Lateral flow tests done …..tick. Negative results reported (thankfully)…..tick. Whoop whoop, we’re going on our holidays…….tick! To Combe Martin…….in Devon…….and it’s raining! Oh what the heck……it’s us M&A and come rain or shine we always ‘go with the flow’. So why don’t you join us for a sodden holiday in North Devon. Go on, you know you want to!
Now I know some of you may be a tad disappointed and thought we may have been heading across the channel to France. It was probably the ‘au revoir’ in our little Christmas ditty that may have allured you to arrive at this conclusion but to be honest, it was the only word we could come up with that rhymed with ‘far’. So ‘au revoir’ it was and here we are, off on another adventure to deepest, darkest North Devon to stay in a little cottage in the countryside……. how twee!
As usual, the lead up to our holiday was anything but smooth. There were things to plan, supermarkets to visit, doctors to see, vets to succumb to!! Poor Sir Winston had reached the age of just nine months when he was called in for….’the snip’! Poor chap, he went to the vets one morning, full of the joys of spring, or in this case, winter, returned with a cone on his head and couldn’t walk in a straight line! Suffice to say, it’s probably the only time in his short life that he’s refrained from charging around the place at 100mph! Nurse Maice stepped up to the mark, catering to his every whim….no change there then, making sure he didn’t lick his bits, or ‘none’ bits as the case may be. Other than being a bit sick from both ends he’s now on the mend and today his cone came off and he’s finally got his mojo back just in time for his holiday.
Milly on the other hand had been despatched early this morning to her holiday home at Purrfect Cattery Weymouth, her favourite place, where she gets completely spoilt by Alison and her wonderful team of little helpers. I’m hoping being in the cattery may break this cycle of needing to pee on my rug and most recently poo on the carpet. Who knows what goes on in the minds of our pets but Milly has suddenly got into the habit of pooing on the carpet just yards away from her litter tray. Consulting Google, other search engines are available, one of the possible causes could be the onset of arthritis making it difficult to step into her box. So come the morning before the morning before Christmas Eve I purchased another litter tray with low sides for ease of getting into and out of only for her to poo on the carpet just next to it! I give up!
So whilst all this pet-tery ‘stuff’ was going on, I too had been to visit the medical profession with my lips. For some reason I know not why, they’d turned a very bright red, were swollen and looked like they’d been injected with lip-fillers! Having previously purchased over the counter ‘remedies’ to help facilitate a speedy recovery, which at a cost of £15 I was hoping for, alas, it was not to be and I was prescribed something else by the Doctor. Thankfully, no damage was caused on this occasion to my purse as I now qualify for free prescriptions…..oh happy days!
We’d made our food shopping list a week ago…that’s how organised we are, and headed off to Sainsbury’s and Lidl (of course, other supermarkets are available) to do the ‘big shop’, hoping the shelves would be well stocked. Both being fish eating vegetarians (although I have succumbed to the odd bacon sandwich and turkey dinner recently) a lot of thought had gone into our meal plans, so list in hand we traipsed up and down the aisles, dodging shopping trolleys left at all angles blocking the aisles whilst their owners perused the shelves oblivious to everyone else trying to navigate around them. We navigated around the hoards of people wandering around aimlessly, looking at their lists and generally getting in the way (think we probably fell into this category!) until we resurfaced into the carpark with a trolley full of Christmas goodies. Supermarket Sweep done……..tick, and not a Rylan in sight!
Having survived the supermarket shop we were in dire need of a cappuccino to bring us back to normality and headed off to the Oasis, down at Overcombe. We braved the cold and windy weather and sat outside, cappuccino in one hand, banana bread in the other, looking out to sea. We lost the banana bread at one point, the wind was that gusty and Maice managed to spill most of her cappuccino down her coat but other than that our little sojourn beside the sea was just what the doctor ordered. Shame that on a deserted beach such as it was today some people just like to get in the way of our selfies!!
Battling with a cold, Maice finally picked me up on this very wet and soggy Christmas Eve eve just 40 minutes after our ETA of 11.00am. With a lively ‘pupster’ to contend with plus loading up the car, it was a foregone conclusion she was never going to be on time. Fully laden we set off, the obligatory selfie taken and the postcode entered into the MapApp on the IPhone. What’s happened to SatNav Steve we hear you ask. Well, unfortunately, being an Aussie, he’s still furloughed and stuck in Australia so we’re using ‘Mr Smooth’ MapApp who sounds uncannily like SatNav Steve. We wondered if he’d had elocution lessons whilst being furloughed!
All strapped in we finally set off on our Christmas adventure stopping off at Felicity’s Farm Shop for a well deserved cappuccino and a hot cheese and onion pasty, both absolutely delicious. We took a few wrong turns but Mr Smooth soon put us right and before we knew it we had arrived. Yetland Farm Cottages, Combe Martin………it’s us, M&A, plus Sir Winston of course.
We were met by Zac, the owner, his dad and their two dogs who made friends with Sir Winston immediately…..and he thought he wouldn’t find a friend. We unloaded the car, I received a telephone call offering me the job I’d interviewed for the previous week so without further ado we cracked open the Prosecco and toasted ‘To Christmas 2021’. It will be whatever we make of it and we’re going to make it a good one!
Before we knew it ‘quafftide’ was upon us. We changed into our huffle-buffs, supper was in the oven, another glass of Prosecco was poured and we settled ourselves onto the sofas and tried to work out how Netflix works. Of course neither of us have Netflix so as we have been afforded this ‘luxury’ we thought we’d search for a film to watch this evening. Try as we might we couldn’t find anything we liked and ended up watching Holiday in the Wild……a very twee film with bad acting. So glad we didn’t pay to see it at the movies! Whilst we were watching the movie Sir Winston seemed fixated on studying the carpet until that is he saw a creepy crawly crawling across the floor and freaked out. Honestly, it was the tiniest of creatures but Maice dealt with it and from then on Winston sat on the sofa on the look out for more. Thankfully there weren’t any!!
And that was it. A few walks around the field for Winston and it was time for bed. As seems to be the norm I drew the short straw and ended up in the single bedded room whilst Maice had the luxury of the large double bedded room. Ah, one day I’ll win the flip of the coin!
So its goodnight from me, it’s goodnight from her and it’s goodnight from him. See you on Christmas Eve!
M&A…..and Sir Winston xxx