Finally From Devon.....

Never forget...

that mega cheap holidays in England....
Can be just as wonderful - if not more so........
than holidays abroad.
For the princely sum of £404........
the 3 of us - in our tent - had the most fab holiday.....
visiting wonderful places.......
in an amazingly beautiful county.....
in our own wonderful country.

I couldn't work out how this worked. I visited their website and still couldn't work it out.

And of course being August, the main evenings entertainment was watching for shooting stars in the Perseid Showers (4 in total - including 1 really enormous one).
Roll on next years holidays - I love camping.

Stoke Gabriel

When choosing our camp site this year, I was mindful that we would have an active 16 year old boy to entertain for 2 weeks - a bit of a daunting prospect. So I chose a campsite that had a largish swimming pool - which we made use of every morning - and made sure it was in an area that had a lot of activities we thought he would like - kayaking, water slides etc but we discovered his favourite activity on the Millpond in the village next to the campsite - Stoke Gabriel.

Stoke Gabriel is on a pretty little creek of the river Dart and is a bit of a crabbing hot spot.
He would have spent every day here if we had let him. He caught 135 crabs in total!

The "River Shack" here became a firm favourite place to eat. We didn't eat "in" (the outside eating area was so pretty), but I couldn't resist taking a photo of the comfy looking interior. I bet its cosy in here when its chilly outside. They have a lovely menu using local produce and a local butcher - the quality of the food really shows.
They opened up a few times during the evening too which was handy. One of the ladies who works there decorates the pebbles and buckets that they use. I thought that these were really pretty and a great idea.
I think that the River Shack is a little bit of heaven on earth.
Stoke Gabriel is a gorgeous little place. Apart from the River Shack, it also has 2 lovely pubs and a lady opens her house to become a Bistro on certain days and evenings. "Emma's" specialises in fish, fresh from nearby Brixham and we can highly recommend that too.

A New Bike

Ive never owned a bike before. My dad had witnessed an accident involving a child and a bike, so we were never allowed one as kids. So, at the ripe old age of almost 52, I decided that I should remedy this. So here she is!

Now the problem with a bike in South Yorkshire - and especially my village - is that the area is very hilly. And I don't do hills (only downhills!). So hubby decided that after work today, he would find me somewhere flat to cycle. About 2 miles from home, is a stretch of the Trans Pennine Trail - a network of tracks and trails that stretch from Hornsea on the east coast to Southport on the west coast. The bit we cycled on this evening was a disused railway line and so fairly flat and traffic free.
Its in an area that I know really well, but Ive never been on the trail and I discovered places that I never knew existed. To my horror, I discovered a tunnel! And a particularly nasty one too, it has a twist in it so you can't see the end. But it made me cycle faster!
Every place looked different from the old railway track - here we found the river Don in its early stage running through.
The area is so much bigger and wilder than I thought,

We found crags covered with flowering heather.
In the distance is Wortley Top Forge - to my great shame another place on my doorstep that I have never visited. I have put this on my "list" now!
I really enjoyed the ride - it was very easy going on my legs. But oh!! my derriere!!!!

A cruise down the Dart

Come with me on a cruise down the river Dart.

We boarded in the lovely market town of Totnes on a beautiful sunny day and headed down to Dartmouth.

We passed plenty of steep hills - some with old ruins on them.
Many things on our holiday reminded us of parts of France - especially the gorgeous Vineyard on the spectacular Sharpham Estate which produces some award winning wine (I tasted the Crisp white and it was divine!) and cheese from its own cows and goats. The boathouse is for hire as a holiday cottage.
We passed a few hamlets and villages. Dittisham is a favourite (pronounced "Dittsum" by the locals).
We spent an evening crabbing on the jetty in Dittsum - a wonderful way to pass an evening. The village has a few famous occupants and house prices are a bit steep!
This one sold last year for almost £6million!
and this was was gorgeous!
There are 3 boats that catch Salmon on the Dart, and we saw one of them in action whilst we cruised along. We also saw a Peregrine Falcon dive at a couple of Sandpipers (but he didn't catch them) a fox, and plenty of other wildlife.

The coloured houses in Kingswear, perched on the hillside looked really pretty.
Eventually we reached our destination in Dartmouth - a really bustling little town. The boat is a great way to get to Dartmouth as parking is at a premium in the town. There's so much to see here, gorgeous shops and restaurants, a couple of castles, spectacular riverside homes and lovely boats, gardens, markets etc etc.

We thoroughly enjoyed our day on the river.

Burgh Island

One place that has been on my "list" for a long time is Burgh island which is joined by a causeway at low tide to the beach at Bigbury on Sea. So we went. The beaches in this part of Devon are difficult to get to - down very long narrow lanes, but they are worth the effort.

The hotel on the Island was the object of my desire for this visit. I have seen so may photographs and programs on TV featuring its sumptious 1920's interior. The sea tractor is used at high tide to transport visitors to and from the island when the tide comes in.
The old pub on the island is lovely too. This appears to be owned by the hotel.

However, whilst you are permitted to wander around the island, the art deco gates of the hotel remain firmly closed to non residents. And so my dream of lolling around on a Lloyd Loom chair, sipping a cuppa wasn't fulfilled, and with rooms ranging from £350-£600 per night it looks like it never will.
The young man laughed at me once more when I sighed over the "Forthcoming Events" and expressed a strong desire to attend the "Gershwin Extravaganza".

Coleton Fishacre

The second National Trust property we visited was Coleton Fishacre - another beautiful house that I could have moved in to. The house was built by and lived in by the D'Oyly Carte family who built the Savoy Theatre and Hotel and who ran the touring light Opera Company. Its less than 10 miles away from Greenway and I wondered if they ever invited Agatha over. Whilst Greenway was very much a "lived in, full of stuff and comfy" house, Coleton Fishacre looked and felt very much like a party palace. The National Trust have had to re furnish the house as only one room was left with furniture in it when it was sold. However they have gone to great pains to replicate it exactly as it was portrayed in "Country Life" in a feature it ran in the 1930's . They even tracked down the exact printing blocks used to make the bedroom curtains in Paris and had curtains printed using them.

The red border in front of the house was apparently just "going over" but looked stunning to me.

Information in the house states that Rupert D'Oyley Carte was sailing past the combe (valley) and he decided it would be a great place to build a house. They quarried stone from the estate to build the house. What a whim!!!

This was one of my fave features of the house. The Loggia had been built so that the family could eat Al Fresco as much as possible.
They obviously enjoyed their time in the house. A sea water pool was built at the bottom of the combe and they would take their guests down for a swim at high tide. A bell would be rung at 6pm for cocktails and G&T - my sort of hosts!
The gardens are simply stunning and feature many exotic plants and trees which flourish in this part of the UK because of the Gulf Stream. The gardeners over the years must have toiled really hard as it is exceptionally steep from the house down to the bottom of the cove.



My other favourite room was the enormous lounge with the piano in it. They were playing Jazz on the gramophone and it had a fabulous atmosphere. I wanted to don a black beaded cocktail dress and drape myself on the chaise longue! Another place well worth a visit if you are ever in the area.