Monthly Archives: July 2014

Oops – No Towel in Roland’s Shower!

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It was a white wash day today, not white-wash paint, or a whitewash in terms of a cover-up, although, as it happens a cover-up would have been mighty difficult in the circumstances.  You see, earlier on, Roland (our visitor from Australia) had put his towel in the white wash (his towel was white, of course) and maybe because he had put it in the wash himself I simply forgot to replace it…

Roland came out of the shower a few minutes ago. He wasn’t wet, in fact he was completely dry and fully clothed, but he looked as though he was about to burst out laughing…

“I may be a Philistine,” he said, coming into my studio, “but I do require a towel when I come out of the shower.”

Now I’m not sure what being a “Philistine” had to do with anything but I did feel a bit responsible for not replacing the towel – but I didn’t want him to think I was responsible.

“Why didn’t you check before you took your shower?” I asked nonchalantly.

“Do you check every time you shower?” he retorted.

“Yes,” I fibbed then laughed and added, “well I’m sure I would have noticed.”

Our friend looked at me in disbelief.

“I checked out the flannel and thought, no,” he began again and we both chortled at the thought of him drying himself with a flannel. “So what do you think I used then?” he asked.

The airing cupboards don’t live in Roland’s quarter’s – he would have had to go naked down the passage and into the other bathroom to find the upstairs airing cupboard, and I couldn’t imagine him doing that. However, in the fitted wardrobe in his room I keep my sewing machine… and the old towel I use to put under it when it is on the tabletop.

“The towel for the sewing machine!” we blurted out in unison.

“I hope there weren’t any old pins in it?” I giggled.

“No, but I checked,” he answered. “I expect that towel has been used for the last six years?”

“Only about about two, but it’s still clean,” I said hopefully (after all, how dirty could it have gotten in the cupboard?).

He might have thought it was a bit of a whitewash on my part.

Think I’ll just take a couple of towels upstairs now….

 

The Life at Salcombe

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The harbour at Salcombe in the South Hams (South-West Devon) is not on a river but an inlet, as the water-taxi driver told me when I took a walk onto the floating pontoons where people waited to be picked up by water transport. That was the day we went to Burgh Island, and, coming back, we called in at Salcombe for an ice-cream and a stroll around the harbour.

As you can see from the photographs, Salcombe is a well-loved spot for tourists, especially those who enjoy sailing and yachting (and the more sedate folk who simply like to sit on a bench by the waterfront and watch the life on the water).

“Stop P**ing Against the Wall!”

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This morning Chris brought me in a nice weak cup of tea and drew the back the bedroom curtains as usual. It was hot (as it has been recently) and he opened the window fully before joining me in bed for our ritual “cuppa” and a chat. Now our bedroom is on the ground floor of our house and you may remember that our house is built into the cliff just above the seawall; you may remember also that, at present, the seawall is closed to the public while re-construction work is being carried out on the seawall after the damage from the February storms.

Just as Chris sat down on the bed we heard a voice from the seawall below us.

“Stop p**ing against the wall!” a man shouted.

“Did you hear that?” I asked Chris (well, he is a tad deaf).

“Yes,” he answered (slightly unsure, I thought).

“Did he say, ‘Stop p**ing against the wall’? Did I hear right?”

“Surely he said, ‘Stop leaning against the wall'”, Chris replied.

We didn’t have to ponder long over it because the same rather high-pitched voice, like the actor Steven Seagal (not seagull, which might have been apt), shouted again, this time even louder:

“Stop p**ing against the wall!”

There was no mistaking it this time and Chris and I looked at each other and laughed.

“Well, one thing is for sure,” laughed Chris, “we won’t be clamouring to the window to look down and see the outrageous behaviour!”

“Weren’t you on a Boat in Teignmouth Last weekend?”

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“Where would you like to go fishing?” I asked.

“Wherever there are fish,” answered Roland, our friend from Australia.

In truth, we hadn’t had much luck on either of the times we had gone fishing down on the breakwater here at Dawlish (though we did have an excellent view of our house).

“How about Babbacombe?” I suggested pointing to an oil painting on one of my studio walls.

Roland’s hopes were raised by the sight of the five fisher-folk depicted in the painting and off we went to the more promising-looking location; in any case, it was a trip to another beautiful piece of coastline not too far from home.

We had not long set ourselves up in a goodish spot on the breakwater (the best spots at the very end had been taken already by a couple and a lone fisherman) when the couple approached me.

“Weren’t you in a boat in Teignmouth last weekend?” the blonde asked.

“Oh, yes, the ferry boat to Shaldon,” I said (it wasn’t hard to remember because it was the only boat I had been on over the weekend, or for a while, actually).

Then I remembered the couple opposite us on the ferry.

“You wore a yellow tee-shirt,” I said to the man before turning to the lady, “and you were sitting very close next to him, and I took a photograph because you both looked so “in love”.

We chatted like old friends for quite some time, by the end of which it felt like we were friends. These photographs are for Andrea and Graham who were down on holiday from Leicester last week…

(That was when I caught the small pollack that had to be thrown back in and I took the first batch of photographs of people “jumping for joy”.)

 

Our Trip to Bigbury and Burgh Island

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Bigbury and Burgh Island in South Devon hold a very special place in the hearts of Chris and me because we went there on our honeymoon. On one hot day recently we decided to pay another visit and take our friend, Roland (who is over from Australia), with us. The beach was packed with holiday-makers but the tide was coming in as we arrived and we had to wade across the last twenty metres or so to reach Burgh Island, which only becomes an island when the tide comes in. The beach is an isthmus, therefore the sea laps at its shoreline on both sides.

Chris, Roland and I had lunch at the Pilchard Inn and, before taking a walk on the cliff-top, we watched the beach begin to disappear. We had to take the famous tall tractor back to the mainland but, as you can see from the photo’s, some intrepid people preferred to hike up their clothes and wade through…

It Made me Laugh…

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You know that my husband Chris loves ironing – well, if you didn’t, you do now – and you know that our friend Roland from Australia is staying with us at present (he has featured in so many blog posts!). This morning, just as I was getting dressed, I wondered about the household washing (as you do when you’re getting dressed)…

“Did you deal with the white wash from yesterday?” I asked Chris, who was getting dressed also.

“Uh huh,” Chris mumbled. (Well it seemed like mumbling to me because I’m still deaf after my recent virus.)

“And did you give Roland his pile of clean washing?”

“All dry, ironed, neatly folded and up in his room,” Chris answered.

“Oh, you are lovely to do that for Roland – fancy ironing his clothes!” I exclaimed.

“Don’t all husbands iron their male guests clothes while their wives are still in bed?” asked Chris ironically.

I should have said, “Then you shouldn’t get up so early,” but I didn’t think to say it because I was laughing so much.

 

A Family Resemblance?

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Chris, Mary and I went to a barbecue in Somerset. You may think seventy miles is quite a long way to go for a barbecue but it was a special one, and some people had travelled even farther than us. You see it was a bit of a get-together with a branch of my cousins, many of whom we hadn’t seen for seven years or more, from my Dad’s side of the family. In the intervening years some of my first cousins once removed (and even one first cousin twice removed) had brought new members of the family into the world.

I must say the thing that struck me most – even more than the evident good looks shared by all of my blood relatives – was the uncanny family resemblance. Yet stranger still was that that same resemblance occurred also amongst some of the in-laws and non-family members.

“My goodness,” exclaimed a friend of my cousin Stephanie who was hosting the party, “We all look related!”

“Well, we are in Somerset so that’s not unlikely,” piped up my brother Robert.

And everyone laughed, including the lady who had always lived in sight of the tower on the hilltop in the distance, which we could see from the garden.

More Jumping for Joy (Part Two)

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Yesterday my blog showed the best photographs I took of people jumping off the breakwater at Babbacombe but today I’m going to put on the rest in order to save any disappointment from those brave jumpers. Please excuse the poor photography but it’s ever so difficult to time it right and actually catch divers and jumpers in mid-air (there were almost as many photo’s of big splashes as jumps), especially on my little mobile camera.

Mary Dives in Through the Window

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Having been out for most of the day at a family get-together in Somerset, Chris drew up at my sister’s place to drop her home when Mary suddenly realised that she didn’t have her keys. She checked her handbag a second time, spilling the contents (a red lipstick, a pink flower clip and a pair of joke glasses) onto her lap.

“I’ll have to come back…” Mary began then had a change of heart, “No I won’t, I’ll break in through the back – like I’ve done before.”

She jumped out of the car and was about to wander around to the back of the house when another thought struck her.

“Maybe Geoff forgot to lock the window, seeing as he knew I’d be home soon.”

And Mary checked and found, to her great satisfaction, that she was right. Mary and I looked at the narrow window.

“I think I can fit through there,” Mary said and looked to me for confirmation.

I nodded but I rather fancied the idea of having a go myself (we’ve always been rather athletic and daredevil sisters).

“Let me try,” I said as nonchalantly as possible to hide my excitement at the prospect. “I’ve got longer legs than you.”

“No that’s alright, I’ll grab a chair from the garage.”

Amongst the many items of furniture housed in the garage, the only chair within reach was a wooden high chair, which Mary dismissed, no doubt after imagining the difficulty of trying to step up onto it (almost as hard as climbing in through the window).

“This paint tin will do,” Mary said, putting it in place under the window sill.

My sister stood on the paint pot and raised one of her legs in the hope that it would stretch effortlessly over the sill and into the window. Sadly, although a former expert at doing the splits, she found that her knee was crooked on the wrong side of the sill.

“I’ll do it – let me try,” I urged. (Surely, being that little bit younger, I was still limber enough to extend my leg to the desired elevation.)

Mary stood on the paint pot and twisted and turned, working out her method of entry.

“I’ve got it,” she said delightedly, “I’ll just dive in head first and you can give me a push if I need it.”

And that is exactly what happened, as you can see from the photographs…

 

 

Everyone Loves a Ferret

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It isn’t every day that you come across a ferret on a breakwater, or even at the beach: in fact I’ve never met a ferret anywhere until today. Muffin’s owners take him everywhere, including the beach at Babbacombe. Sorry to say that, although very cute and adorable, Muffin was a trifle smelly. Luckily little Ryan didn’t notice or mind when he picked him up. Oh, and Ryan has three brothers – Jack, Lewis and Owen – all such nice boys.