sh by the time the snow fell, we were on our way "down south".It took us 5 hours of driving on the great British motorway to get to Chrissy & John in Kingsbridge north Devon. It is 17 years since Chrissy, Gay & I had caught up, so lots of gossip & laughs & do you remembers?
Chrissy & John live in a beautiful farmhouse where John was raised. John Parry is most impressed since the house is named in the doomsday book & has a 11 century fireplace.
On Sunday afternoon leaving Chrissy at home because she is "out of practice" & feeling groggy the 4 of us went into Dartmouth & a tour round Hope Cove where Chrissy & John were married & onto Salcombe famous for it's cliff top walk.
On Monday John & I wended our way to Falmouth & looked at the Eden project on the way. This is built on the site of a disused Clay pit & quite amazing.
Our lodgings in Falmouth were great overlooking the sea & just a short stroll to the Coastal Walkway which goes all around the coast of Devon/Cornwall/Dorset & beyond.
Tuesday we started off on the walkway looking only passingly at the big black clouds & some point John decided this was altogether foolish & since he was recovering from a chest infection he wandered home. I continued to the little beach of Maenporth, before turning back just before the storm.
Wednesday we went down the peninsula & to the lovely port of Porthleven very ancient & quite delightful. Afterwards St Ives
which whilst disappointing in some ways has the lovely Barbara Hepworth museum. She was a Yorkshire girl & as some of her outdoor sculptures are amazing we had to go to. Being in her garden was like wandering through an NZ garden loads of cabbage trees & hebe, in fact the whole of Cornwall was like being in NZ which of course delighted John.Thursday was blowing a banchee but did not deter us from doing another portion of the coastal path, this time round Cadgwith a small fishing village on the south coast with a lovely pub noted for it's crab sandwiches.
Friday rained again & we tackled Pendennis castle in Falmouth. It is a very well preserved castle built by Henry VIII as a fortification, Elizabeth II later sent Walter Raleigh down there to improve the fortifications. It was well used also in the 1st & 2nd word wars.
Saturday we wound our way back up to Devon via Castletown on the coast near St Austell.
A private port which has an unusual curved harbour & what looks like a loch gate.We travelled over Dartmoor & saw the lovely ponies & followed them halfway down a road after a man who may have been culling some of them for sale which apparently they do every year.
We arrived at Gays in Chagford which is an old Stannery town on the edge of Dartmoor ( a Stannery is a tin mining town) gays house is also very old 15th c cottages 2 knocked into one. gay Peter's husband had been brought up in the house his family were bakers & their fireplace is what was the bakers oven. We had a lovely meal at the local pub with Gay & her friend Robert & had a good journey home the next day.
