A sort of round-up

I'm really bad at writing this blog so this is a quick round-up of the last couple of weeks, which have been really busy one way or another.

Remember the shed?

Well, hooray, the new one arrived on Friday 20th of last month, 

big heap of wood in the front garden, tidy heap, but still a heap.

Later that night my daughter arrived for a stay, 

we spent Saturday together and went to a hilarious show 

that was part of the Theatre festival in Barnstaple:

WOMANz       

Tessa Waters

 If you get  the chance to see this fabulously funny, and rude, show, go, definitely go. Haven't laughed so much in ages.

Sunday I took a bus to Okehampton to meet my sister and her husband who'd invited me to share their rented cottage in Mary Tavy for a week. Had a lovely relaxing week with great weather while my daughter fed the cat and got on with some work and took advantage of the peace and quiet of Devon, she lives in Hackney so a huge contrast.

Visited a gorgeous place called The Garden House , a beautiful, relatively small garden near Buckland Monachorum wonderfully clever design that makes a smallish area seem huge, with lots of different areas to look at and a new arboretum. the arboretum is still tiny saplings with protective fencing round them but will be great in a few years.

Part of the wildflower meadow, there's a view towards Buckland Abbey at the end of this.

Took loads of pictures, but don't want to bore you all to death!

My sister and her husband, pity he was looking at his camera!

We also spent a day in Bellever Forest, a very nice part of Dartmoor with a river and some useful trees for shade, very hot weather!

Lovely place, pity we got invaded by a noisy school group in the afternoon, but they weren't there long.

Next stop Cotehele, a lovely Tudor Manor house, National Trust. More lovely gardens and some white doves who kindly posed for us on the dovecot.

Went down to Cotehele Quay for lunch, very picturesque and lots of nice information about the history

Very nice week altogether, my sister and I visited some stone rows and hut circles up on the moor, nicely misty and mysterious weather.

For some reason blogger can't put the photos side by side!






Meanwhile back in north Devon my lovely neighbour is putting my shed up, with a little help from my daughter, many thanks to both, I did pay him, but much less than he could have asked for.




Here's the shed...........

Weatherproof and everything! It now has a proper door fastener, the one that came with it looked like it was made for a dolls house, you can probably just see it in the photo.

My daughter and I had another day together on the Saturday, didn't do much had a mooch about on the ebach, wandered into a few shops and had fish and chips before heading home. She had a seat on the very early coach on Sunday morning, so I walked down with her and saw her off then had an early mornng walk on the beach and found these two great pieces of glass.

I have plans for a double heart necklace, possibly even made so they can be worn together or separately, we'll see.

Well that's my last week and a half, gradually getting everything back into the new shed, but if anyone wants three rather rusty mountain bikes.......... oh and a spare strimmer.

10 minute holidays

As owners of a tourist attraction we don't get summer holidays, we go away in November or December. Don't run away with the idea we are in the Caribbean though, last year we were in Branscombe South Devon. It's a lovely little village, we had forgotten  that was where the Napoli broke up,

Link to the Wikipedia page about Branscome
The ships anchor, absolutely huge, is there as a memorial. Having seen the news reports, and now visited the village, it must have been horrendous! The village is very narrow and is all along one road spread for miles, with a tiny square where we rented a flat, and a couple of even smaller roads leading off.
As you can see the weather was brilliant, but it was December!
As you can imagine February, when the season starts officially,  to November is a VERY long time. We have had some time off earlier this year but as it involved funerals and very sad times for our family not really a restful time.
We take what little time outs we can, like the walk on the beach a couple of days ago or a quick visit to a cafe after the weekly shop or as this morning after the bank run for the week.
It's amazing how much relaxation you can squeeze into ten miutes if you have to. I'm lucky as I get Sundays off when it's term time but that means a whle week of housework, gardening and anything else crammed into one day.
This approach to relaxation could apply to anyone, if you're feeling stressed take 5 or 10 minutes out,  go somewhere quiet, a local park, your back garden, or just an empty room if you're at work, anywhere you can be quiet and preferably alone or with someone you don't have to talk to if you don't want to. Just stare at the landscape or the sky or an attractive plant, even a blank wall!  It will pick you up no end. I'm hoping this will help other people to deal with their stress. if not maybe a book will help you find your own way to deal with it.