summer holiday in devon

‘term’ is starting here very late indeed. There wasn’t much point getting ‘worky’ before we had had our summer holiday – second week of sept. And, TBH, we haven’t been v worky since kentwell – 1st week of july. not that it has been a learning free zone. BB has read regularly and is far more confident, reading many books to her self, and currently reading ORT and songbirds level 7. she also seems to have grasped HTU after a huge struggle [well, more or less!] SB has kept busy doing bits of this and that too.

I digress, we went to Devon, the only area in the south that had lots of rain, and we camped! Having said that, I had a fab holiday.we were in our big tent, and actually worked out how to successfully put up the tarp as well so it could act as a porch – woohoo . we had a fab time! there was a vaguely heated swimming pool [only opened if sunny at 10am] and we then went to the beach at westward ho! [which i hadn't believed existed] and the girls boogie boarded, and dh and i got cold!

we went cycling along the tarka trail, stopping at orchard yarde cafe – the perfect cafe/campsite/bunkhouse arrangement. yummy samosas too the trail was uphill – gentle but persistantly- pretty much all the way there, and there was a fair bit of rain – mostly light. the trail tho is an old railwy line, so a fair bit of tree cover and quite sheltered on the whole, and there were some geocaches. cycling back was MUCH easier

another beach day, this time chosen because it was the picture on the map cover – lovely beach. this time i nearly swam [waist high] whilst girls had fab time boogie boarding. bb really got the hang of it . finished with a cream tea at local national trust – i only saw the savoury version after i ordered tho. we spent some while watching farmer feed the sheep.

the next day looked like it might be sunny, and there were showers and sunny moments forecast. it wasn’t exactly accurate . we walked wistman’s wood in the pelting rain to the cheerful noise of bb disagreeing with the need to wear her raincoat. the accompanying sound track back was more diabolical however the wood was good, and the girls jumped over the rocks in the woods.

after making it back to the car we went to darmeet and had lunch in a place usually reservered – i imagine – for 70+ on a coach tour. i did check the date on my phone, and no alternate times appeared, so just an anachronism anyway tea for me and toastie, and chips for bb – which reset her and then – miracles! the promised good weather appeared at about 4 for us to paddle and mess about by the clapper bridge there. and find a geocache

Beautiful end to the day. DH then decided to do some drive by caching on the way home, which the girls didn’t really encourage but one of them was really really boggy, and SB slipped over in the worst of it… lovely day and late home.

the next day, starting sunny, began with a bit of messing about in the swimming pool. DH didn’t go in at all, and the girls fairly briefly only.

but after lunch we went to the maritime museum, which is one of those great little uk museums manned by volunteers in a house we all enjoyed it, and it was v interesting. good to find sheets as well at different levels.

afterwards we wandered around the village/seatown and then had another cafe stop:) and bought some honeycomb for sb, who has been desperate to have some more since she first had some at the deependers.

final full day was a geocaching day around northam burrows nature reserve. we found them all, hopped about in the sand dunes, took the long path around some horses and the girls scrambled down to the beach at a couple of points. weather was fantastic and we all had a great time.

we finished with chips at westwood ho watching the sun go down – brilliant day with my lovely family

the last day we hurriedly took down our tent so that we could watch the tour of britain go past [without wiggins] we cheered all the marshalls etc past and the cyclists whizzed past in a few seconds – at least they got a resounding cheer .