In November, Annie and Gerry travelled with friends David and Anne Bowman to Looe for a week’s holiday. We attended the Remembrance Day service on 11 November and were impressed with the memorial, the surroundings and the number of people who attended. The second photo shown below was taken from high up in East Looe.


For the rest of the stay, the two couples tended to “do their own thing” but spent every evening at The Jolly Sailor in West Looe. We were made very welcome with a reserved table every night at the locals’ end of the Pub. We were looked after superbly and ate there every night bar one!

There were very few tourists around and so we were able to enjoy walking without having to constantly dodge people! We walked to Hannafore a couple of times and enjoyed the views of the sea and Looe Island – the sea was amazingly calm on most days as the picture shows.

We also had a lovely walk through Kilminorth Woods beside the West Looe River. We were surprised by the number of Little Egrets amongst the other sea birds in the estuary – there were at least eleven within 500 metres. Our return walk along a broad path higher up the side of the valley presented us with a magical view and then magical sounds as we walked through the carpet of leaves

We used our rail cards to travel to Liskeard on the Looe Branch line and had a pleasant, if not damp, walk around the town and visited the museum which was fascinating especially with a very large collection of toys from the 20th century. On another day we used our bus passes and caught the bus to Polperro. Polperro was very very quiet with almost no tourists. As a result we were able to meander around the narrow streets and not worry about other pedestrians.

David and Anne were great company and I can safely say that we all had a splendid time in Looe.

We were greeted by a magical sunset on our return to Fairford.

We also walked twice in the Ellerburn Valley near Thornton Le Dale and visited the North Yorks Moors Railway at Grosmont. From there we walked back to Goathland along the line of the original railway.


Although we had done all of the walks before we
thoroughly enjoyed the peace, tranquillity and views. On another day we visited Leyburn and then went on to Middleham Castle. The statue is of Richard 3rd who, as Richard, Duke of Gloucester spent his youth at Middleham and it subsequently became one of his royal homes. It has become tradition on our visits to Yorkshire to take the bus from Pickering to Whitby for lunch at The Magpie and then on another day to Malton for a Mexican meal at El Gringo’s. Both meals were as good as ever!

After a week at home we headed to Harford Bridge near Tavistock for a week in a mobile home. We have stayed at Harford Bridge many times and even in the same mobile home. On our way down we visited Annie’s sister Pam and husband Neil for coffee and managed to fill up with fuel as there was a lot of panic buying around the country with long queues and petrol stations out of fuel. The fuel situation remained difficult during our stay in Devon but was beginning to return to normal as we returned home. The weather was not particularly kind and, as Gerry had forgotten the backpack with waterproof trousers and first aid kits etc, we were more careful than ever about where and when we walked. Nevertheless, we enjoyed our walk to the church of St Michael de Rupe at Brentor.



The church was founded in 1130 and is the fourth smallest parish church in the UK and is thought to be the highest working church in England.

On another day we visited Dartmouth, caught the ferry to Kingswear and travelled on the Dartmouth Steam Railway to Paignton.

It was a lovely day out and the weather was kind to us- one downpour but we were able to shelter!

We walked on most days on tried
and trusted routes but did spend one morning walking around Burrator reservoir. Although slightly disappointed by the lack of views we did come across a group of Dartmoor ponies.

The weather was such that we decided to curtail our stay in Devon. We had lunch with Pam and Neil at a nearby Farm Shop and restaurant and then drove straight back to Fairford.
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Our two September breaks were enjoyable and, despite the weather in Devon, we had a great time.

We were pleased we had visited Whitehaven but glad to continue our journey northwards the next day! It was a long and relatively uneventful drive to Lochcarron (325 miles) and we arrived just after 4pm. We had stayed at Tigh Charrann in 2018 so we knew what to expect and weren’t disappointed although the view from the patio was somewhat restricted by foliage. After unpacking and a short walk beside the Loch, we returned to enjoy a glass of wine on our patio.

The
next day (Sunday)was quite dull with the threat of some rain (The Cotswolds was enjoying the start of a very hot dry spell of weather) so we set out to visit Attadale Gardens. It was very pleasant walking around the woodland and gardens for nearly two hours – one of the nicest views was of the house and Lochcarron. We enjoyed a picnic in the grounds before walking up the Attadale Glen for an hour or so before returning to Lochcarron via the ruins of Strome Castle. We enjoyed the view down the Loch from the ruins.

On
Monday we set out for Urquhart Castle on the banks of Loch Ness. We decided to make a circular tour and drove first to Invermoriston Falls near the southern end of Loch Ness. We had a lovely walk through some woods and then caught sight of the Falls with two bridges in the distance.

Our next stop was Urquhart Castle on the western bank of the Loch about 13 miles south of Inverness. The visible ruins date from the 13th to the 16th centuries, and had seen several conflicts before being largely abandoned by the middle of the 17th century. Urquhart was partially destroyed in 1692 to prevent its use by Jacobite forces.
The Castle is now a scheduled monument and opened to the public: We enjoyed walking around the ruins but were conscious of the number of visitors and the need to socially distance.

We returned to Lochcarron via Inverness completing our circular journey of 154 miles. The drive was very pleasant and we certainly enjoyed the scenery.

The
following day, we set off early to travel to Sconser on the Isle of Skye to catch a ferry, as foot passengers, to the island of Raasay. The crossing takes only 25 minutes and the water was incredibly calm as the reflections in the photo of the ferry show. Raasay stretches about 14 miles north to south and is up to 3 miles wide.
With few roads and a permanent population of 160 or so, the island was very peaceful and the narrow roads a joy to walk on as there was virtually no traffic. We visited the distillery (and bought a bottle of Raasay Gin) before continuing our walk to Inverarish the island’s main village. We returned to the ferry via a different route and sat for a while enjoying the silence and the view. We both found the experience quite magical. On our way back to the ferry we came across the figurehead on the rocks beside the road and then looked back at the beautiful cottages nestling on the shore.

Once we returned to Skye we travelled to Armadale Castle and Gardens from which we enjoyed views across the water to Mallaig and the mainland. Our visit included the Museum of the Isles where we were able to learn about the long history Clan Donald; Scotland’s largest and most powerful clan. We enjoyed walking around the grounds although the gardens were less exciting than those at Attadale but the old house must have been magnificent in its day.

We also visited Plockton a picturesque and tranquil village on a sheltered bay with stunning views of Loch Carron. When we last visited in 2018, we had enjoyed a meal at the Plockton Hotel and looked forward to revisiting. This year, because of the pandemic, they had created a covered outdoor eating area right on the shoreline. We were not disappointed, the food and views were both fantastic so much so that we returned on the last full day of our holiday.

After a wonderful week we headed home stopping overnight at Nent Hall a lovely country hotel not far from Alston in Cumbria. The hotel was very comfortable with excellent food and service. Our stay provided a fitting end to another good holiday.

Readers of the Blog will know that we have visited Bodnant every time we stay in North Wales. The 55 metre long Laburnum Arch and Rhododendrons were well passed their best, but we were mesmerised by a large meadow of wild flowers and grasses.


Cultivated to support a rich mix of flowers, grasses and herbs including the common spotted orchid, yellow rattle, red clover, and common knapweed, the meadow provides amazing colours but above all a rich nectar source in early summer for bees and butterflies.
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For us, the most beautiful flower we came across is shown below although we don’t know its name. – but it was stunning!

After
Bodnant, we headed for LLanberis and the Llanberis Pass on our way to Beddgelert. We always find the journey (in good weather) beautiful with amazing scenery and the views down into valleys or up to high mountains equally inspiring. At Beddgelert several shops and properties and the pedestrian bridge over the river Colwyn to the primary school still showed damage from the flooding just prior to our visit in September 2020. This time the river was flowing very gently.

After a pleasant stroll along the banks of the river Glaslyn, we headed for the White Lion Royal Hotel in Bala. The evening was spent with a stroll by Lake Bala and a meal at Bala Spice. The restaurant is nothing to write home about but the food was lovely as usual. In fact, when we visited again the next night, we found our table prepared for us with glasses and bottle opener (it’s a BYOB place).

We spent the next day walking across the Mawddach Estuary to Barmouth. The tide was ebbing quite fast and we were surprised to see quite a few large jelly fish.
Returning across the river we walked to Fairbourne and then drove back to Bala to travel on the Bala Lake railway.

It was certainly the day of trains one at Morfa Mawddach station, and then one of the Fairbourne Railway trains before the Bala Lake Railway.




We had a lovely view across lake bala from our open carriage!

Continuing the railway theme, the next day we drove to Aberystwyth to travel on the 2 ft gauge Vale of Rheidol Railway. When British Railways withdrew steam engines, it retained the three engines (numbered 7, 8, and 9) to run the Rheidol line as a commercial heritage railway. The line was privatised in 1989. Now run by a charity, the narrow gauge locomotives have been returned to their Great Western livery that predated the formation of British Railways in 1948. Our trip from Aberystwyth to Devil’s Bridge took an hour and we were then able to walk to the Devil’s Falls and have a picnic before boarding the train for the return journey. The Loco was absolutely immaculate.


A lovely end to another great trip to North Wales.

We drove to Falmouth to visit Pam and Dave Nelmes and had a lovely lunch and afternoon with them. The rain was quite heavy when we set off to head back across Cornwall to Looe to spend 4 nights at The Jolly Sailor in West Looe.
Despite the weather preventing us from doing some of the walks we wanted to, we did manage to walk every day including our usual walk at Lanhydrock. If you are a regular reader of the Blog you will know that we photograph a gate that seems permanently open. This time, it was exactly as it was last October with the same prop in the same place!
The rhododendrons were passed their best but still provide some magnificent colours.

On another day, and despite heavy rain, we dressed up in our waterproofs and enjoyed meandering around East Looe and sitting in the shelter overlooking the beach. The day after the weather was much better see the pictures below.


We had a great few days and enjoyed eating in The Jolly Sailor every night. Overall, despite the weather, we had a great time. Looe was as beautiful as ever.

Although we were disappointed that John and Freda couldn’t come to Looe, the rest of us decided to go anyway. We left Fairford on Saturday morning and meandered down to Looe arriving mid afternoon.

Looe was perhaps a little busier than we expected (especially at the weekend). Nevertheless it was not too crowded and we had a lovely time. The weather was mixed and Annie and Gerry ended up wearing full wet weather gear for walks on two days.

David managed to borrow a wheelchair for Anne so that she didn’t have to walk from our cottage (close to the beach) in East Looe over the bridge to the Jolly Sailor in West Looe. David and Anne are well known in the jolly Sailor from previous visits and we were made very welcome – the staff reserved a table for us out of the way but in the main bar. We felt perfectly safe, and spent five evenings in the pub including having dinner on four of them.

In order to avoid an early start on Saturday (had to be out by 9:00 am), we headed home on the Friday afternoon and had a great drive home arriving at tea time! The four of us agreed that we had had a really enjoyable break.

We managed a short walk on the Saturday evening around the camp site and adjacent roads but the next day we went on a favourite walk of ours to the Church on top of Brent Tor. St Michael de la Rupe which is the highest working church in Southern England was open and we enjoyed a few minutes of quiet reflection before continuing our circular walk. The rough ground up to and down from the Church reminded us that age is certainly beginning to tell us to think carefully about terrain and gradients! In the afternoon we walked at the National Trust site of Lydford Gorge. We had had to book a timed
slot and found the number of other visitors and the need to socially distance somewhat limited our enjoyment. That certainly was not the case the next day (Monday) when we had booked a timed slot to enter Lanhydrock for our usual circular walk. In fact, we found out we needn’t have booked just for the walk which we did enjoy. However, on the way down to Lanhydrock, Annie suggested we visit Siblyback Lake on Bodmin Moor. It was lovely and we enjoyed a peaceful 3 mile walk around the lake.

The following day we enjoyed two walks with the first on Haytor. The aim of the walk was to visit the Haytor Granite Tramway built to convey granite from Haytor Down to the Stover Canal. It was very unusual in that the track was formed of granite sections, shaped to guide the wheels of horse-drawn wagons. The quarry has long since been abandoned but the Dartmoor ponies are still around.


Close to the abandoned quarry we
found a beautiful bank of purple heather that was the finest we saw during our holiday. The walk was memorable because of the peace and quiet, the views and the marvel of the tramway. The only down side was that Haytor itself became shrouded in mist towards the end! From Haytor we drove to Chagford at the north eastern edge of Dartmoor. We enjoyed a picnic sitting on some lovely benches outside the Church. After lunch, and although the weather was getting “iffy”, we set off on a pleasant 2 mile stroll that followed the banks of the River Teign.

Later in the week we met up with Annie’s sister Pam and husband Neil for lunch at the Strawberry Fields Farm Shop in Lifton. The restaurant was well laid out with plenty of space between tables and clear rules to minimise the Covid risk. The food was good and a lot of catching up with each other’s news – who knows when we will be able to meet up again for a restaurant meal!

During our stay we waked across the fields and hills from Harford Bridge to Mary Tavy and then back on tracks and roads via Peter Tavy. The walks were just over three miles long and a nice way of rounding off or starting the day.

The weather broke on Thursday evening so we decided to return home on the Friday. We had had a great holiday and really enjoyed the walking despite, as said earlier, the need to think about the inclines and descents more than we used to!

Post Script.

On our Lanhydrock walk we passed through a gateway that looked as though it hasn’t been disturbed since the second photo was taken five and a half years before in March 2015.

Our first activity was our customary walk along the banks of the River Trywerin and Lake Bala. We managed to see two Herons in spots where we have seen them before and enjoyed views of the lake with the sun shimmering on the water despite some ominous black clouds above.

The next morning, after a pleasant breakfast, we set off for Bodnant Gardens. The gardens are about an hour’s gentle drive from Bala and we arrived just before our pre-booked entry slot. The arrival procedure went smoothly and we were soon free to walk the gardens. We completed a circular walk of some 2.5 miles and although not the best time of the year to visit, enjoyed many lovely views. The photographs below show various plants including some fungi that were rather impressive in their size and shape. The final photo is of a border we photograph on every visit and it was as stunning as ever!

From Bodnant we drove to Llanberis and down the LLanberis Pass. We didn’t know what to expect on the drive had recently seen news footage of cars parked all along the pass and police activity towing cars away and placing parking tickets on others, What a difference a weekday in September brings. The lay-bys were virtually empty and there were no dangerously parked cars anywhere. We stopped and enjoyed a picnic before continuing down the pass and across to Beddgelert.
We parked up and were walking down towards the town centre when we saw a bridge from the road to the primary school that seemed was badly damaged. There had been some very heavy rain a couple of weeks previously and trees and other debris had caused a dam to form. The dam was eventually breached and a torrent of water rushed through the town and across to the river plain. Several shops and buildings had been flooded and during our walk to Gellert’s Grave and along the river, we could see
from debris in the fields and against fences that the flood water had covered a massive area. However, despite the short interval the ground was amazingly dry and you could be forgiven for thinking that there had been no flood. However, that wasn’t true for the businesses and properties still closed because of flood damage.

We also saw some beautiful heather on the mountain side.

Our next day saw us head to Morfa Mawddach and our usual walk across the bridge over the estuary to Barmouth. Barmouth was as disappointing as ever and quite clearly the people did not believe in social distancing and also, no masks were required in shops (Masks became compulsory in Welsh shops a couple of days after we returned to Fairford). We enjoyed our walk and just made it back to the car as the weather started to close in. During our walk we had seen a train up close and as usual Gerry couldn’t resist a photo. From Morfa we headed to Fairbourne and were treated to a beautiful site of a train on the Fairbourne light railway.

Although the weather became quite windy and wet we continued our drive down the coast to Towyn and Aberdovey before returning to Bala. The Bala Lake railway was operating although timing prevented us from travelling on it. However, we came across the train when we stopped beside the lake

By the time we returned to Bala for our daily walk by the Lake and river we were treated to a wonderful rainbow.

We returned to Fairford the next day. A lovely stay, but we were happy to return home, lockdown has certainly made us wary of people, busy towns, shops and restaurants!

We had a lovely break despite stormy weather and closed motorways for our journey home!

We were having a great week until the phone kept ringing with an automatic message to say that our burglar alarm had been activated. Although neighbours had checked the house for us and we were able to reset the alarm remotely, there was obviously a recurring fault. As a result we travelled home two days early.

So instead of walking in Yorkshire, we found ourselves walking around Eastleach to find carpets of snowdrops – is it Spring?

The next week we set off for 4 nights in Cornwall. We had lunch with long time Fairford friends Pam and Dave Nelmes on Thursday in Falmouth and, on Friday, made a nostalgic visit to Mevagissey. As proof of Annie’s ongoing recovery we climbed the long flight of steps from the breakwater to the top of the cliff overlooking the harbour and town.

Following our usual practice, we each enjoyed eating a hot pasty sitting beside the harbour after which we visited Trelissick for a walk around the house and gardens. The sight and smell of freshly mown grass and the camellias, daffodils and other spring plants certainly gave the impression that Spring had sprung.

A vision to be shattered 48 hours later with the arrival of Storm Ciara and its 75mph winds and torrential rain.

Although the storm meant that we headed straight home on the Sunday we had a brilliant Friday evening and Saturday with James, Hannah, Rosie and Ptolemy based in a cottage near Perranwell a few miles from Truro (a step up from the Premier Inn we stayed in for the first couple of nights).
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The weather on Saturday was sunny but cold and windy. We travelled over the King Harry Chain Ferry to visit Pendower beach where we thoroughly enjoyed the sand, rock pools and flying the kite. After a bracing morning we headed to Falmouth for a pleasant lunch in an Italian restaurant. The evening was spent looking after the children whilst James and Hannah went to meet friends. We had a great time looking after Rosie and Ptolemy!


We thoroughly enjoyed our four days in Cornwall especially as the fault on the house alarm has been fixed!