Thursday 29 October 2020

Random Ramblings :: A bit of this and that

Hi there everyone 😀

Well it seems that all things Covid are heading in the wrong direction with all numbers on the increase again. The government seem to be struggling to keep a hold on how best to manage things and Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland all seem to be taking a bit of a different route.

We were fortunate enough to be placed in Tier 1 under the new restrictions though our numbers locally have continued to increase and we are expecting to move into Tier 2 over the next few days.

We have still tried to make the most of what we can do rather than focusing on what we can’t and since we’ve been back from holiday we have managed to get creative and have a fair few catch ups with mum and dad in their garage. 

Technically we could meet inside but as a family we all agreed that we would rather leave the inside of their house just for them, with no need to keep sanitising every time someone visits.

The garage has become affectionately known as Café Robert and has worked brilliantly as a meeting place with carpet, a patio table and chairs and even a little heater. We visited on Mum's birthday with fish and chips and cake and a very nice evening it was too.

We have also managed to meet up with friends from a Tier 2 area. As part of the Tier 2 restrictions we could only meet outside but we've managed a couple of really nice get togethers.

Firstly back at the National Memorial Arboretum, where we had another really good wander in the autumn sunshine ...

This time we walked over 11,000 steps, which a lot for us, and we saw almost everything, though we still didn't cover the whole site ...

As always we were surprised to find new memorials that we hadn't come across before ...


There is plenty of under cover outdoor seating where we had lunch and sat chatting. The service wasn't the best from the kiosk, but it was most definitely a good spot to meet up.

Secondly we met in Sutton Park on a glorious autumn day where there are a couple of good options for meeting outside, under cover if the weather turns ...

There has been a little bit of baking ...

... and a try of something new ...

Whilst we haven't tried any recipes from this book yet we are trying to have a couple of 'fast' days a week, where we stick to a total of 500 calories. It's early days and we are only on our second week, but it's been easier than either Martin or I ever imagined it would be.

Our first meal was a cook from scratch prawn curry with cauliflower rice ... not up to the standards of the usual kind of curry we would make, but it was more than edible and certainly ok for every now and then. These were the ingredients that we used over the course of our first '500' day ...

... and this was the curry ...

I think it's fair to say that we both preferred the second meal we had, which was a chicken stir fry, using Barenaked noodles, which are just fab and sooooooo low in calories ...

Next time I will be able to use carrots from the garden ... I picked these today and I was more than a little surprised ...

I can't tell you how happy this little bunch of carrots made me. We have never really had any luck with carrots at all, in spite of growing them often in the past. I think the trick is to put them in and then just leave them to it ... gotta be patient 😋

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Monday 26 October 2020

Random Ramblings :: Captain George

Hi there everyone 😀

As it's been a little while since I randomly rambled I thought I'd take a break from our Devon holiday today to share something a bit different with you.

This is the tale of Captain George ...

If you’ve been following my blog for a while ... and I mean a good while ... you may be familiar with Captain ... a seemingly homeless puss who took to dropping by from time to time.

The first time he stayed for a while was back in August 2014 and you may recall reading about him back then ...
Whilst he seemed very happy in his chosen spot we found him a blanket and set him up with a cosy corner on the arbour, which he settled into quite nicely ...

He has been visiting us pretty much ever since.

Here he is in December 2014 ...
... and in August 2016, just chilling in the sunshine ...
In case you're wondering why we called him Captain ... it was Martin's idea. It was as a nod to Captain Mannering (or is it Mainwaring?) from Dads Army. This is because he was a really skittish kitty and  very nervous. Every time Martin approached him, he talks to him and says 'don't panic' to try and keep him calm and stop him running away. 

By October 2017 we considered him a regular enough visitor for him to have his very own hand crafted bed and Martin got busy. Well, safe to say, I think he was happy with the upgraded facilities ...

I haven’t taken any more pictures of him but he continued to visit, sometimes he’d be on the arbour in his bed every other day or so, sometimes we wouldn’t see him for a few weeks.

You can imagine my surprise to see this picture on Spotted Tamworth back in May of this year. It certainly looked like Captain and he was looking a bit worse for wear ... but more surprising was how far away he had been spotted ...
There were loads of comments from people who had seen him all over the place so he definitely is a real wanderer.

At the end of July he appeared again ... this time on the Tamwoeth Matters Facebook page.

By then we hadn’t seen him for a good while and were beginning to wonder if he'd either been adopted or something bad had happened to him ... but on 18 August he put in an appearance here and I was pleased to be able to update the Tamworth population that he was still alive and well ...

It had been that long since we'd seen him that his bed had been relegated to underneath the arbour, but he soon made himself at home.

There was a big development in the saga last week as Martin was putting out the recycling. A lovely lady called Alex walking up the street stopped to ask if he’d seen her cat. The description matched Captain to a tee and after a bit of chat it turned out that her and her husband and pretty much adopted him. They’d named him George and he’d been to the vets for neutering and a good checkover and had been given a loving home, but they hadn’t seen him for a while.

We promised to keep an eye out for him and thought no more of it ... until about five minutes later, when the little monkey appeared in the garden.

I bribed him to stay whilst Martin headed out in the car to see if he could spot the new owner to let her know he’d appeared.

Luckily he found her and Captain ... or George as he is now known, was soon cajoled into the cat box and on his way home.

We were more than happy to know that he had a new loving home, but hope his days of popping by for a visit aren't completely over as he will always be welcome here.

A few days later and there was a knock at the door and it was Alex with a tub of Celebrations and a card to say thank you for finding him ...

Her husband Paul had written a poem in the card, which was just lovely and they are both happy for me to share it with you so here you go ...

We exchanged phone numbers and email addresses so that we could keep in touch ... should Captain George ever go walkabout again and Alex sent me a couple of photos just to let me know he'd settled back in quite nicely ...

With Captain George's tendency for a good old wander I am not sure how he will take to staying in one place on a permanent basis ... I really hope he always manages to find his way back to his new home at the end of his wanderings to make sure that he can make the most of the nice comfortable life that Alex and Paul want to give him.

We did have a bit of an early fright ... Saturday was an awful day weather wise and I had a message from Alex during the evening asking if we'd seen him as he'd not come back for his tea. Well, he wasn't in his usual spot here so we had everything crossed that he hadn't gone far.

I was so pleased to receive another message on Sunday morning letting me know he'd turned up ...

I think this little monkey will always like to have a bit of a roam but he certainly seems to have made himself quite at home 💜

I don't think this will be the last time that I hear from Alex 😜

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Thursday 22 October 2020

Exploring East Devon #3 :: Back to Exmouth

Hi there everyone 😀

After a couple of really full days visiting Budleigh Salterton and Exmouth, we were both feeling a bit knackered so on Tuesday we decided on a quick ride into Sidmouth followed by a visit to Waitrose.

Well Sidmouth was heaving so we decided to give it a miss and instead headed to Beer for a quick look, followed by a very quick call in at Branscombe on the way back. Both worthy of a revisit when we were feeling a bit more energetic.

On Wednesday we met up with two sets of friends, who both happened to be on holiday in the area at the same time. As Oakhampton was about the mid-point for us all we ended up at The Tom Cobley in Crediton. It was a bit of a drive but it was well worth it. We all meet up every year for a few days away and this year's break has been postponed to next year as a result of our earlier lockdown so we weren't expecting to all be able to get together.

It was lovely to catch up. It was another glorious day so we were able to eat outside in the sunshine, with plenty of space ... it was a real treat ...

By Thursday we were ready for another big day out and decided to head back to Exmouth to explore the other end of the seafront.

We got really lucky and managed to find a parking spot in the small car park on the Pier Head. It was a lovely spot and perfect for being able to explore the new Exmouth Quay development and that end of the coast.

We decided we would start out exploring the Quay area, then have lunch sitting out the back of the car, before walking back along the prom as far as the lifeboat station.

As we'd never visited Exmouth before we have no idea of what the quay area used to be like, but it has been redeveloped really well. It is stunning and so full of colour ... we really loved it.

We started out by crossing the footbridge that you can see in the above photo and we basically followed the footpath which takes you alongside the sea and the river and around the outside of the development ...


We were blessed with another absolutely glorious day and everything was just so vibrant. It was just lovely.

As ever ... we were on a bit of a mission, hunting for clues as we wandered ...



We walked the full circle of the quay, the path bringing us back to where we'd started, where we sat for a while at one of the restaurants and had a breather ...


We decided it was time to head back to the car for lunch ...

... and this was our view ... it was absolutely stunning ...

We could have sat there for hours just watching the comings and goings on the water ... it really was a lovely spot ...


Eventually we dragged ourselves away from the view for a wander along the front back towards the clock tower and the lifeboat station ...

We seemed to make it to the clock tower pretty quickly ...
There was just one more thing we needed to do before heading back to the car. We were attempting our first 'Webcam' Geocache ... where you have to actually capture a screenshot of you on a local Webcam. Well here we are ... pretty much smack bang in the centre of the shot ... struggling to take a screenshot, but we got there in the end ...
It was time to call it a day and we headed back along the seafront and back to the car.

That was two really lovely days we'd had exploring Exmouth. We had hoped to get back again later in our holiday as we really wanted to explore the town centre too, but we just ran out of time, so I think another visit to Exmouth at some point could be on the cards.

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Monday 19 October 2020

Exploring East Devon #2 :: Exmouth

Hi there everyone 😀

It was the first Monday of our two week break in East Devon, staying in The Old Piggery, in Sidbury, just north of Sidmouth.

The forecast was pretty darn good ... full sun all day 🌞🌞🌞. 

I really wanted to dip my feet in the sea ... but I wanted to do it on sandy beach ... pebbles just don’t do it for me.

We decided to head for Exmouth and, from looking at the map and the Geocaching opportunities, we thought it may be the first of maybe two or even three visits.

We parked at the Foxholes car park by the lifeboat station and this time we started with lunch. We just took our camping chairs and sat on the prom looking over the sea, with this as our view ...


Lunch over and done with we decided to start off with a wander along the prom towards Orcombe Point. We passed plenty of pretty beach huts but I wasn’t sure about the positioning of them ... there would certainly be no quick nipping straight into the sand and into the sea for a quick dip ...

We carried on to the Bumble and Sea Cafe, which was doing a roaring trade and seemed to have the social distancing working very well ...

From here we headed into the beach and I got my first paddle ...

We decided that we couldn’t face walking up to the point and the Geoneedle ...

... and I went for a more serious paddle as I was desperate to see what was around the headland. I was not disappointed ... it was definitely a bit of a wow moment ...

Poor old Martin missed it as paddling just isn’t his thing but it was just lovely ... nice and sandy and the water was lovely and just the perfect temperature for cooling off, without being so cold that it is a shock to the system ...
The colours were so vibrant, the seaweed a real vivid green and the red of the rocks really different to anything we’d seen before ...


Martin did get a bit closer to the sea and we did manage a selfie without him getting his feet wet ...

It was time to head back the other way and we sat for a while watching this vessel and wondering what it might have been doing ... only imagining that it must be dredging the seabed for some reason ...

At the lifeboat station we managed an ice lolly stop and another sit in the sunshine ...
... before carrying on our way as far as the cricket ground ... 

... where we stopped for refreshment in the Queens Drive space before walking back along the beach as I wanted a final paddle.

Paddling here was totally different to the other end of the beach. The sea was rougher and the sand was gritty, though it was almost dog free as this part of the beach should be a dog free zone until the end of September.

We were shattered by the time we got back to the car. We'd had another really lovely and full day and we were ready to head back to The Old Piggery for a sit in the evening sunshine ...


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