Plymouth Part II

We weren't able to spend as much time in Plymouth as we would have liked. There is lots of history there... but E was grumpy, so we headed straight to the aquarium.

Many pics turned out blurry, but here are a few of the good ones.

Some sort of sea urchin.

Feeding frenzy.

E watching the sharks and various other fish. He was vaguely impressed, but his routine and sleeping schedule had been tweaked a bit, so he was tired and not 100%. B and I enjoyed ourselves though.

That's all for now. Hope nobody's too thrown by the new layout.

Funfair

I know I promised aquarium pics, but today was so much fun that I'd like to post it when things are still fresh in my mind.

We headed off to Wimbledon Common for their village fair. Luck was with us - we found a parking space immediately, one which happened to be about a 30 second walk from the edge of the festivities. It was a big event - horse show, dog show, funfair rides, food stalls, arts/crafts stalls, performances, etc. Kind of like a slightly scaled-down American county fair.

I BRAVELY went down this slide with E. He had fun. Me, not quite so much. This is a before pic and nobody is seeing the after pics. E is smiling, I am not, we'll leave it at that.

B, on the other hand...
had so much fun he did it twice.

Couple more random shots...

Punch & Judy. No, I can't explain it, it's just some British tradition that involves puppets and a fair amount of gratuitous slapping about.

Some sort of juggling show with Victorian accoutrements strewn about.

Glug, glug.

Plymouth

Uncle Howard is doing better - Dad was able to speak with him on the phone. Looks like it wasn't a diabetic coma/seizure but something else, perhaps an infection. He's on antibiotics and is recovering.

The B&B we stayed at in Cornwall was a nice place, but not as toddler-friendly as the place in Dorset. Lots of breakable baubles around and worse -- creaky floors. Creaky floors + breakable items + toddler who rises at 6:30am + other guests = bleary parental walks outside at ungodly hours.

Anyhow, the day before we left, we caught the ferry from Cawsand over to Plymouth. In contrast to the very sunny and hot day preceding this one, it was gray, cooler, overcast, windy, which made for a choppy ride.

E waiting for the ferry.


Here's the ferry coming in. We boarded from a gangplank lowered directly onto the sand.


E was a bit fragile due to sleep issues. Hanging over the end of the boat cheered him up, however.


Mayflower Memorial in Plymouth, and E's shoes.


Will post pics of the aquarium on the next update.

Whitsand Bay

England is not a country comfortable with hot weather. It clings to its feather duvets, its double-glazed windows, its sturdy, carpeted interiors. In the heat, its citizens wander around looking faintly bewildered, clad in hastily-assembled summer attire, perhaps bought several years ago "just in case the big heatwave showed up" and with the vague hint of mothballs clinging to the undersides.

They peer at the sun and repeat the temporary mantra, "LOVELY weather, isn't it?" They drink hot tea under the hot sun, or underneath rain shelters that for a few weeks out of the year pose as sun shelters. The kids run around as if possessed, revelling in short sleeves.

Then the rain returns and probably 90% of the population is secretly relieved.

Back to our trip - one hot morning, we packed our things and headed to a nearby recommended beach. Sandy and beautiful, it was accessed via a steep cliff hike. E fell asleep on the short drive there.

(Yes, we still have a rear-facing carseat, and I bought one specifically to use as rear-facing, because it's safer - something to do with the proportionality of the weight/size of the head on children under the age of 4 or so leads to more spinal injuries in crashes when forward-facing. Some of the Nordic countries require children to sit rear-facing until the age of 4. Safety lecture over.)

Heading down the path....


View from the top.


And further down the path. Lots of little holiday cottages along the way.


To give you an idea of how far down it was, here's the cliff from below. Yes, going back up was fun.

The little cafe at the bottom had a great way of trekking goods down the steep path. I love seeing unorthodox things like this. Makes me view the local community as a bit more down-to-earth as opposed to the Housing Association Types who freak if your picket fence is painted off-white instead of the appropriate shade of pearl.

We'd borrowed a bucket and spade from the B&B and E went to town in the little tidepools.

After the initial sunscreen pindown and wild running around, E got properly dorked out in hat and sunglasses and set to the business of plopping handfuls of sand into a bucketful of seawater.


It was upon this beach that E constructed his very first four-word sentence. After taking a spill in the ocean and getting a mouthful of water, the young gentleman stood up and proclaimed: "Fall down ocean, yucky!"


That's all for now.

Kingsand Part II

The first thing we had to do, after lugging our bags into the B&B, was head down to one of the little beaches in the town. It was about a 30 second walk. Here's the view from the B&B. Plymouth is just visible in the distance there. We saw lots of big ships coming in and out, and the area is popular with smaller vessels as well.



E loved throwing pebbles into the ocean. When he first clapped eyes on all that water, poor city kid got all excited and said "POND."

In the evening we went looking for somewhere to eat. One drawback - not many choices within walking distance.

Kingsand and Cawsand used to be different towns, but they're adjoined now. Can't remember the exact details, but one used to be in Devon and the other in Cornwall. Now they're both in Cornwall.


E loved walking around. There were lots of "keedy tats" for him to spot and any cars driving through town didn't go much faster than about 5mph.



The towns have lots of little nooks and crannies and features.




And cats!

Still to come - pics of our sandy beach day out (with a wild hike down) and our trip via ferry to Plymouth.

Kingsand

The morning of the 5:30 a.m. rising, we cleaned the cottage and hopped into the car for the drive through Dorset and Devon.

We drove via A roads at first - essentially two lane highways with occasional passing lanes/pull-out spots. The UK has an interesting road system.

We passed over Brunel's bridge into Cornwall.


The A roads went down to B roads, which are smaller.

The B roads turned into country lanes....

...which led us to the tiny seaside town of Kingsand.

To be continued.

A Country Walk

During our stay in Dorset, I got to sneak off alone for a leisurely jaunt down a country lane.

When I got to Thomas Hardy's cottage, I realized I didn't have the 4 quid necessary for entry. So I snapped a pic...


...and headed back for some


Busy week here, will try and update again soon.