Gusts of winds of up to fifty miles an hour and torrential rain surrounded the cottage throughout the night which didn’t bode well for our trip home tomorrow. We’re hoping to drive home via the Exmoor National Park and have a picnic but in these conditions we don’t want to be blown off course, so to speak. Ah well, let’s see what the weather’s like when we wake up in the morning!
Of course the weather was no different when we woke so we scotched the idea of driving to the Exmoor national park and plumped instead for Plan B. Just drive straight home! We had to vacate the cottage at 10am so it was action stations once we’d got out of bed. We had breakfast to prepare, packing to do, yoga to perform, excess food to be divvied out between us, a car to pack and a Winston to take out for his first pee and poo of the day. In these weather conditions Winston had other ideas and planted his paws firmly on the ground, refusing to budge an inch outside the front door. Oh well, we tried……he’d have to cross his legs then and wait until we left at 10am!
The car was as full when we left as it was when we arrived even though we’d eaten and drunk a lot of what we’d brought with us. When we’ve been away previously we’ve always purchased too much and this year we thought we’d bought a lot less……obviously not! Ready to set off, we bid farewell to our hosts, did a second reccie of the cottage and found Maice’s jackets hanging on the coat hooks by the front door….oops, and I’d checked previously! Car now full to the brim we gave Mr Smooth the directions to get home, deciding, what the heck, we’d take the route through the National park regardless of the weather. He guided us out the wrong way so having driven round in a complete circle we eventually got ourselves back on track, trying to avoid turning into any hedges like what Maice did yesterday. What we’ve found with Mr Smooth and his directions is that he will suddenly announce to ‘turn right’ which Maice literally took to mean immediately, almost driving into a hedge, instead of driving the few hundred yards to the turning!
We didn’t really see much of the National park, driving on the periphery as we did so decided to reroute and head to Felicity’s Farm Shop for another cappuccino and cheese and onion pasty. Mr Smooth was rerouted and took us cross country until we didn’t have a clue where we were, by which time both myself and Winston were needing the loo. Using our instincts we drove in the opposite direction to that which we were being directed, by-passed Honiton and found ourselves stopping at Starbucks where we decided to get a coffee and toasted sandwich, which is just as well we did, for when we drove past Felicity’s it was closed!
Not long after, we arrived at our respective homes, Milly was collected from Purrfect Cattery and all was back to normal. Christmas had been and gone, just like that. Another year almost over. We’ve had a lovely Christmas holiday, enjoyed every moment of it and despite the weather we just got on with it and made the most of what we had. To coin a phrase, we just went with the flow! One of our fond memories is seeing Sir Winston enjoying himself on the beach at Ilfracombe with his doggy friends. He definitely had a big grin on his face as he was racing around…..what a great way to celebrate his first Christmas! North Devon is a lovely place to visit and making Yetland Farm Cottages our base it was ideally situated in which to explore the surrounding countryside and coast, nothing was too far too away.
This evening Maice is looking forward to relaxing on her new Snuggler chair and I’m looking forward to sleeping in my king size bed………what more could we want!
And now for Maice‘s photos, from her camera…..on display now because as you know she forgot to pack her adapter! A small collection of the 100’s taken… in no particular order…
Happy New Year to you all and hoping see you in Greece, in May!
M&A and Sir Winston xxx
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