OFF AGAIN.

For those of you that watch this site,
Some by day and some by night,
Were off again to our little heaven,
Over there in Deepest North Devon.

As I'm sure you all know by now,
Although I'm really not sure how,
We spend a lot of time over there,
In our van without a care.

A simple life we live over here,
A little food a little beer,
We like to ride our bikes as well,
Around the lanes we ride like hell.

Our baby Mojo she is our pet,
She is the the best that you could get,
But I'm afraid like us she's past her best,
At 91 she deserves a rest.

So for a while nowI wont be blogging,
The wife says that I wont be dogging,(oops)
It wont be too long before were back,
So I'm off now to start to pack.

END


Back in two weeks.

CAMP SITE FRIENDS.

The picture is of myself(4 stone heavier then) and Pete/Karen. Click on any picture to enlarge.




Our camp site friends Karen and Peter who are from Gloucester came down for a week recently, they usually bring their son David with them but he's just started a new job so was unable to get the time off from work.They hav'nt been coming to Devon for long so we took them around for a day out. The pictures were taken in Woolacombe facing towards the village of Mortoe, for any body reading this that likes stunning coastal walks the ones in this area take some beating.

A WET DAY OUT.

I could'nt resist showing you this lovely view of Watermouth Harbour. Click on any photo to enlarge it. (Just on the tip of the left hand pine tree is the tower which will be mentioned in a future blog).
Above is a picture of the worlds last sea going Paddle Steamer "The Waverley"this vessel works out of Ilfracombe during a couple of the summer months.Its main excursions are day trips to the Island of "Lundy"plus coastal cruises and trips up to "Minehead".We missed our chance to take our own photo's hence the postcard.This vessel I believe leaves Ilfracombe and does a month or so at Minehead before moving up to a scottish port for the later summer months. Below are a few photo's of the harbour taken from the the top of the hill out of the village of"Hele". Just as a by the way the sun was very obliging for about 1.5 hours while we took these pics then back came the rain.


Here is the sea at the rear of the theatre which was still quite rough from the recent storms.

The last couple of weeks in Berrynarbor(Nr Ilfracombe) the weather has been terrible, rain rain and then some rain. At least we hav'nt had the flash floods like some have. On Monday we decided to go to Ilfracombe for the day, a bit of shopping, book some Theatre tickets to see the "Cavern Beatles", and a visit to the very interesting Museum.While we were there we obviously had to take a few photo's of the harbour and Pier.

DEVON'S ARLINGTON COURT.

Click on any picture to enlarge.







Last saturday we went to Arlington Court for the afternoon, this property was originally owned (for over 500 years) by the chichester family the last of which was Miss Rosalie Chichester (who was a real accentric).The Estate houses a fine collection of horse drawn carriages and also is the home of a colony of fairly rare lesser horseshoe bats. The house and Estate is situated in beautiful Devon countryside and farmland just a few miles from Barnstaple and is a total of around 2700 acres.The house grounds are of about 30 acres and contain a chapel, stables and a walled garden that is under reconstruction. Any of you that saw the T V series (20 or so years ago) will understand the amount of work and manpower that goes into the construction and daily maintenance of this project. A lot of the produce fruit veg herbs etc are used daily in the Restaurant and Tea-rooms.As a by the way, any of you reading this who hav'nt seen the mentioned T V series "The Victorian Kitchen Garden", then if you possibly can get a copy, do so they are still available and absolutely fascinating. On our visit we started with a stroll around the house gardens followed by of course a good old cup of Tea (quite dear),then into the main house. The house contains dozens of pictures and models etc of old boats(ships ?) also a very fine collection of shapes colours and sizes of sea shells and the things that can be made from them.This suprisingly took well over an hour (so back for more expensive Tea).We then managed to walk around the well laid out formal garden and on into the walled garden, as I said earlier this is probably about 60-70% complete and to gardeners like us was wonderful. All in all a quite expensive (relative I suppose) but very enjoyable day, although I did miss out on the lake walk and the walk to see the bats due to my disability, hopefully next time.

SHAMMICK (COMBE MARTIN ) STRAWBERRY FAIR.

Click on any picture to enlarge it.





Last Weekend While Sue and I were at the Caravan(North Devon) We visited the,I believe annual Combe Martin Strawberry fair.This fair apparently dates back quite a few years(I'm not sure how long) and I was told originates back to the days when old cargo boats traveled frequently around the N Devon coastline apparently a common route (in the summer months) was with coal and other wares from the Welsh ports to Combe, then returning with fresh Devon produce Fruit Veg and especially in their season lovely fresh shammick Strawberries ("Shammick" I'm told is an ancient name for Combe Martin)The fair takes place in a small side street adjacent to the beautiful little harbour and is blocked off to traffic.It consists of lots of little stalls selling local (very cheap) punnets of Strawberries + plants and local arts and crafts with Tombola and raffles and charity stalls all done by local people with a real community feel, all this was supported by a display from the Exmoor Morris dancers ,While we walked around we had hoped perhaps we might bump into Martin Stickland (of Combe martin.blogspot.com ) and sure enough we did, it was only a brief chat as he had family/friends with him but very welcome anyway. While there we bought two huge punnets of Strawberries for us and two for our friends,while sitting on a wall watching the world go by we devoured one of these, delicious they were too, my wife Sue just could'nt resist buying a strawberry and Marshmallow Kebab on a stick these were coated with liquid chocolate from a special little fountain(pictured). We also met and chatted with the town crier,he was a well travelled and interesting man.