We welcomed visitors to the Granary. It was their first visit to Parkham and we enjoyed showing them out favourite places in the locality as well as local walks around the village. Now that the drainage has been improved on the footpath at the bottom of Rectory Lane it makes a nice walk with the dog and the views across towards Exmoor (or is it Dartmoor) are amazing.
Showing friends the area for the first time serves to remind you just how beautiful it all is. They were amazed at the 360 degree views from the dunes at Greysands at Northam Burrows and the wonderful rolling hills as we travelled from the village.
We took our visitors to Buckland Brewer for an excellent meal at the Coach and Horses but it will be good to be able to take our next visitors next door to The Bell! We were lucky enough to have a second guided tour around the pub which is looking fantastic, although Rachel and Mike are going to be very busy over the next few weeks preparing for the opening.
The local hedgerows have been laden with blackberries for the last month or so and we were still able to enjoy fresh blackberries with yogurt and cooked with apples.
We have been having some problems with occasional leaks in the roof of The Granary lounge extension and have decided that the time has come for a new roof. We got estimates from a number of contractors and were pleased to have selected a local builder who will do the job for us.
It looks as if our journeys to and and from Midlands are going to become extended with the planned work to improve the A361 over the coming years however, long term it will make the journey safer with more dual carriageway sections. Fortunately we are able to chose to travel at the quietest time and on this occasion we managed to time our return journey to avoid the delays near Tiverton. However the M5 was a little slow as tragically there had a been a fatal accident on the other carriageway earlier in the day.
