{"id":308,"date":"2020-09-23T19:21:02","date_gmt":"2020-09-23T19:21:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scottysblog.com\/the-last-hurrah\/"},"modified":"2020-09-23T19:21:02","modified_gmt":"2020-09-23T19:21:02","slug":"the-last-hurrah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottysblog.com\/home\/the-last-hurrah\/","title":{"rendered":"The Last Hurrah"},"content":{"rendered":"

.. is what our week in Devon feels like at this moment, as we all teeter on the precipice of another lockdown and a very uncertain winter ahead. So it's a week to treasure, despite a few setbacks en route. Which started with poor David & Mandy having car trouble on their way down from Yorkshire, hence an 8 hour mega journey and needing to call out the car people when they finally limped into Croyde at 6pm.<\/p>\n

Not then helped by us 'settling into' the house – which we weren't supposedly allowed into until 7pm to allow for a deep clean. Well quite frankly this place hadn't had so much as a light flick of a cloth, despite its utterly chocolate box appearance on the website and apparently being Croyde's most photographed cottage. More spiders, webs, sticky bits,broken items and generally worn creakiness than you could shake all the wood in the garden at.<\/p>\n

But after some copious Dettol spraying we cracked on – only for poor Dav & Mands to be woken up at 5am by an errant radiator banging continuously and dripping several bowlfuls of water, until it hissed and gave up the ghost. <\/p>\n

But this all paled into insignificance on night three. We'd all headed to be around d10pm and were blissfully asleep when ALL the smoke alarms suddenly went off at midnight. Cue us all, up and in our pants and pyjamas running round the house trying to stop the incredibly loud noise, legging it out into the road to see if we could see any of the house thatch on fire. And wobbling on hastily carried upstairs tables to open the loft hatches and see if a spark from our earlier BBQ could POSSIBLY have got up in there somehow. Eventually the alarm stopped of its own accord – but then went off another 13 times throughout the night and into the next day, until an alarm bloke finally came to do his thing. Yup, we were all a bit jaded that day..<\/p>\n

But in between, we have walked down to the beach – and on day 1 found the local dinosaur hanging out there, as you do..<\/p>\n

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And more excitingly for me, we have so far been surfing twice and I haven't (yet!) hurt myself at all, despite being snotted once and tumbling right over the front of my body board. In previous times I haven't even been able to lie onto a body board because my ribs hurt so much, and when a small wave washed over my torso as I tried to wade out, I had to go straight back in because it was beyond me. So it is such a joy to 're-find' something that has been on the long list of 'not possible any more' things. And sure, its only okay until it goes wrong, but for the meantime, surfing is back on the 'can do' list. Though apparently there are 10 foot waves rolling in tomorrow for our last surf, so if I survive that – and even catch a few rides to the shoreline – I will be mega chuffed.<\/p>\n

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David & Mands also had to 'pop home' (11 hour round trip to Harrogate) midweek, so Mr H & I had a day to ourselves, including a really lovely walk along the huge expanse of Saunton Sands when the tide was out. Such an emotional moment to see an elderly disabled man in a beach wheelchair with inflatable wide tyres, being pushed into the gently rolling shallows by his adult daughter, and holding his arms aloft in joy…<\/p>\n

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Also did one rather rocky cliff walk involving a major bit of hill yomping to get to the high up access point, then the temporary pleasure of telling ourselves 'it's all downhill from this point' – only to get to the sea and realise we might get cut off by the incoming tide, and then having to sourfacedly climb back up the cliffside instead of walking along the shore as planned – boo!<\/p>\n

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Plus had a breezy afternoon of driving golf buggies at Ilfracombe Golf course – and a lot of looking for lost balls, theirs and others – while the boys played golf. David emerged the winner and I was lucky not to come a cropper when trying to take the buggy up a very steep slope, only realising at the last moment that there wasn't quite the acceleration to get it over the top lip..<\/p>\n

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And of course there has been eating. To absolute excess. We had one great fruits de mer from a local fish chap that filled the table. Bear in mind that Mands doesn't like seafood, so this lot was just for the three of us..Cue crab sandwiches the next day..<\/p>\n

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And we managed to squeeze in more fishy on a little dishy at Rick Stein's on our day trip to Cornwall – Padstow was very busy which was a bit freaky, so we headed straight in there – and Mr H filled his boots. Guess who drove back from that one..?<\/p>\n

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Currently 7pm and H has chopped up the ingredients for homemade 'cornish' pasty night, but we're all still rather full of 'it was raining so we stayed in watching Bohemian Rhapsody' cream tea.<\/p>\n

All interspersed with regular trips to the garden hot tub - <\/p>\n

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So lovely though to have a week with David & Mandy and a really good chance to catch up, natter, hang out and for H to shove multiple ice cubes down David's shorts at every opportunity.<\/p>\n

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Ah, happy days x x<\/p>\n

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