Many of the blogs I have published here have also appeared in the Parkham village magazine. This blog will be the last to appear in Parkham Pie and it has caused me to think back over the years we have known the village and the reasons why we always love spending our time there so much.
There have been changes in the village over the last ten years since we bought The
Granary, the most obvious being the significant number of new homes. We have also
sadly lost a few of the friends we made. However, fundamentally it is still the same
welcoming, friendly place that it was when we first visited The Bell almost 20 years ago.
Indeed there seems to be more going on in the village in terms of social activity over
recent years, which we try to participate in when we are down. We always enjoy our
visits, despite the occasional bad journey, and we have managed to make regular
monthly trips to Parkham over the last three years after the bleak years of COVID and
our own house move to Cheshire from the West Midlands. It is our intention to continue
this pattern in 2025 and beyond.
In September we were again joined by friends for a few days. The Granary is only a
small cottage and therefore we find that three nights is probably the maximum for
non-family members to stay, with the inevitable queues to use the bathroom facilities
morning and night and the limited living space. Once again we very much enjoyed
our time showing friends around and managed, in the main, to choose different places to
visit this month. This included walking along the Tarka Trail and into Instow for coffee
at John’s, which is always a treat. Our visitors really enjoyed the peacefulness of Bucks
Mills as we sat on the pebbles and watched the tide slowly coming in. We had to agree
that it is a very special place and one I always think of when I feel in need of a little
relaxation.
Granary, the most obvious being the significant number of new homes. We have also
sadly lost a few of the friends we made. However, fundamentally it is still the same
welcoming, friendly place that it was when we first visited The Bell almost 20 years ago.
Indeed there seems to be more going on in the village in terms of social activity over
recent years, which we try to participate in when we are down. We always enjoy our
visits, despite the occasional bad journey, and we have managed to make regular
monthly trips to Parkham over the last three years after the bleak years of COVID and
our own house move to Cheshire from the West Midlands. It is our intention to continue
this pattern in 2025 and beyond.
In September we were again joined by friends for a few days. The Granary is only a
small cottage and therefore we find that three nights is probably the maximum for
non-family members to stay, with the inevitable queues to use the bathroom facilities
morning and night and the limited living space. Once again we very much enjoyed
our time showing friends around and managed, in the main, to choose different places to
visit this month. This included walking along the Tarka Trail and into Instow for coffee
at John’s, which is always a treat. Our visitors really enjoyed the peacefulness of Bucks
Mills as we sat on the pebbles and watched the tide slowly coming in. We had to agree
that it is a very special place and one I always think of when I feel in need of a little
relaxation.
One visit worth repeating was to The Bell where we had an excellent meal. Our friends
felt that we were very lucky to have the pub on our doorstep (in fact this was one of the
reasons for buying The Granary ten years ago!). They also enjoyed meals prepared in
the cottage with meat from Honey’s and a lunch of Honey’s pasties.
It was also good to have just a few days on our own when our visitors left and we were
able to get up at leisure and choose how we wanted to spend our day. It also gave us the
opportunity to catch up with local friends.
Now that the summer holidays are over our journeys to and from Devon were much
better with just minor delays on the A361, as the major construction work comes to an end.
Hopefully we can look forward to even better journeys when we return in a few weeks time.
