A fond farewell!

As we began our August trip to Parkham the fantastic weather was just beginning to break however we still had a great two weeks catching up with friends and visiting our favourite haunts.  In fact the slightly cooler weather meant we were less restricted in when we could go for long walks with the dog.

Most mornings we begin our day with a walk around the village.  The shorter version includes using the public footpath which passes through the church graveyard, we sometimes wonder how some of the  more ancient headstones manage to stay up at such precarious angles.

The longer walk of about two miles includes more of the country lanes where we always enjoy seeing the Devon Ruby Red cattle in the fields and the amazing far-reaching views of the countryside.

The two nearest beach walks are Bucks Mills and Greencliff, both a 10 minute or so drive from the village.  We think of Bucks Mills as a non-commercialised version of Clovelly, when the tide is out there are also some good expanses of sand.  Greencliff involves a 10 minute walk following  a grassy route down to the coast path where you can chose to carry on down to the pebbly beach or take the coast path right towards Westward Ho! or left towards Clovelly.

Coast Path at Greencliffe

Bucks Mills

Our favourite walk with the dog is still the Greysands/Skern end of Northern Burrows.  Here there is grassland, dunes and sandy beach and some fantastic views across to Appledore, Instow and Saunton.  Despite it being the middle of August it was still quiet at all these spots with many of the holidaymakers being at the more popular spots such as Westward Ho!

View of Appledore

Our visit was tinged with sadness as we said goodbye to some of our oldest local friends, who have now moved 50 or so miles away.  We stayed at the holiday cottage on their smallholding at Parkham Ash on many occasions before we bought The Granary and they were also regulars at The Bell.  They were given a good send-off by their many friends at the local pub in Buckland Brewer, a month later and it could well have been at The Bell!  The village pub is very close to completion but like all these projects it is the finishing off that takes the time.  The temporary bar in the Village Hall was open for its last Friday allowing Rachel and Mike the opportunity to focus on preparing the pub for opening.

When not out walking the remainder of our time was spent with friends in the village or at The Granary relaxing with a good book.  On our visits we nearly always spend at least some time catching up on maintenance jobs.  This time we decided the fence around the small garden area needed another coat of preservative -  although not a long fence it cannot be sprayed and painting took up most of a very sunny day!

Newly treated fence!

The plants in containers in the garden have survived the summer well, thanks to kindly neighbours and are still providing a colourful display.  One of the final jobs before leaving was to give them all a good watering.

Not wanting to be caught out by traffic on the motorway we left our departure until 4.00 pm on Saturday and had one of our best ever journeys with no heavy traffic and a quiet service station when we stopped for a tea break.