London Bridge new platforms open!

Soooo...back from happy holidays (and look - all the new platforms are finished and open at London Bridge!  So glad I missed all that nonsense...), only one day of disaster to report (holiday was largely great weather and great fun) - the day we were supposed to pack up and move from Bude to Warminster (and do Wookey Hole) we had got up early, packed up the car, unpacked the car again to find the kids shoes, packed up the car again, handed our keys back to reception, strapped everyone in, waved to Nanjan and Pops (who were there to see us off and help out with baby-sitting during the packing process - thanks for that!) turned the key in the ignition - aaaand - NOTHING!

The guys from the caravan park were extremely helpful, tried (in vain) to jump start us with the puny battery from their little white van and so we called the AA...(trying to make it sound like we were in a more terrible position than we actually were) and then began a wait of almost two hours without a single update (which I am generously attributing to the 95% lack of mobile signal in the entire South West)...when the nice AA guy finally arrived (from just up the road), he ran a battery test and held up the machine to show me the "BATTERY FAIL - REPLACE" message but was happy to let us sail away into the (now afternoon) sun so long as we didn't turn the car off until we got to Warminster (where he would arrange a new battery to be waiting for us at around 5pm)...

Off we went and (of course) the M5 was a car park, so we swung off onto to the A303 tightly crossing our fingers (which turned out to also be a car park as a direct result of the M5 being a car park)...so we covered the kids ears, cursed, and drove, very slowly, towards our destination, past signs to Wookey Hole (having no time to visit it now - telling disappointed little ones that we would have another go in October half term), time now getting tight, we pulled off the A303 onto some tiny little roads following the Garmins instructions and hit the centre of a tiny town where there was a closed road which the Garmin was absolutely adamant we take (even when we were 3 miles past it, it was *insisting* we go back before it would issue any further directions - argh)...!

It was just about now, pretty much lost, with no mobile internet to get directions from Google maps, time running out to meet our battery man that Poppy was sick...*very* sick...all over the back of the car, including getting some onto Thomas, who was not amused, and Annabelle decided that it was dinner time and started screaming like we were trying to murder her...and it was in this exact fashion that we finally clawed our way into the car park at Warminster Travelodge (after five hours on the road instead of the predicted two)...head and hands up against the windows looking and feeling a little like an Edvard Munch composition...

The battery was finally replaced about an hour later (the AA guy got stuck in traffic too), and actually, even though it seemed like it might be the cherry on the top of the cake, our dinner at Little Chef that evening was a pleasant surprise...I recommend the "foot-long" (it isn't quite) Chilli Dog... ;)

Widemouth Bay in the sunshine!

Gosh, we were so lucky with the weather down in Cornwall, we arrived (after a rather early start) in the middle of a heatwave -

- so we spent the first couple of days just mucking about on the beaches (Widemouth and Bude), rock pooling (Thomas actually caught a little fish - in his shoe!  Other finds included millions of limpets, mussels - which Thomas wanted to eat there and then, sea snails and parts of crabs - no whole ones on the beach - must have been visited by seagulls before we got there) -

- Stonehenge recreating (after glimpsing it through the early morning fog on the way down) -

- and sandcastle building... ;)  Plus obviously a bit of splashing in the sea (and eating plenty of sand - accompanied by tiny bits of Cornish pasty from time to time)... ;)

Widemouth Bay and Bude at Christmas

Back to the break now, we spent ten minutes or so defrosting Poppy the Beetle and letting the engine warm up a little bit and then (extremely cautiously) picked our way along the ice covered roads towards Widemouth bay, which looked astonishing (normally only being privvy to it in clement conditions) with the thick covering of ice -


- nothing was stopping Flyingpops though, so we splashed on down to the sea -

- where I got a nice shot of the beach -

- it was (however) a little on the chilly side, so our stay was reasonably brief...next stop was Bude (just a few minutes drive away), as we left we spotted this guy running along the beach with his dog carrying a skull and crossbones and an anarchists flag -

- (a little odd), he looked like he was going to carry on all the way up the cliffs before we left him in our dust...

Bude was much the same as last time I was here (for Tim's Stag do) -

- we checked out the shops (Flyingpops buying a very posh new knitted hat for a couple of quid) and found a gift shop we had been told about which had everything (except the fudge) discounted by 75%, so Flyingpops went a bit mad buying model Campers and Beetles, Cream Tea themed mugs and other touristy bits that had obviously not been selling too well over the summer...and laden down with carrier bags we popped into a little pasty shop -

- for a spot of lunch -

- before heading back to the site to show off our pirate booty and get ready for our trip out in the afternoon... ;)

Tim's Stag Weekend

Wow, what an epic...Ten hours in the car to get down there (terrible traffic), almost ran out of petrol (only 20 miles remaining when we pulled in) turbo shandy beer ping pong when we finally arrived...Saturday morning was spent down the beach splashing around and throwing things about, Saturday night saw pirate costumes, a swearing taxi driver, a blow up doll, one major collision with a table, a lot of spilt beer and a split eye (for the best man, but luckily we had plenty of eye patches to hand - stuffed with toilet paper to stem the bleeding), a nice Thai meal followed by trying to blag our way into a club for free (and failing) then the husband-to-be getting pinned to the floor by bouncers, ripping his costume and cutting his knee as he tried to steal back the best man's coat (as he had managed to mislay his ticket) and then the best man got stuck (on his own) in town waiting for a taxi until about quarter to four in the morning (making everyone feel rather guilty)...Sunday we got lots of little electric planes stuck in trees (thanks to high winds) and had to shoot them loose with a BB Gun, played Guitar Hero, then went and ate a hearty meal of roast beef watching the Grand Prix...played poker and gaffer tape bondage during the afternoon and collapsed into delierium in the evening...Monday morning we headed home early and got stuck in *more* traffic thanks to a lorry falling over and blocking the entrance to the M25...and then discovered that my train ticket and security pass had vanished over the weekend (resulting in a frantic, and thankfully successful ripping apart of the living room)...so all in all a fairly eventful weekend! Got lots of incriminating pictures to go through properly when I get home tonight...can't decide if I dare post them on Flickr... ;)

New Years Update!

So, getting up rather early on the 29th of December, we opted to pack up the Golf rather than Colin the Camper (for fairly obvious reasons), dived around the (slug-like) M25 and onto the usually reliable M3/A30/A303 (urk!) -

- this was shot from the window when just approaching the roundabout before Stonehenge (at almost a standstill) -

- lacking a TomTom-style companion for this voyage, I took the novel step of looking at a map, and quickly found a swift route around the loggerjam via the local bus route through the army barracks, got us back on track fairly quickly -

- journey in total took about 5 hours (bleugh) but got our static caravan right away (minus microwave, fridge and door key), unpacked, borrowed next doors fridge for the cold goods and then down to the club house for some grub -

- (check out the amazing decorations!) scored the key-

- and had scampi (otherwise known as langoustine) for tea, which was jolly nice -

- picked up our tickets for the New Years party, buffet and sit down meal, had a few drinks and then retired to bed, next day was spent doing very little apart from walking around a *very* wet bude, didn't even dare get the camera out of my bag it was that bad(!), sorting out party costumes in the charity/costume/pound shops, then had home-made cottage pie for tea (very nice this time, much more filling, as you can see) -

- New Years Eve we went back to Padstow, which was full of elderly coach tour folk, and half the car park and most of the harbour wall was full of lobster pots (which goes to show precisely how many they normally have out in the Camel estuary -

- we wandered around the shops buying up flood damage bargains, dodging the storms, oh and I scored a medium-gauge "Microplane" for the kitchen (bloody sharp, almost grated my finger off last night) awesome tool (but more on that later perhaps)...

- had an average rib-eye steak in the Old Ship Inn (queue at Rick's was too long to want to sit it out in the rain) -

- and when the weather really did turn (literally rivers running down the streets) we made a mad dash back to the car before the whole of Padstow vanished into the sea -

- (nothing to do with me pictured above btw, just a silly family who forgot their umbrellas looking rather bedraggled). Anyway, back on site we had a lazy afternoon, donned our costumes (Prince Charming, Cinderella, the Fairy Godmother and an Ugly Sister respectively), glugged down a quick glass of Asti (yik, too sweet for me!) and then to the party -

- where we danced the night away, ate from the extensive buffet -

- sang and cheered and drank and laughed, until the lateness of the hour (or should that be earliness?) led us back to the static and collapse...zzzz...

New Years Day, somehow hangover free (how?) we got up late, showered, and took a walk around the site, Alan - the owner - has installed his own sink hole and thus is now free from paying for running water, and as a bonus, the run off has created a nice fresh water stream tricking down through the site -

- I would consider doing something similar but the filter would take up my entire back garden I recon... ;)

- worked up an appetite walking past all the vans in storage (something over 700!) in various states of decay and then up for lunch (130 covers!) -

- (that's me in the pink top on the right, only joking!) ;) -

- the meal consisted of (very slow cooked) roast turkey, beef *and* pork -

- with a good selection of roast/boiled/cheese sauced veg, served with a complimentary glass of wine, the only muck up from the kitchen being them running out of the Pate starter half way around the room *after* taking everyone's orders (whoops!) -

- after lunch we somehow managed to conjour the energy to nip down to the beach to catch the sunset (which was 100% worth the effort) -


- spent the evening eating crackers and stilton, drinking port and watching tripple bill Eastenders followed by "Waterloo" on the Shinco (through the TV), then yesterday after another brief stop over at the beach (to be sand-blasted by the wind) we zoomed back home (in record time) past Stonehenge -

- no doubt we'll actually manage to stop there one day... ;)

Back to work today, but I'm going to do it from home (as it were) it being a Wednesday...

Cornwall update - Bude and Books...

So, first Friday of the holiday (25th August) saw a lot of reading taking place (finished Marching Powder by Rusty Young, which is just an incredible story of what it's like to be a black "Inglés" stuck in a Bolivian Prison on drug smuggling charges, and the answer is - absolutely *nothing* like you imagine, trust me! Have a go, great story... ;)

We nipped into Bude for a bit more shopping, and to see how the place had changed, but it was much the same (cyber-cafe is gone, but the Library provides free access to all, so no suprise there really)...saw this guy who looked suspiciously like a Postie leading his Donkey and dog entourage around town (loaded with post bags)...no idea what he was up to though, might have been emptying the parking meters... ;)

Enjoyed a spectacular sun set that evening while enjoying a few drinks with Flyingpops' folks, think I might get this printed out large for the living room wall...Tesco do a bargain basement "Canvas printing" service now, check it out here...tempting neh?

Then had (as I mentioned before) a slightly overcooked steak in the clubhouse for tea, but I covered it in horseradish anyway (being in that kind of mood), so all was well...