Holidays

 Yes I know it's been a while since I posted, but I've been on holiday and turning on a computer always leads to depressing things. I've been off for a fortnight and as today is the last Friday of that fortnight I thought I'd better logon to do this so I could have a couple of days clear before going back to work.

I know it's unimaginative, but last week we went back to Appledore, my favourite place in the world. There is something about it - as soon as I stand in the estuary I can actually feel calm sweep over me.

I've written numerous blogs about the area before so I'll not be boring, but if you go back to around the same time last year and the year before that etc. you can get more detail.

Husband and son spent the week surfing - I didn't do a great deal, but ended up doing more walking than I expected. My everyday walk is along the 'beach' (it's not really a beach it's the river bed) from the lifeboat station to the Burrows nature reserve (fondly called mumbles by my family). 

On the other side of the nature reserve is Westward Ho!, where husband and son like to do their surfing. 

The weather was pretty grim during the week. Some rain and some grey sky - on occasion the sun came out. This didn't make for good beach sitting whilst husband and son did about 2 hours of surfing. 

On the Wednesday I decided to stay curled up at home whilst they went off, after a while I checked the tides to make sure they were heading out and the dog and I went for a walk. I got to the entrance of the Burrows and the sun came out. I felt inspired to keep on going. So I headed out across the nature reserve.

The journey in total took about an hour to get to Westward Ho! beach. At which point I messaged husband to say that I was at the beach and could meet up with them. Husband messaged back immediately to tell me that son and he had just arrived back at the house!

Thankfully husband hopped in the car and came to collect dog and me  - they didn't leave me to walk all the way back again.

To avoid similar mistakes, the next day I decided to go with them. After a walk with dog along the beach I settled down on the sand to wait for them. It was utterly freezing. I managed to hold out for about 10 minutes and then decided to go home. So once again dog and I headed back across the nature reserve.

Unfortunately, this time I couldn't find a well tramped path, so we ended up stumbling through gorse bushes and having to jump watery ditches. But in the end we did get back. A grand total of 7 minutes before husband and son did.

One of the things husband and I did this time was go and take a look at Bideford. Our long term plan is to sell up where we are now and move to Appledore, but with son at school that is still some time away  - though getting tantalisingly close. 

The reason we went to look at Bideford is that Appledore has got more expensive, and being a couple of miles further down the river away from the sea, house prices in Bideford are slightly more appealing. The tide was out and so we went down to the river bank to see what it was like. 

Whilst Bideford is a lovely small town (with a bar called Crabby Dicks) it just didn't hold the same appeal for me. The light isn't the same and you can't walk along the river bed. So Appledore remains my favourite spot on the Estuary. We'll worry about what we'll do more when we get around to selling where we currently are. Our current house will take an age to sell, it's strange and it needs the right person to walk through the door. We'd not have purchased it if it was the first house we saw - it was about the 40th and was the best of the bunch we'd seen. Not the best advertisement in the world huh.

Also we are aware that incommers cause huge issues by the coast. We see it where we are, but it is worse in West Country. So when we do move we want to do it with respect, making sure we are supportive of the local community.

After returning home I've had a lazy week - doing loads of different crafts. On Tuesday a friends son came over to do a craft session with me, so I went to Hobbycraft to buy bits and bobs. One of the things I got for the first time was some coloured air drying clay. It hadn't been around when son was smaller.

Needless to say it's my new favourite thing and now the houses is fully of loads of things I've made - that will sit around with no purpose for many years to come. That's the only problem with things you make - what do you do with them afterwards.

At Hobbycraft they had a sale on these cardboard pirate ships that you colour in. Once made up these are about 5 foot and the kids can play in them. 7 years ago my son would have gone ape for one of those. I just had to buy it. When I got home I showed it to son and asked if he'd like to spend some time working on it with me and we could then give it to a friend with younger kids.

To my deep joy he agreed to take part. So we've spent the week working on that whilst watching Hunger Games - all 4 films. It's been lovely to spend time with him.

So that's it really, back to work on Monday. I'm not going to spend any time thinking about that now. And this computer is going off until then as well. I shall enjoy my last few days whilst I can. I'm jealous of husband who has booked every other week off during the school summer holidays. However, I really needed a full fortnight. It's done me the world of good.

In fact I'm so lazy I can't even be bothered to proof read this. So apologies for errors! R&R is more important. x