Holiday in a pandemic! (Pre-book everything)

                                                                         

                                                       

 

I started writing this blog back in January 2016 as a way of documenting the fun ‘n games I was having with cancer and the treatments to get rid of the little sod. I found writing daily and publishing weekly to be the ideal way to keep my friends, far and wide, up to date with how I was getting on. Over the years the blog spread from just being about cancer to the wider subjects of my life. Food, photography, rugby, family, holidays and a medium sized ginger dog called Neville. Gradually the blog writing dried up, I’d reached a natural conclusion. The cancer had been cut out, I was getting on with my life. The last major blog update was in September 2020 when Carol, Anna, Max, Tom, Laura and I had a great break in Cornwall. I did a brief update when I published Better than the other option   which is still available to purchase on Amazon, it hasn’t sold as well as I hoped, but it’s still raised somewhere in the region of £500 which will be winging it’s way to the Berkshire Cancer Centre charity. Anyway, I digress, the reason for updating the blog is that I was reminded that I hadn’t updated for a while and the blog would be archived unless I published some new content before the end of September.

Like everyone else our world has been turned upside down by COVID, my hopes of finding some sort of part time work was pretty scuppered. I’ve applied for a number of roles, and haven’t even got as far as an interview. I had hoped that being the token disabled bloke would have ticked some boxes. (That’s how I’m classed for employment). At the beginning of the year I threw myself into my writing, spending upwards of five hours a day with the keyboard in front of me and the dog beside me. Once the book was finished life became tough. Lockdown #3 was hard for most people, there are only so many dog walks you can do in a day before Neville complains of sore paws. Pre-COVID Carol and I had got into the habit of having three of four holidays a year, we loved jetting off to the Canaries or Corfu, or even just the long weekends in Cornwall. COVID totally scuppered that for the foreseeable. Whilst foreign travel is opening up the places we want to travel to are still under restrictions which would make the holiday perhaps more of a chore. Carol has worked throughout the pandemic and is frankly exhausted. We were lucky enough to have five days up in Leeds in July, staying with Anna and Tom. We were blessed by some wonderful weather and took great delight in taking Neville to Scarborough to run on the beach and to Knaresborough to meet up with his brother Trio. The rest and change of scenery did us all a world of good. 

Back in March I’d had the foresight to take the plunge and book a week in Cornwall for September. It was a bit of a gamble, but I was pretty confident that the UK at least would have opened up enough for us to get away. I follow a number of pages on Facebook related to the area of Cornwall we usually travel to and was a bit concerned as to some of the mixed messages that were being given out. Stories of huge crowds, packed out pubs and restaurants, “Them and Us” attitudes were making me feel a tad nervous.

As the holiday came closer I decided to pre-book a couple of restaurants and pubs for lunch and dinner to make sure we had somewhere to eat. It took away a bit of the spontinuity of just rocking up at a restaurant and getting a table, but needs must. For the last few years we’ve stayed in a static caravan, but as it was just Carol, Nev and I this year I splashed out on a cottage. Just the one bedroom, but a lovely large longue, well equipped kitchen and fields across the farm yard that Neville could run in each morning. It was ideal for us. We were booked Sunday to Sunday. Due to COVID we weren’t able to get into the property until 4pm. I’d pre-empted this by booking a table for lunch at 2.30 at one of our favourite pubs. The trip down to Cornwall was very quiet, the majority of the traffic we saw was heading back up the M5 away from the West Country. We went straight to Porthcothan beach when we arrived to give Neville a good run out. He’s pretty good at travelling in the car, and usually just settles down and sleeps for the journey. He was getting a bit restless by the time he arrived on the beach and was overjoyed to be back. A fellow member of the Porthcothan FB page asked if Nev was happy, I replied “He’s as happy as a pig in you know what” – This innocent comment earnt me a Seven Day Facebook ban as apparently my comment was classed as bullying Nev! I appealed the decision but it was upheld. I’d been warned a month or so previously about another comment I’d made. A friend in Arrilas, Corfu, posted a picture of a sand mermaid, I commented “Cute Ass” and was banned from FB. I appealed as to the context of my post and the ban was lifted, but I guess I’m now on some sort of FB Watchlist. The upside of the ban was that I finally got round to setting up a FB page for Neville, something I had been promising to do for some considerable time.  Nev's Page He's also managed to get himself nominated in the short (long) list for the BBC Countrywide Dog of the Year award, or something along those lines. If you'd like to vote, here's the link - Nev's Nomination Page

By the time we arrived at the pub for lunch I was feeling a bit jaded, and rather hungry, it had been an early morning and a long drive. I just wanted to sit down with a glass of wine and some decent food. We were shown to a table and given an Ap. to scan to get a menu, the waitress then left. The problem with this idea was that along with the majority of the North Cornish coast 4G is almost non-existent, and the waitress didn’t give us the WiFi password. The restaurant area was really busy, even at pushing 3pm, it took at least 10 minutes to get the attention of another waited to get us a physical menu, I tried to order some drinks, but he walked off before I had the chance. The menu was pretty limited compared to previous years, I guess that’s understandable in the current climate. We eventually managed to order our food, and slightly more importantly, our wine. The quality of the food when it eventually arrived was up to the usual high standard, however the service was sadly lacking. I eventually turned my brain back on and sussed out the lack of staff compared to our previous visits. I’d heard that a lot of business’s in the West Country were suffering from a lack of staff, we were seeing this now at first hand. We visited the same pub twice more during our visit and I’m glad to say that the service improved. It was the same staff on duty and I think being a Lary has it’s advantages as I stand out from the crowd by having a lump of plastic protruding from my throat. A certain medium sized ginger dog also helps I'd imagine.

Our days weren’t really planned as such, we’d wake up, look out of the window and decide what to do. Or rather Nev would wake up at an ungodly hour and decide what he wanted to do. One morning he was stirring at around 6.30 so I bit the bullet, got dressed and drove down to the nearest beach. It was low tide and had the beach to ourselves apart from one other man walking his two dogs on the opposite side of the bay. It was a beautiful morning, with the sun breaking through the mist. 

The only sound was that of the sea and the gulls. We had a good 40 minute run on the beach (Ok, Nev ran, I walked) before driving back to the cottage. Carol was up and had coffee and bacon ready for us. We spent our mornings and afternoons just wandering around the beaches and cliffs in the area, discovering a couple of new walks and beaches as we went. Most days we were doing over 15,000 steps and would be happily knackered by the evening. Nev loves running on the beaches, it’s probably his most favourite past time. He’d collapse on the sofa when we got back to the cottage and spend the evening quietly dozing before taking himself off to bed at 9pm on the dot each night. He’s a creature of habit.

We hadn’t planned to go into Padstow as it had been so busy when we’d been in twelve months prior, but decided to go in at 8am, catch the ferry over to Rock and make our way down to Daymer Bay via beach and cliffs. There were only two other people on the ferry over to Rock when we caught it. Nev sat on Carol’s knee, digging his nails into her bare thighs, he really doesn’t like boat trips, no idea why. We had a cracking walk along the beach, it was just about low tide and as we were early we had the beach largely to ourselves. The cliff walk to Daymer was a bit more of a challenge, the path is pretty narrow so care had to be taken when passing other walkers. A quick coffee in Daymer and we made our way back to Rock. It was now nearly midday and the cliff path had become more like Oxford Street on Christmas Eve. It seemed we were having to stop to give way every few metres, so as soon as we could we made our way back down to the beach and the wide open spaces. The queue for the ferry back over to Padstow was growing when we arrived back in Rock, luckily we just managed to get on the next ferry to depart. Again, Nev took delight in scratching Carol’s thighs 😊 As soon as we got on to the slipway at Padstow is was obvious that the place was packed. Carol wanted to have a look in a couple of the shops on the quay before going back to the car. I was beginning to feel a bit stressed with the crowds. Up until March 2020 I’d never really had much of a problem being in crowded places, all that has now changed I’m afraid. Carol spotted that I was struggling so as soon as she finished browsing we made our way as quickly as possible back to the car park and made our great escape to a quiet pub for a pint and a burger. We didn’t venture back into Padstow needless to say. 

Regular readers of this blog will know about Sidney Thompson. Sidney is largely responsible for Neville coming into our life nearly four years ago. He’s the original Kromis that we got to know via a couple of local Facebook pages. It was Sidney who gave us the heads up that a litter of Kromis were expected, and perhaps we should put our names down, the rest is history, poo bags and chuckit balls. Sidney lives with his Assistants on the outskirts of Wadebridge, not far from where we were staying, As has now become the fashion on our visits to Cornwall we had arranged to meet up with Sidney for a couple of walks. Sid and Nev now get on pretty well, a quick nose rub, sniff of a bottom and they’re happy to walk along whilst the Assistants have a catch up chat. Towards the end of our break we met up at Prideaux Place, an old manor house on the outskirts of Padstow, This was somewhere Carol and I hadn’t been to in years and years. We had a great walk over the top of the headland back down towards Padstow, and is a walk that is now added the list for future visits.

In previous visits we’d probably spent more money in Rick Steins various eateries than anywhere else, this year we decided to spread the love a bit. There was a restaurant in St Merryn that we’d been meaning to try for a while called Rafferty’s. It’s owned and run by a chef who used to work for Ricky. Luckily it is a dog friendly restaurant, so Nev could come with us. It’s only a small place with probably 40 or so covers. When I made the booking I did it for two adults and a medium sized ginger dog. We arrived on to be greeted by a lovely young lady on the reception desk who said “Ah, this must be the medium sized ginger dog”, with a broad smile on her face. The menu was right up my street, along with the usual array of main course, with the emphasis being on fish, there was also a great bunch of starters. So we went for the Tapas option and ordered Padrons, Scallops, Prawns, Halloumi, Fried Oysters…… blimey it was good. Nev was given a couple of dog treats by the attentive staff as he’s not too keen on fish. The other restaurant we were intrigued by was Salt and Samphire, located next door to Rafferty’s. Again, the menu looked like our sort of food, simple ingredients cooked well. I’d booked a table for our final night and what a great evening it was too. The waitresses were both Spanish and there was an Iberian vibe to the place, albeit the head chef was Cornish through and through. I slipped into my extensive Spanish vocabulary when ordering, ie I used both words I know. Carol went for a Monkfish stew, I opted for Beef Short Ribs, Neville sulked as he’d been promised chips! This was probably the best meal we’d had over the break, in a really relaxed atmosphere. Again, we’ll be back in future visits.

We’ve now been back a week, I think Carol has been on Rightmove every night since our return. The world is starting to look a bit crappy again, CO2 shortages, gas price hikes, possible fuel shortages along with the continuing COVID pressures. Budgets will be stretched, beyond breaking point for some people in the coming months. I live in my cosseted world of walking Nev, cooking food and taking photos. How I wish I could turn the clock back before December 2015 when my life changed forever.

As always, thanks for reading.

To be continued….. (At some point)

#Shoulder2Shoulder

 

I know I've been quiet since September of 2020, but I haven't entirely been wasting my time. In January 2021 I started writing the first draft for #S2S2. I was never happy with that title. Today I've put the final full stop to "Better than the other option", a story of food, family, photography, rugby, travel, a medium sized ginger dog and a large dollop of cancer. 

Huge thanks to Marjie for editing. 

230 pages, 82,000 words, some of them are even in the correct order. 

It's going to take a couple of weeks to format ready for publishing hopefully in mid July. All proceeds from the book will be going to the Berkshire Cancer Centre which has been largely responsible for keeping my alive since December 2015. I will be, without any shame, asking for shares and plugs once the book is published as an Amazon eBook. 

As always, thanks for reading. 

To be continued.

#S2S