It was raining…..no surprise there then! After suffering a severe bout of ‘cabin fever’ yesterday we were going out today, whatever the weather. Come rain or shine, sleet or snow we were going out out. For a long walk, and Ilfracombe was the chosen destination. We could even grab a cappuccino if there so happened to be a cafe open, or was that too much to ask for on Boxing Day!
Thankfully I had an undisturbed night, Sir Winston preferring the comfort and space of Maice’s king sized bed rather than being squeezed in the narrow single bed with me, however at 8am we regrouped in Maice’s bed to discuss the forthcoming day. Breakfast, Ilfracombe, supper, Around the world in 80 days, FaceTime Canada, Phase 10 card game and then to bed. What an exciting day we had ahead of us!!
As we were tucking into yet another sumptuous breakfast, rustled up by moi, a very strange phenomenon occurred. The sun came out. Literally, the clouds parted, exposing a vast blue sky and sunbeams shone down onto the cottage. We needed to finish breakfast quickly, get ready, do the recycling, finish the blog and get out before it changed its mind. We managed all of the above and by 11am we were sat in the car, Mr Smooth ready to direct us to Ilfracombe and we were ready to go. We thought we’d wait a few minutes to see if the torrential rain that had just started would subside, but it didn’t so we drove off, windscreen wipers moving ten to the dozen. Ah well, the sunshine was good while it lasted! After a few missed turns we arrived in Ilfracombe, the sun was shining and we were surrounded by blue skies. Wonderful, we already knew it was going to be a good day.
We made our way to the sandy beach where Winston met some doggy friends and had a whale of a time, running amok on the end of his lead, tying people up as he sped around playing with the other dogs. He looked so happy and carefree it was lovely to see him enjoying himself. After his doggy friends had left we made our way towards the harbour and met Verity, a 66.43 foot, 25 ton sculpture by Damien Hurst, an allegory for truth and justice. It’s quite an impressive piece of art, very powerful, thought provoking and a real topic of conversation. We loved it, its amazing.
Wandering around the rest of the harbour and into the town we passed a couple of women eating hot sausage rolls. This can only denote one thing. There’s a shop open somewhere. We eventually found it and the good news was that it sold coffee……the bad news was that is was from a machine, not a barista. We regrouped in front of the window and deliberated what to do. A machine coffee or a barista, that was the question. We decided against it and walked on, hoping there’d be another place that sold coffee, but then we stopped and gave ourselves a talking to. Are we turning into coffee snobs we mused? We made our way back and purchased two coffees from the machine and found a bench overlooking the second beach. Ugh, they weren’t the best coffees but beggars can’t be choosers. It was then we noticed a cafe with people sat outside, surely they would have a barista machine. Sent to do a reccie I returned with two proper cappuccino’s, poured the other two away and enjoyed our coffee overlooking the beach. What could be better!
Feeling awake and energised we walked up the hill and then along the promenade, before doing a full circle and ending up back on the sandy beach. The coastline around these parts is quiet spectacular and we all enjoyed our walk, Winston in particular who would insist on walking as close to the edge of the cliffs as possible. And how lucky were we with the weather. The sun stayed out the whole time we’ve been here so we’ve seen it at it’s best. Our neighbours, staying in the cottage opposite us however went to Ilfracombe on Christmas Day, in the torrential rain and lets say, they found it less attractive. A bit like when we went to Combe Martin I suppose!
We sat in the carpark ready to make our way back to the cottage, however, try as we might Mr Smooth wasn’t available to provide us with any directions so we resorted to SatNav Steve who obliged us by guiding us out of Ilfracombe. What a hero! Mr Smooth woke up once we’d left town and both he and SatNav Steve provided us with conflicting routes home. We went with Mr Smooth and SatNav Steve was retired to the glove compartment for a well earned rest.
We were looking forward to our late lunch/early supper, a cheese fondue, complete with fondue set, which we’d brought with us and had been tempting us over the last few days. However, we soon realised we hadn’t brought any matches in which to light the base, so we scotched that idea and ended up with soup, a cheese platter and some mince pies! No turkey sandwiches for us!! We retired to our respective sofas, watched the end of Paddington, went Around the World in 80 days, although they’ve only got as far as Italy and then FaceTimed Canada to wish Maice’s mum a very Happy Birthday 🎉🥂🎊. Happy Birthday Myrna, hope you’re having a lovely day! Apparently it’s thick snow out there with a temperature of -20 degrees, and a wind chill temperature of -25!…..and we thought it was chilly here at just 8 degrees!
We played our new game of cards, Phase 10 for the rest of the evening. It’s not really a game for two so we played with two hands each, pretending there were four of us. I have to say, we got ourselves in quite a muddle particularly when we were playing hands in different phases and only managed to get as far as Phase 4 before we called it a day. We’d probably still be here in the morning if we’d continued and tried to get to Phase 10!
We’re off to Lynton and Lymouth tomorrow so let’s hope the weather stays nice. Weather forecast says light rain showers and sunny intervals, so as long as the sunny intervals are longer than the rain showers we’ll be in for another good day.
Night all……..
M&A and Sir Winston xxx
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