A wet day in Devon, thousands of tourists all making resolutions to go abroad next year. Neither of us could remember if we had been to Barnstaple before so I looked up my diary and discovered we went there in 2013 and my only comment was “surprisingly nice town” but I did not record what was surprisingly nice about it! So, as it was pouring with rain, we visited again today.
No surprises but the Queen Anne Bath House (picture left) did a nice coffee and emphasised our ignorance that neither of us had the faintest knowledge of Queen Anne. I have now invested 99p on a Kindle book about her to fill in the gap in my knowledge, it will give me something to read in the rain next week.
Next stop was Ilfracombe, pictured at the top of the page. The sun came out and so did the crowds flocking to the ice cream and chip emporiums. As seaside towns go Ilfracombe seems quite pleasant, it’s most photographed attraction is a huge bronze statue (20m high) by Damien Hurst.
It is unusual, as you would expect from him, but works well. Not something I would want in our garden but certainly gives the visitors something to think about.
We also watched a relay team of four swimmers set off to cross the Bristol Channel, a distance of 25 miles and I guess some treacherous tides, but despite the people on the support boat trying to drum up support they were largely ignored by the chip and ice cream eating tourists. A little bit sad.
Tonight we will be glued to the football on the TV and then tomorrow we drive down to Land's End airport to catch the flight over to the Isles of Scilly. We have plenty of time for the drive to Land's End so will do a bit of sightseeing as we go.
So our next blog entry will be posted from an island at the furthest west of the English Channel.