Don't Travel on a Friday (or Saturday)

We drove back from Devon today, the last Friday in July and the M5 was busy all the way from Tiverton to Worcester, where we took the SatNav's advice and exited to avoid further hold-ups caused by an accident. All in all the heavy traffic added over an hour to our usual journey time.  Now home safely, we can relax and reflect on another two good weeks in North Devon.

We arrived in Devon on Hil's birthday and spent the evening celebrating over dinner with good friends.  The weather was extremely warm and continued that way for the next day or so.  The sunshine really brought the lavender into bloom in our courtyard garden.

By the time we came to leave many of the flowers had died and needed dead-heading.

We paid over first visit to the Woolsery Show, our local agricultural show.  The setting at Clovelly Court was beautiful with the coast providing a magnificent backdrop to the exhibits.  We bumped into a number of people we know from the village and it was good to share in this important event in the local calendar.

 

We completed a number of small jobs around The Granary including re-fitting the wooden sign on the cottage which had become damaged by damp and had been renovated by a good friend in Stourbridge.  

We still managed to achieve a good walk each day whilst dodging the rain showers towards the end of our stay. We particularly enjoy walking at Northam Burrows.  From the far end of the Burrows you look across the Taw and Torridge estuary towards Saunton.

From further back you can look across the The Skern towards Appledore.

We also enjoyed a lovely walk at Instow with friends and their dog Louie who Pebbles ignored the whole time.

One of our final jobs before leaving  was to go and collect a further dozen eggs from Vicki and Kevin at Parkham Ash to keep us going until we return next month.

A busy social life

Since arriving back from Parkham earlier this week life has been non-stop with a trip to Ikea with son who has no car, cutting lawns which had grown rapidly with the warm and damp weather and generally tidying up the garden.  There is currently a rain shower so I am taking the opportunity to update my North Devon blog.

Our trip to Parkham this month had a a variety of weather from warm sunshine to heavy rainy and gusty winds bringing down power lines.  Not quite what you would expect in 'flaming June'.

On the way down to Parkham we stopped at my brother's in Upton upon Severn to pick up a wood burner which he no longer needed.  Pick up is an understatement as it is cast iron and needed two of us to lift it into the back of the car.  Fuel consumption rose noticeably for the rest of the journey!

The stove had to stay in the back of the car until a friend was able to call round and help me remove it and place it in the kitchen.  Hopefully we can connect to the existing flue although the installer who called round was not sure about this as he needs to be certain of the type of flue.

I removed the existing electric fire which we have never liked and that has now found a new home with friends in one of their holiday cottages, The wall needed filling and repainting and now is as good as new!

We spent 2 enjoyable mornings drinking coffee with new friends we have made in the village, an afternoon drinking tea with other friends and several evening in the Bell with even more friends.  Hil was delighted to have a sit on a 1966 Ford tractor bought by our friends at Northway -  the engine was not running!

We are coming to realise that our social life in Devon is as busy as that in Stourbridge.

I had a trip to Tiverton to take Hil to get the train back to the Midlands as she had to take her Mum to a hospital appointment.  It is about an hour each way in the car and saved her the slow train journey from Barnstaple to Exeter which is the alternative route.  She came back the next day by car and brought our younger son back to spend a few days  with us.

We did the usual long beach walks every day at Northam Burrows and Instow and we also explored the coast path near Hartland,  generally we managed to avoid the rain showers.

The mild but damp weather meant that weeds had grown rapidly in our small courtyard garden so some time was spent generally tidying up the garden so that it does no look quite so neglected.

All in all it was good to be in Devon again and we are already looking forward to being back in July -  unfortunately it looks like we will miss the Parkham Beer Festival - bad planning!