After a much needed change of scenery, I was able to add a lovely new traditional teddy bear to my website yesterday, aptly named 'Devon'...
My husband and I headed to Devon recently with our three dogs in the car, on the rainiest of August days. It was hard to believe it was mid Summer as the rain hammered heaven's hardest on our windscreen but fortunately, when we did eventually arrive at our holiday cottage about six soggy doggy hours later, the sun finally shone and my son and his family had already safely arrived and started unpacking. The scenery overlooking Dartmoor was absolutely beautiful, so we were eager to unpack the car, take the dogs and Grandchildren to the large meadow across the road for a good run ... and launch ourselves into full holiday mode, at last!
We spent a wonderful week exploring Dartmoor and Cornwall as a family. It was hard work but much fun. The dogs swam in the sea at Padstow and the children paddled and rock-pooled in Boscastle Harbour, traversing the scarily high bridge strung between the clifftops of Tintagel, in search of a statue of King Arthur at the castle ruins.
We walked miles with our dogs, meeting wild ponies, long horned cattle and sheep on Dartmoor, then listening to the sound of absolute silence far out on the moors. One evening we supped mugs of hot chocolate and ate marshmallows in the darkness by Harford Bridge while bats swooped around us and another day, we drove along barely used farm tracks lined with gorse and deep dark forest, to find the most beautiful hidden reservoir at the end of our white-knuckle ride ... and we all ate more pasties and ice-creams than were probably good for any self-respecting waistline!
It was a lovely week, full of laughter and family fun with my son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren but also full of happy summer holiday memories of my own children excitedly exploring Boscastle and Tintagel when we were still a young family just starting out in life, many years ago. It was very special to revisit some of the special places we had always enjoyed, with my Grandchildren this summer.
Many waters have since flowed beneath the harbour bridge you see in the photograph above... but over more than thirty years later, I can still picture my children posing there for photos snapped on my little Olympus point 'n shoot camera, hoping to be bought an ice-cream and taken to visit the gift shops further along the path, after scrambling over rocky cliff paths. They were such happy times. It is lovely to see my son now cementing his own special childhood memories by sharing them with his wife and children. Life it seems, always comes full circle.
