ONLY FOOLS AND HORSES

Yesterday's weather was glorious, so we took a drive to Lynton and Lynmouth. The former is a village on a cliff overlooking the Bristol Channel, and the latter is the seaside town directly below. We climbed down a steep path (so steep that our toes seemed to want to push out of the front of our shoes for the 15 minute trek) and rewarded our efforts with a pub lunch at the bottom. Because the day was still young when we returned to Bideford, we went....golfing! Don made the mistake of hitting his ball among the "wild" horses. I'm telling you, for wild horses, they sure are a laid-back bunch:

The seaside resort behind Don is Westward Ho! It's the only town in Europe to have an exclamation mark as an official part of its name. As we ended the round, the weather began to change. We could see the clouds rolling in over the Atlantic. The forecast is for rain for the next two days, so Don plans to go out at 6 a.m. if it's dry. Me, I intend to make a cup of coffee and lie in bed reading until I get up the energy to go downstairs and watch tv. Here are some shots of my little oasis:

MY FAVOURITE TV COMMERCIAL (you won't be disappointed) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20UhjXpFX_c

British tv

Yesterday was a very raining day, so we just stayed inside and watched tv. As luck would have it, the finals of the World Snooker Championship were on. We watched snooker all the time when we were living in England in the eighties. In fact, in 1983 I was at the final in Sheffield where Canadian Cliff Thorburn made the first televised break of 147--in other words, he sank all the balls and won the match without his opponent getting a shot in. It's still televised today and you can see me in the audience standing and clapping. Now his competitor is a snooker commentator. It's funny how he looks so old now and I look the same.

Next we watched Britain's Got Talent. The team bound to win is Charlotte and
Jonathan. I think they are all over YouTube.

Don attempted to golf but was rained out after 6 holes. I opted to stay home and watch Coronation Street. So basically, I was parked on the couch from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.-- but I LOVE British tv so that was fine!

Since I only have my IPad with me right now (we're driving to Lynton), I'll post some photos freshly taken. This is the view from Lynton and the pub where we had lunch. The green car is a hydraulic cliff train that took us back up the hill after we walked down to the seaside.











- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Lynton

Roots

OMIGOD, I'm stuffed. We just went for a walk (it's a holiday Monday here) and decided to stop in at a cafe. Well, they were offering a large or small cream tea (scone, jam, devonclotted cream, tea coffee). The small was 2.99 and the large was 3.25. With the large you got two scones; with the small, one. "Well for Heaven's Sake," quoth Don, "why wouldn't you take the large for .26 more?" "Yes," I agreed, "I can always wrap up the second for later." When I finished the first, I decided it might be rude to wrap it up, so I ate it. Now I need to golf to take off that extra weight!

Yesterday was ancestor-hunting day. We drove to Peters Marland, a hamlet with a population of about 200. There was a church and houses, but that was it, basically. A search of the churchyard yielded all sorts of results. When we met a local, she told us to come back in the afternoon because the town was holding a historical photographic exhibition of Peters Marland. What kind of a coincidence was that? We returned at 2 and although we didn't meet any modern-day Luxtons, we found the family tree and pictures of Sam Luxton, the nephew of my great-great grandfather (Sam's father James was my gg grandfather's brother). Here's a photo. Sam is in the first row on the left:

I got the name of Sam's great-granddaughter Marlene (who is in her 60s). Apparently she's completed a huge family tree, so I look forward to getting in touch with her. Here's a picture of Peters Marland from a hill nearby:

At 4:00 we landed at the Royal North Devon golf course. It's a VERY challenging course and I lost about four balls. I found three, though, so that's not a bad average. The course had sheep and horses roaming around it. Although Don insists the horses are wild, I pointed out that because they were shod and were wearing horse blankets, they couldn't be all that wild. Maybe they're wild as in "wild and crazy."

The first shot is of the evil bunker that wouldn't release my ball. I ended up chucking it over the wall by hand. The second is a shot of three sheep cavorting in a bunker. Too cute:

Home (away from home)

Well, we've settled into our cottage in Bideford. It's very cute and cosy. Don was SOOOO excited about meeting the pro at his new golf course, but I was more interested in resting after three straight days of golf. I volunteered to stay home and try to get the Internet working.

Don golfed with Maurice and Ray (Ray is 82). They had a great old chat and even asked Don to join them again in a week. Don said the course is amazing, very challenging with wild horses and sheep roaming the fairways. I'll take some pictures today.

It took me 3 hours to get the Internet rocket stick working. I had to phone tech support in the end. That used up all the minutes on my cell phone. Finally, as I logged in successfully, Don returned from golf and we decided to venture out to forage for food. Here's a shot of downtown Bideford. The bridge behind me dates from the 15th century.

We grabbed some fish and chips for dinner. Here's a very happy Don ready to chow down after a glorious day of golf.

Today we're driving to Peters Marland to see where my ancestors lived. I'll make sure to take lots of photos of the 'hood.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Bideford

The Moops

The title of this blog is a Seinfeld joke, and if you can figure it out, you'll know where we went today! It's from the Bubble Boy episode and here's a clue (answer at end of blog):

Halfway across this gigantic no-man's-land we came across Dartmoor Prison. This prison features in novels by Agatha Christie and many Sherlock Holmes stories. It even housed prisoners of the Napoleonic Wars:

So much for the cultural part of the day. Here's the food:

And here's some shots of the amazing golf course we found at Yelverton in the moors (yep, that's the answer):

We ended the day with some delicious lamb kebabs (my deepest apologies to the cute little dudes in the last photo, or as Don calls them, kebabs-in-waiting).

Checking out the neighbourhood

Despite the lullaby of the steam roller a couple nights ago, I was able to get some sleep and felt much better in the morning. We decided to take a drive through Dartmoor National Park followed by a game of golf in Teignmouth (pronounced "Tin-muth"). The driving was at times harrowing (having to quickly speed up and squeeze to the left of the single-lane roads so a tour bus could pass on the other side mere inches away from the rear-view mirror) but the scenery was amazing. We took a wrong turn and ended up on a motorway instead of a country road, but that was actually a relief! After a pub lunch of cod, chips, and peas in the seaside town of Teignmouth (see photo below), we returned to Dawlish to rest up for our 3 p.m. tee off.

This course started on a cliff overlooking the English Channel. It's a private course but the pro took pity on us and let us play! I lost a few balls in the gorse bushes, but found a few so I think I broke even.

After golf, we bought a couple of steak and kidney pies and headed back to our hotel. Don popped the pies in the microwave oven and I made a salad. We plopped down on the easy chairs, stuffed our faces and watched tv--World Championship Snooker followed by Coronation Street (where episodes are 3 months ahead of Canada) and a quick chaser of American Idol. Here's photo of the Blenheim Hotel, AKA THE BIG PINK PLACE. You can't see the road in front of our building, but rest assured that it's brand spankin' new and stinking of fresh asphalt. Can't wait for tonight when they paint the lines on.

Today it's off to Plymouth. Tomorrow we'll head to Bideford and the house we've rented for three weeks. Can't wait to be able to settle in and get to know the area where my ancestors lived.

We're here!

After a routine transatlantic flight (by routine, I mean no Mayday-like issues threatening my mortality), we arrived at Exeter International Airport. For those of you who hate large airports, you'd love Exeter. We deplaned right onto the tarmac and walked half a mile past idyllic scenes of cows chewing their cud to a shed where we waited in line for an hour while two customs agents, a good cop/bad cop team, processed us. Luckily we got the affable guy who looked like one of the Bee Gees. After we rented the car, Don spent 15 minutes telling me how to follow the Google maps he'd printed. I chucked them in the glove compartment and switched on Lana, my trusty IPad GPS. She performed flawlessly and Don, who thinks trusting in a GPS is akin to believing in voodooism, had to agree that Lana did a great job and now had a charming English accent to boot.

Since I wasn't allowed to sleep in order to better adjust to the time difference, we went golfing. I was so tired that I played like a zombie. For those of you who have golfed with me, this doesn't look a lot different from my usual game.

Although our hotel is nice--mere steps away from the English Channel, I was concerned that the small train that runs by hourly would keep me from my much-needed sleep last night. I needn't have worried; the train's noise was cancelled out by the building-rumbling screams of the jackhammer, backhoe, and paver that toiled until 1 a.m. right outside our window. Fawlty Towers was filmed 15 minutes from here in Torquay, but I think I know where the inspiration came from.
Here's a shot of Don at our first golf course, Dawlish Warren.