). My biggest coup was finding Condor and Condors when Alison didn't... that 8 points made a lot of difference to that game :-D

We watched lots of episodes of Will & Grace. We watched The Wish (Buffy alternate universe episode), and were surprised to find W-W-W-Whitney from Bring It On in there. And we watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Phantom Menace, If These Walls Could Talk 2, The World Is Not Enough, and Harry Potter and the Philospher's Stone. I think that's everything.

So, that's it. I'll write a separate entry on more recent events either later tonight, or tomorrow.