We're currently experiencing some decent weather in the UK, with lucky inhabitants reaching the dizzy heights of 30°C. So, with that in mind, on Saturday (just gone) at around 8 a.m., the wife said, "Shall we go to Matlock for the day?" This is a typical English chocolate box picture location.
It's about an hour's drive from where we live, but then the wife said: "Mind you, if Devon were closer, I'd say shall we go there!" Devon? Did she say Devon? Distance is irrelevant if she said, Devon! 😀
I rang The Blue Ball Inn; they often have last-minute deals on rooms. We're in luck! A double room for one night is £90 plus £15 for Charlie, the dog. "Hurry up and get ready; we have a three-and-a-half-hour drive ahead," I said.
We love this place; it's the fourth or fifth time we've been. True, it was a bit insane to drive all that way for one night, but it's worth it, in my opinion. As I said, it should take three and a half hours to get there, but the M5 is always a nightmare, especially at Bristol, for some weird reason, and so it actually took us four hours.
It took Charlie about five or ten minutes to work out where he was, and then you could literally see his face light up: "I KNOW WHERE I AM!" it's true, dogs can smile, you know, and Charlie's face was beaming. I'm convinced he loves it there more than we do.
Once we'd checked in and dumped our bags, we were off to Lynmouth, which is only a couple of miles away, to look around and grab a bite to eat.
Obviously, nothing had really changed since our last visit at Christmas, but given that the season wasn't in full swing yet, it was still fairly busy.
We headed down to the harbour, where there are a couple of shops that sell pasties and ice cream. I bought the most expensive sausage roll in Britain: £3.00; they're only £1.10 in Greggs!. Yeah, yeah, seaside prices.
I have an uncle who lives in Lynton, which is on top of the hill above Lynmouth. I'd already texted him to say we had arrived, and as we were going up the cliff on the funicular railway, he rang.
We arranged to meet at the top and had a nice hour or so at the cafe with my aunt and uncle. I bought the wife a cream tea, which is a scone filled with jam and cream. It came in a polystyrene box; at first, I thought it was a kebab. 😆
It was the biggest cream tea scone we'd ever seen! We all fell about laughing.
Sadly, it was time to leave, and my uncle took a photo of us as we headed back down the cliff.
Now, the last time we came down, the food was not that good at the Blue Ball, so we arranged to eat at a Hotel in Lynmouth. However, we should have known there might have been a problem.
Me: "Hi, can we book a table for 8:30 pm, please?"
Barman: "Hmm? Well? Last food orders are 8:45 pm."
Wife: "Umm? We're booking for 8:30?"
Barman: "Mutter, mutter."
Me: "OK, make it 8:00 pm"
He seemed a lot happier with that, but as the wife said, it wasn't a problem. They just needed to make sure they got their arse in gear and were ready to take our order by their carved-in-stone eight-forty five.
We duly arrived for our meal and were guided to the table where we had sat the previous time (We had eaten there before). I wasn't keen as I remember before people kept coming and going through the door next to that table. We looked at the menu:
Wife: "This is rubbish! What happened to all the starters?"
Me: "Basically, it's burger and chips or fish and chips, and if we wanted fish, we'd go to the chip shop on the seafront because he does freshly caught fish!"
Wife: "We don't HAVE to eat here, you know."
We promptly got up from the table and headed towards the exit. I was really, really brave and said to the barman: "I'm really sorry, we'll have to go, the dog has suddenly been taken ill." The wife looked at me with a face that read "Coward!" and we left.
So we went back to the Blue Ball, where we had a lovely meal. I had Veal Bon, Bon's to start, and Aberdeen Angus steak to follow.
We rounded off the evening with some drinkypoos in our favourite leather chairs. You need to book three weeks in advance in high season to sit in those. 🤣
I love that photo. I said to the missus that I should make it into one of those 80s' Christmas cards.
Wishing you all a Merry Christmas from the Cannon family
In part 2:
Is the breakfast cold?
Ilfracombe: "We're in the 20%".
My Boss and the car park.
Image created by irisworld
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Anyone skimming this post would be confused. "Matlock's not by the sea!". Could be full of bikers anyway.
Good! Then maybe people read it again. There's far too much upvoting without reading simply because the author is popular on #hive
I tried the 'AI' analysis in peakd. It got it wrong :)
Themes:
Excellent!
The title's purpose was to throw the reader a curveball, and I'm over the moon that it worked.
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