lathany

Last Saturday we travelled down to Devon for a family holiday with both

bateleur's and my parents. We did this once before - four years ago in the Lake District.

The journey down was pretty bad as there were two accidents on the M4 (one of which resulted in a total standstill of traffic and people getting out of cars and playing football whilst they waited) and congestion on the M5.

The venue was mixed. The location was pretty good (a few miles west of Bideford), but the villa was fairly basic and when we arrived the shower did not work. The owner had just had three sets of tenants out and the last set had trashed their villa and she had found out about our shower fairly late. We used the grandparents' showers until Tuesday when ours was fixed.

The week went like this:
Saturday
The travel and then recovering from the travel.

Sunday
We set out with

bateleur's parents on the clifftop walk. However, after slushing up and down through a certain amount of mud we decided to turn around headed home for lunch (

bateleur's parents headed out again after lunch to Clovelly and back - a nine mile round trip). In the afternoon we played crazy golf, then we went to the nearby pub (Hoops - below) with my parents for cream tea. It was rather fine. In the evening we had everyone over for Gin (Opihr) and tonic. The Opihr went down well all round - even my parents liked it and they don't usually drink gin.

Monday
We shopped in the morning (Bideford Tesco) and then split up in the afternoon. The twins went to the coast with my parents whilst

bateleur and I accompanied his parents to Dartington Crystal to watch glass making. It was a working factory with a walkway above the factory floor so that visitors could watch all the stages of glass making - very interesting.

In the evening, all eight of us headed out for a meal at the nearby The Hoops Inn. It was excellent. I had the burger (with cheese and bacon) and the dark chocolate parfait. However, everyone loved their meal (Bea's gammon was particularly fine).

Tuesday
In the morning we played frisbee on the grass near the villas. In the afternoon we all went to RHS Rosemoor for beautiful gardens and some Alice in Wonderland statues (you can just see the card in the distance in this rose garden).

There was also a particularly fine woodland walk with a wicker spider.

We went to

bateleur's parents for drinks in the evening - a rather fine sweet Maderia.

Wednesday
This was the day that we went to The Big Sheep which I posted about yesterday.

Thursday
It rained all day, so we stayed in and played Bea's D&D boardgame (The Legend of Drizzt). It was quite good - although we suspected some characters were just better than others. In the evening my parents - not to be left out - had a beer evening.

bateleur and I liked the one with the owl on it (I think it was the Barn Owl one here).

Friday
The last day started wet, but dried up enough in the afternoon for me to go to the coast with

bateleur and Bea. It was windy and the coast line was rocky. Rather pretty though.

In the evening we headed to a nearby village (Woolfardisworthy) for fish and chips as there was an old menu for the place in our villa. It turned out to be difficult to identify, but the food was excellent.

I have since discovered that they have a Facebook page. Whilst we waited for the food to cook, Ryan and I visited the nearby church. That evening we watched an offering from Lovefilms: Guardians of the Galaxy - it was funny and smart sci-fi with a nice take on the usual superheroes theme.

Saturday
This was the usual pack-up and head home.

We did a few other bits and pieces in the week. Bea is watching season 2 of Heroes with me (a repeat for me and new for her). Everyone but me went swimming and also there was much Pirate Fluxx between Bea and

bateleur.

Tomorrow I'm back at work as my three weeks leave is over.