Back again...
Aug. 19th, 2004 12:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deborah_cWell, our holiday was generally pleasant, barring bits of it that involved cars, particularly other people's cars...
We started off by heading down to see friends in Cheltenham. Despite the best efforts of people turning caravans upside down on the M5, this turned out not to be too painful, until we reached Cheltenham itself. Having taken three hours from Cambridge to Cheltenham, we then spent the next two and a bit hours getting across the town, a grand total of three miles or so, eventually arriving hot and fuming, although not before seriously considering abandoning the car and walking...
We hadn't seen our friends for a while, so it was good to get to spend time with them. They're people with whom we used to co-lead a residential holiday, so we used to be in touch weekly; it seems very odd when after having once been in touch that often, we now only see them once or twice a year. Sadly, their children were off elsewhere, so we didn't get to see them, but we had a nice quiet wander around the nearby bits of Cheltenham, and then a long evening chatting (and playing games with A, A and R), impeded only slightly by our host recovering from having tonsils removed at the beginning of the week...
Knowing that traffic was likely to be awful, we left early in the morning, heading down to Cornwall. Suffice it to say our expectations were entirely met... We eventually arrived in Perranporth (a little along the coast from Newquay) at about 5pm, after a great deal of frustration. By the time we'd unpacked, sorted ourselves out and found dinner (pasties and chips, sitting on the front watching the sun start to set over the sea), the children were ready for bed. We entertained a friend who was also staying in the town for an hour or so, then collapsed ourselves.
So, having got to Perranporth, there were two main attractions there for us: there's a really nice sandy beach, with good surfing, and there's a children's mission there with lots of activities on offer. So, our week started off something like this:
Sunday: To church, then onto the beach. Went surfing. Attacked by jellyfish; only minor damage.
Monday: Children went to beach mission. Went surfing; attacked by bigger jellyfish, which also aggrieved the children.
Tuesday: Beach mission, then surfing. Jellyfish appear to be gradually thinning out the humans in the sea.
Wednesday: Mission, surfing, no jellyfish but youngest daughter stung by bee when having her wetsuit sprayed down.
And so it goes on; actually, it was quite a pleasant couple of weeks, if without particularly distinguishable days. After a little while, the local wildlife decided mostly to leave us alone, except for small insects deciding to eat Liz alive during the nights. We had a couple of random days out, which this year seemed to focus mostly on mines, including quite a fun guided tour of one of the earlier ones (Poldark Mine, for those who know Cornwall). By the end of the fortnight, though, the children were starting to flag a little, having had energetic days and bedtimes a couple of hours later than normal; we were exhausted too.
My parents, and my sister and her husband were all staying down there as well; it was good to get to spend some (OK, a little) time with them. My sister's barely been on speaking terms with me for the last few months, so it was good to have some time to see each other, even if we weren't particularly loquacious. I also managed to renew acquaintance with some childhood friends, as it was the 100th anniversary of the beach mission, which I used to go to when I was small -- there was a reunion over the middle weekend of the fortnight. It was good to be able to keep fairly occupied, as well; I've been feeling more than a little depressed of late, but I can fight it when my mind's otherwise occupied.
We decided not to join the near-infinite queues of people trying to leave Cornwall on the final Saturday of our visit, so we spent the day exploring the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth. We'd visited Greenwich a few months ago, so it made a nice complement to that -- it's much more about small boats than Greenwich is -- and, slightly bizarrely, ended up going round quite a bit of the museum with friends who live about 100m down the road from us at home, and who we ran into in the cafe... Small world syndrome strikes again! Back to the Park and Float site (!) by boat, and we started our journey home...
... which would have been quite reasonable, except for the MacDonalds at Cullompton, who don't seem to have mastered at least the first part of the term "Fast Food" (I won't discuss the latter...), and for elder daughter A coming down with a stomach bug, somewhere in the middle of the M6... The last couple of hours of our journey were done in fits and starts of a few minutes at a time, stopping to clean up and calm down an understandably distressed small girl. Eventually, an hour or two after we got home, she settled down and was able to sleep, but not before I'd paniced and phoned the emergency doctor... Fortunately after another day or so of being very subdued, she's now fully recovered.
Sunday was a bit of a non-event, having driven for nearly 8 hours the previous evening, and then stayed up for some while longer looking after children. Monday should have been back to normality (i.e. work), but for my discovering mid-afternoon that whatever A had had was catching... An unpleasant afternoon and evening ensued, which I won't go into, followed by a day of painful stomach cramps any time I tried so much as to sip water. I'm now rather dehydrated, but otherwise OK, and we're hoping the rest of the family escape.
The main downside to the last fortnight has been missing friends. The last year has changed the kind of relationships that I have with friends quite significantly, and I wasn't expecting how hard it would be to be separated from you all... Thanks to those who took the time to text me; it really helped! Meanwhile, I wasn't in a fit state to get to the Calling on Tuesday; we have friends coming to visit tomorrow evening, too, so I won't make it to Film Club. Anyone interested in coffee over the next few days?
We started off by heading down to see friends in Cheltenham. Despite the best efforts of people turning caravans upside down on the M5, this turned out not to be too painful, until we reached Cheltenham itself. Having taken three hours from Cambridge to Cheltenham, we then spent the next two and a bit hours getting across the town, a grand total of three miles or so, eventually arriving hot and fuming, although not before seriously considering abandoning the car and walking...
We hadn't seen our friends for a while, so it was good to get to spend time with them. They're people with whom we used to co-lead a residential holiday, so we used to be in touch weekly; it seems very odd when after having once been in touch that often, we now only see them once or twice a year. Sadly, their children were off elsewhere, so we didn't get to see them, but we had a nice quiet wander around the nearby bits of Cheltenham, and then a long evening chatting (and playing games with A, A and R), impeded only slightly by our host recovering from having tonsils removed at the beginning of the week...
Knowing that traffic was likely to be awful, we left early in the morning, heading down to Cornwall. Suffice it to say our expectations were entirely met... We eventually arrived in Perranporth (a little along the coast from Newquay) at about 5pm, after a great deal of frustration. By the time we'd unpacked, sorted ourselves out and found dinner (pasties and chips, sitting on the front watching the sun start to set over the sea), the children were ready for bed. We entertained a friend who was also staying in the town for an hour or so, then collapsed ourselves.
So, having got to Perranporth, there were two main attractions there for us: there's a really nice sandy beach, with good surfing, and there's a children's mission there with lots of activities on offer. So, our week started off something like this:
Sunday: To church, then onto the beach. Went surfing. Attacked by jellyfish; only minor damage.
Monday: Children went to beach mission. Went surfing; attacked by bigger jellyfish, which also aggrieved the children.
Tuesday: Beach mission, then surfing. Jellyfish appear to be gradually thinning out the humans in the sea.
Wednesday: Mission, surfing, no jellyfish but youngest daughter stung by bee when having her wetsuit sprayed down.
And so it goes on; actually, it was quite a pleasant couple of weeks, if without particularly distinguishable days. After a little while, the local wildlife decided mostly to leave us alone, except for small insects deciding to eat Liz alive during the nights. We had a couple of random days out, which this year seemed to focus mostly on mines, including quite a fun guided tour of one of the earlier ones (Poldark Mine, for those who know Cornwall). By the end of the fortnight, though, the children were starting to flag a little, having had energetic days and bedtimes a couple of hours later than normal; we were exhausted too.
My parents, and my sister and her husband were all staying down there as well; it was good to get to spend some (OK, a little) time with them. My sister's barely been on speaking terms with me for the last few months, so it was good to have some time to see each other, even if we weren't particularly loquacious. I also managed to renew acquaintance with some childhood friends, as it was the 100th anniversary of the beach mission, which I used to go to when I was small -- there was a reunion over the middle weekend of the fortnight. It was good to be able to keep fairly occupied, as well; I've been feeling more than a little depressed of late, but I can fight it when my mind's otherwise occupied.
We decided not to join the near-infinite queues of people trying to leave Cornwall on the final Saturday of our visit, so we spent the day exploring the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth. We'd visited Greenwich a few months ago, so it made a nice complement to that -- it's much more about small boats than Greenwich is -- and, slightly bizarrely, ended up going round quite a bit of the museum with friends who live about 100m down the road from us at home, and who we ran into in the cafe... Small world syndrome strikes again! Back to the Park and Float site (!) by boat, and we started our journey home...
... which would have been quite reasonable, except for the MacDonalds at Cullompton, who don't seem to have mastered at least the first part of the term "Fast Food" (I won't discuss the latter...), and for elder daughter A coming down with a stomach bug, somewhere in the middle of the M6... The last couple of hours of our journey were done in fits and starts of a few minutes at a time, stopping to clean up and calm down an understandably distressed small girl. Eventually, an hour or two after we got home, she settled down and was able to sleep, but not before I'd paniced and phoned the emergency doctor... Fortunately after another day or so of being very subdued, she's now fully recovered.
Sunday was a bit of a non-event, having driven for nearly 8 hours the previous evening, and then stayed up for some while longer looking after children. Monday should have been back to normality (i.e. work), but for my discovering mid-afternoon that whatever A had had was catching... An unpleasant afternoon and evening ensued, which I won't go into, followed by a day of painful stomach cramps any time I tried so much as to sip water. I'm now rather dehydrated, but otherwise OK, and we're hoping the rest of the family escape.
The main downside to the last fortnight has been missing friends. The last year has changed the kind of relationships that I have with friends quite significantly, and I wasn't expecting how hard it would be to be separated from you all... Thanks to those who took the time to text me; it really helped! Meanwhile, I wasn't in a fit state to get to the Calling on Tuesday; we have friends coming to visit tomorrow evening, too, so I won't make it to Film Club. Anyone interested in coffee over the next few days?
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no subject
Date: 2004-08-20 01:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-20 02:04 pm (UTC)If you were thinking of body-boarding you're welcome to borrow a couple of boards from us if there's any way of getting them to you before you go.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-20 02:13 pm (UTC)The big difference from when I was small is that you can now (at least where we were) hire child-size wetsuits, which I would thoroughly recommend. With those, you can stay in the sea so much longer... Not essential, but makes life a lot more pleasant, at least from my recollections of childhood surfing without them.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-20 02:55 pm (UTC)I've downloaded the details of a number of surf schools and shops in the area and I'll spend a morning checking them out before deciding who to go with.
I'd love us all to have a go on Malibu boards, but a morning playing around on body boards will keep me happy :@) I love the water