Cream teas and pasties

Yes, I'm behind. We've finished this weekend's tourism before I've even documented the last one! Last one was less touristy though - on Saturday we had a morning-tea visit from Rupert, Cath, Amy, Ana, and Phimi on their second last day in the UK, and then on Sunday, we caught up with them again at Coventry Cathedral - Rupert's old stomping (beating?) ground. After saying goodbye there, we explored the Transport Museum for a few hours.

The working week was relatively normal. I might remember some highlights later. I enjoyed helping out with the school orchestra practice on Thursday lunchtime, and then we had Community Choir in the evening.

This weekend, we left Malvern at around 3:45pm on Friday, and rushed through the Upton diversion (still flooded!) to the motorway, and headed to Devon for our Southwest holiday weekend.

Finding the Plymouth Holiday Inn without a map wasn't too hard, but we did resort to a phone call for assistance. We gorged on a (included in the package) 3-course dinner. We hadn't really recovered from that when value-for-money demanded a similar approach to the full breakfast on Saturday morning. We didn't really need lunch!

We headed west to Cornwall, over the Torpoint ferry, along the south coast to our first stop at Looe, a picturesque little historic fishing village. Just when we'd decided that this was the highlight, we made it to the next village, Polperro, which was even cuter.

We hadn't been sure about whether to visit Eden - having received contrary advice about suitability for children. We were glad we drove in to see from the outside. Perhaps one day we'll go back and actually go inside. They are trying to establish some self contained ecosystems.

We continued along towards Lizard (pictured), the most southerly point of the country, where there were some nice cliffs and waves crashing onto rocks, etc. We continued along to St Michael's Mount, at Marazion, just near Penzance. We walked across, the tide being low, but the castle and grounds etc were closed, so there wasn't really much to see or do. We thought about trying to fulfill the "Cream Tea" mandate. But the place we chose had too little "atmosphere", so we aborted and decided to head towards Lands End. The geography was good, but there were no tea shoppes open. There was just enough daylight, we decided, to reach St Ives, so that's where we zoomed to next. It was a delightful little place, and we had a nice little stroll along the foreshore, and managed to tick off another two local culinary requirements - ice creams (despite it being rather chilly) and pasties, which we ate in the car on the way back to Plymouth. We managed to visit the hotel's pool and gym to try to prepare ourselves for the next day's prandial onslaught.

Today, Sunday, we tried to explore the Plymouth shoreline. But during breakfast, we discovered that we were being pea-souped in the fog. While waiting to be seated at our table, we saw a big ship heading towards the harbour. But by the time we were at our table, all we could see was the tip of its funnel gliding past - accompanied by several blasts on the foghorn. After checking out, we braved the chill to take a look at the various swimming & diving spots.

Although we had been planning to head back to the north coast to visit Padstowe etc, we decided that it would be better to explore Dartmoor. It was quite delightful, although closer to lunch time many of the car parks were full as people were taking short strolls to the tops of various nearby tors. We found some delightful rivers (East Dart, West Dart) and bridges, and storybook Widecombe-in-the-Moor village, where we bought lunch in Ye Olde Inn, and nearly found a suitable cream tea. But we decided afternoon tea would be better, so we zoomed off to Torquay to look for Fawlty Towers. We didn't see that place, but again had a nice walk along the shoreline, marina, and park (pic). This time, we did manage to get our fix of clotted cream. And wasn't it good! (May have to reschedule tomorrow's cholesterol test.) We followed the coast through Dawlish, Exmouth, Exeter, and then straight up the M5 to be home at 6pm.

I think it's time to have a rant about milkshakes. I don't like to admit it, but I normally indulge in a milkshake or two a week at home. Sometimes more. And there are some places that serve good ones (Donut King), and some that don't (Wendys, Hungry Jacks/McDonalds, the shop at Moore on the Brisbane Valley Highway). But milkshakes here are (a) nothing like what we have in Australia, and (b) extremely diverse. I think the first one I had was in Ledbury, at the Internet cafe. They made that one with ice cubes, milk, and some kind of flavour in a blender. It's probably the closest to what I'm used to. Today's was more like a cold "hot chocolate" - no froth, no ice-cream, and a weird, almost tannic flavour in the dregs. I don't know how they justify the term "milkshake". Anyway, I will continue my hunt for a decent UK milkshake.

It felt like quite a busy weekend: much more like what we did on our backpacking trip (14 years ago) than we had expected to be able to manage with daughters in tow. But we managed to keep them smiling most of the time too, so I have to describe it as a successful trip.

And here's a question for the lawyers: Am I allowed to take a photo of a sign that says "Sorry no photos"? This was a candle shop in the Torquay Pavilion that was closed at the time.