Pictures from Cornwall...

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... ;)

Off on holiday...

...soon! Got three days left at work (well, two and a half now)...plans are for a nice comfortable static caravan on the cliffs overlooking Widemouth Bay in Cornwall (for 7 nights) and a couple of days in Somerset (to break up the journey) visiting Wookey Hole and Longleat neither of which Flyingpops or I have visited since we got married - 3 kids ago - (those links are to my pics from 2008)!

Really looking forward to it...just hope the weather holds up! ;)

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)... ;)

Back from a lovely break in Cornwall...

...straight back into a rainy London (oh well)!  I'll post some more pics later on... ;)

Views of Widmouth Bay 2010

This one was taken from the top of the cliffs, just off the little car park up there (near the Bay View Inn)...

Some of the *excellent* surf (it was pretty much this good all week)...

...and Thomas itching to get in the water... ;)

Playing in the sand...

What's this noisy cold stuff?

The new RNLI lifeguard hut -


...(check out the "Conditions"!)...

...and some of the amazing sunsets we enjoyed during the break...


...brilliant...

...sunsets just don't *do* that over London!

Widmouth Bay Holiday Village - Review

Okay, time for some of the holiday pictures (it's been *ages*, I know, but everything seems to be conspiring against me writing much at the moment)...

Anyway, the venue we booked (which Flyingpops found Googling around the place) was a privately owned bungalow (you get the idea looking at the picture above) in the Widemouth Bay Holiday Village which we got *suspiciously* cheaply, considering the time of year we were staying, and it quickly became apparent that there was a very good reason for this...

When we spoke to the owner to confirm details she hesitantly informed us that all of the facilities on the site were very likely to be closed during our stay (bar/restaurant/swimming pool/play areas) because the site was going into administration, and was that okay? However, liking a bargain, and armed with the known proximity of several excellent pubs/restaurants/the beach/etc. we told her it was fine and went ahead and booked it anyway (Flyingpops folks snapping up a similar bargain apartment at the same time)...the brilliant thing being, just before we were about to head off for our break we were informed that a potential buyer had been found and the facilities would be open for business after all! Hurrah! So, quite a result for us!

Anyway, lets take a little swing around the place, starting with the *stunning* views from the site (as I already mentioned this view was the one that greeted me when I opened my curtains each morning) -

- being the beautiful Widemouth bay, which meant Thomas and I could gauge how the surf was going to be before Flyingpops even woke up from her usual lay in and start packing the bags accordingly...But I get ahead of myself...

When we first arrived (and managed to tear our eyes away from the horizon) we parked the car (in the ample, flag lined car park) and, even though we had been told it would be possible to drive quite near the bungalow to assist in luggage transference, the gate was firmly padlocked and standing nearby were a number of (judging by their state of repair, presumably medieval) hand carts...so after a quick walk around to find our place of abode, I made three (huffy puffy) trips with the best looking wobbly, clanking seesaw (scattering items all over the grass as I went) before collapsing with a bottle of water and gratefully watching Flyingpops unpack everything neatly into drawers...

When recovered, we look a bit of a look around the rest of the site and found that it did indeed have a lovely swimming pool (but obviously it's not done to take pictures of public pools filled with other people's kids, so you will have to use your imagination when I say it was) situated inside a large greenhouse-like structure, meaning it was tropical temperatures inside, it was divided into a raised, circular little kids paddling pool which drained (fountain fashion) into the gently sloped main pool, off the side of which was a 6 person jacuzzi, roughly opposite that was a small sauna and steam room and a door between the two joined the pool directly to the bar which looked like this -

- did food like this -

- (steamed steak puddings/chicken burger/cauliflower cheese/garlic bread) which all did what they said on the menu (basic pub grub)...and absolutely *basked* in the view (sorry, I promise to stop going on about it now) -


Leading directly off the bar was the (small, but perfectly formed) soft play area, of which Thomas was *fond* -


- but not half as fond as he was of the "bigger boys" play area with the tempting arcade machines and giant connect four -


Outside, there were some really good adventure playground type things -


- which Thomas climbed all over and swung on -

- and some really good, lush (probably because they weren't being mowed at the moment) lawns, which Thomas enjoyed almost as much as the adventure playground-

- the only bad thing about the place was, on the last couple of days of the break, most people left to go home and it wasn't worth them opening the bar any more (for the handful of us left), but when proper ownership materialises, no doubt this will be (certainly) one of the best places to stay in the entire area...especially for a family as it's so quiet and child friendly (no cars, big lawns, plenty to do) and a big step up from staying in a caravan (and in our case a lot cheaper too)...

Highly recommended... ;)

More from the break later on...

Holiday Pics Uploaded...!

...okay, a few pics from the holiday are up on Flickr (if you absolutely can't wait), obviously I'll be writing about them in some detail over the next few days if you are the patient sort... ;)

Boscastle at Christmas

So that afternoon (back to Christmas) we decided we would pop over and see what progress has been made in Boscastle after the terrible flood in 2004 that devastated the town a few years ago...

Not a huge amount has changed, it somehow felt like the car park was higher up (although it could have been my imagination), but there was a perfectly tangible new huge chunky wall on the river bank -

- (next to a brand spanking new toilet block) -

- flood defences have been drastically improved before the original bridge -

- (comparison shot from 2006) -

- and the channel past the bridge has been significantly widened and deepened -


- (comparison) -

- there is a brand new visitors centre -


- and a nice new bridge (which is extremely low profile) to help prevent build up, as the old one acted something like a dam when 14 floating cars got caught up under it -

- everything (largely) appears to be back to normality in the village (still one or two buildings under construction, incredibly) -

- and the odd paranoid sandbag lingers (as there was a mini repeat performance in June 2007) -

- but, as I noted before, there is simply no going back to the well matured, charmingly scruffy feel of the Boscastle of yore...a shame, especially as this was very far from the first time such an event has taken place (records date back to 1847)...it almost feels like securing the portal when the quadruped has already scarpered... :(