These are short travelogues about places visited over a long weekend, usually city breaks or country breaks in the UK.
It seemed fitting for my 100th post on this blog to write about an historical event, one with far more importance though…
It is a date that every English child will know sooner or later. The year 1066, when King Harold was shot in the eye by an arrow and died on the battlefields at Hastings. The most famous battle fought on English soil and the last successful invasion of this country. Continue reading Just Back From… 1066
Before we left North Devon for home (which at the time was in west Surrey) we headed on down the coast to have another look at the North Cornwall coastal towns of Boscastle, Tintagel and Port Isaac – famous for the Doc Martin series on ITV. Of course getting there involved a stop off at another beach – Sandymouth, and the return was via the coastal road and a quick stop at Widecombe Bay. Writing these travelogues makes me understand why it is that I arrive back from holiday needing a holiday. I don’t seem to do relaxing! Continue reading North Cornwall
Of course it wouldn’t be a holiday for me without visiting a garden or two. And North Devon has several, including one in Clovelly itself – Clovelly Court Gardens (entrance is included in the price to the village). Unfortunately the gardens closed at 4 p.m. so we were too late this time as we were still in the village. We did drive over to Marwood Hill Garden just north of Barnstaple where you will find beautiful gardens and lakes and a wonderful café which serves great cakes – we had a clotted cream tea with ginger scones! Continue reading North Devon: Gardens
A couple of years ago we went to North Devon and stayed in a National Trust Cottage near the pebbly Peppercombe Beach.
The cottages were traditionally built out of cob in the late eighteenth century, to house the officers of what was then called the Preventive Service – tasked with policing this wild stretch of coast to prevent smuggling – and later evolved into the life saving Coastguard Service Continue reading Spring in North Devon
October may seem an odd time of year to visit Cornwall – notorious for its ‘mizzle’ (mist and drizzle) and when the nights are drawing in. No late evening walks along the promenade at sunset for us then. October is, however, my birth month and this year marked a special anniversary too – ten years of marriage and a BIG birthday. The one where you used to get a free bus pass and a state pension – no longer though. So where to go and celebrate these two milestone events?
I thought about romantic Florence, I considered the northern lights of Reykjavik, I mused about South Africa and my beloved Cape Town, but on the other hand we still hadn’t found a house to buy and until we settled I felt that I was in limbo. I needed to get on with the rest of my life and my heart was still set on being near the coast so what better place to return to than Cornwall. Continue reading Just Back From… Penzance
TRAVEL WORDS 