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Monday, May 30, 2016

Ken and Barbie, eat your heart out...


Admittedly, Ken and Barbie have been going steady for 55 years, whereas Lisa and I have only lasted for twelve, but given that we have to cope with two kids and we don't have a camper van, I think ours is the greater achievement.

It was on 29th May 2004 that I caught Lisa off guard and in a moment of madness she agreed to call herself my girlfriend. It took another six years to take the step up to wife. The photo above was taken in March 2005, and didn't feature in the original blog post due to Lisa being less than keen on having her photo appearing on the internet. She still feels the same today, but now we're married, she no longer gets a say. And besides, I only allow her half an hour of internet use a day. On condition that she's ironed my shirts.

Anyhoo, I've clearly lost a lot of hair in the past twelve years, due mainly to these two...


I'm not saying I'd push them onto the train tracks, but they can be a little wearing at times.

Friday was the last day of our holiday, and the weather forecast was for cloud in the morning and rain all afternoon, so having woken up late to the anticipated grey skies, we decided to cancel our plans to visit the Tamar Otter and Wildlife Centre, and head into Launceston with our coats on. At which point the sun came out...


Unlike the sun, Toby refused to come out for that photo, preferring instead to re-enact The Railway Children by threatening to run onto the train tracks whilst waving his underwear on a stick.

It turned out to be a warm, sunny afternoon, which only added to the enjoyment of our wet-weather activity at the Launceston Steam Railway...


I'm not much of a trainspotter (I prefer stamp collecting), but it was a charming experience with sweet little steam trains...


... and enthusiasts who clearly love what they do...


The train runs back and forth between Launceston and New Mills through pretty countryside, a journey of around two and a half miles...


In reality, it doesn't go quite as fast as that. Which is just as well, as it actually made me feel slightly travel sick. I'm more of a Pendolino man, if the truth be told. I couldn't even plug in my iPhone.

But despite that, it was all quite enjoyable. The tickets allow you to ride all day, so having done the return journey once, we headed into Launceston town centre for a spot of lunch...


Toby was busy reading a dinosaur book he bought in a charity shop, so he missed out on the healthy, balanced meal that we provided for Amelie. It had fruit and everything.

With lunch over, I insisted that we get our money's worth by riding the rails again, this time rejecting the Toastrack carriage in favour of the Torrington & Marland...


According to the railway's website, this one "runs on bogies", so it was right up Toby's alley.

Friday evening was our last at Trewin Court, the holiday cottage we'd called home for the previous week. It was tinged with sadness, partly because our wonderful week of fun had come to an end, and we'd loved everything about the place, but mainly because we only found out on the last night that it had a freezer. The kitchen looks like this...


... so it's not until you open each wooden door that you know where everything is. The fridge and the washing machine essentially look the same. Which explains how Toby's pants ended up in the salad drawer. On arrival the previous Saturday, we'd found that one of the doors didn't open, so we assumed it was purely decorative and wasn't intended to be used. But on the Friday evening, twelve hours before departure, Amelie gave it an extra hard tug, and instead of breaking the handle as anticipated, the door swung open to reveal a full size freezer. I was gutted. I could have been eating ice cream all week.

But despite that tragedy, it was the perfect seven days. We bid a very fond farewell to Well Farm...


... and set off for home, stopping off briefly in Wiltshire to pay Big Sis a quick visit. We caught her between her nail appointment and her hair appointment, so her hands looked nice but her face was best avoided. It was nice to see her though.

So that's it. This blog's week-long resurrection is, in all probability, over for the time being, but it's been a fab week with a fab woman and our fab children. The next few months are likely to feature a few unpleasant challenges of the facial variety, but as I said to the dermatologist the week before last, "Cancer, schmancer". Well, ok, I didn't. But I wanted to. We've faced plenty of disasters over the past 12 years (not all of them child-related), and we'll get through this little setback too.


I love you, Mrs Gardner. xxx

Friday, May 27, 2016

David Attenborough, eat your heart out...


Admittedly, Sir David sat amongst a family of gorillas, whereas we just pointed at a group of meerkats and shouted "Simples!", but that doesn't mean we weren't brave. They could have kicked sand in our faces at any time.

Anyhoo, our plan for yesterday had always been to go to The Eden Project. Thursday was supposed to be the day the rain came, and being only an hour north-east of Eden, it seemed like a good opportunity for Lisa to pick me an apple in paradise while we dodged the showers in and out of the biomes.

But in the tradition of last minute changes, I looked at the blue skies outside, looked at my children's history of loving animal parks, and - most important of all - looked at the £25 ticket price of The Eden Project, and decided that a day spent looking at plants probably wasn't the best thing for my family. We've got weeds on the balcony at home, and they can look at those for free any time they like.

So we went to Newquay Zoo instead...


We visited their sister zoo in Paignton three years ago, when we looked more like this...


In those days you could just wheel Toby into frame and click the shutter button. Now it's more of a challenge, where his presence in family photos is largely down to luck, perseverance and a willingness to endure tantrums.

But the good news is that we had a lovely time at Newquay Zoo. I'd read reviews on TripAdvisor which criticised it for being small, and claimed you could see it all in an hour or two. Well, it's possible my family are just sloths, but we were still there five minutes before closing time, and I don't think we saw every animal. Although we did see a sloth. The surroundings were beautiful, the staff were friendly, and the kids loved every minute. Apart from the minute we spent looking at the otters, which Amelie told me was "boring". Mainly because she'd spotted the Tarzan Trail assault course, and was keen to move on.

Personally I loved the otters...


But my favourite animal was the lynx...


I think it's a vegetarian, but I could be wrong. I also liked the Bleeding Heart Pigeon...


It looks like it's been shot in the chest, but in reality it's suffered a far worse fate: it's been chased by Amelie and Toby...


We watched the lions being fed...



... which was fine until we found out they were eating Dartmoor Pony. That put a slightly different complexion on things. Apparently cows and pigs are too fatty, so they prefer My Little Pony.

We also posed for some delightful family portraits...



And we discovered that Amelie's the same height as a lion, while Toby's as tall as a lioness...


But the highlight of the day was feeding time. I had a bowl of cheesy chips in the café and an ice cream that was to die for, but the kids enjoyed it even more...


Those Visayan Warty Pigs are thought to be extinct in the wild, so it's the closest Toby's ever come to feeding a dinosaur.

Thursday, May 26, 2016

King Arthur, eat your heart out...


Admittedly, King Arthur probably had pictures on those walls, carpet on the floor and Merlin conjouring up foie gras and stuffed peacock for lunch, whereas I had to make do with a day-old Cornish pasty and a fence to stop me falling off the cliff, but other than that, I had the authentic Arthurian experience yesterday. Except that he didn't exist.

As long established waterfall junkies (we've loved them since Sunday), our plan had been to stop off at St Nectan's Kieve on our way to Tintagel yesterday. And stop off we did. For about thirty seconds. Which was the amount of time it took us to read the sign informing us that the waterfall was a one mile walk from the car park. After our experience at Lydford Gorge, we decided not to risk another white water, white knuckle scramble, and instead pressed on to calm serenity and confident safety of Tintagel...


Yeah, they didn't warn us about those steps either. I should probably make better use of TripAdvisor. But like the true adventurers we are, Amelie and I made it to the top right corner of the castle ruins in the photo above, where I managed to calm my shaking hands long enough to take this picture...


Amelie wasn't the only one clinging on for dear life there, but whilst I was on the verge of crawling on my hands and knees just to cope with the acrophobia, Amelie did it mainly to peer through the castle walls...


It's odd - if someone told me to climb over that wall, I'd struggle to manage it, so I know I'm in no danger of accidentally toppling over, but despite that, I felt genuinely terrified every time I stepped within three feet of the edge. I expect that's normal for a man's man.

Anyhoo, it wasn't all an uphill struggle. Upon arrival, we actually headed down the first flight of steps to the cove below Tintagel Castle...


Well, I say 'we'. If you enlarge the photo below, you might just notice two key features...


One is the large gap between the bottom of the steps and the beach, and the other is Lisa standing halfway up. The two are causally linked.

But one person who's not put off by a three foot drop (mainly because he knows I'll carry him) is Toby...


So while Lisa gazed thoughtfully into the distance, contemplating medieval history, world peace and nose cancer...


... the rest of us frolicked in a waterfall.


The good news, however, is that Lisa wasn't alone for long. By the time we'd explored Merlin's Cave and got back up to the wooden bridge, Toby had had enough of steps, and refused to go any further, so while Amelie and I climbed up to the gatehouse courtyard...


... Lisa and Toby clung to each other at the bottom...


To be honest, it was definitely the right decision. Some of those steps are stupidly steep for small legs and terrifyingly high for tiny minds. Lisa would never have made it.

But with the relieved pose of people who are lucky to be alive, Amelie and I conquered part one of Tintagel Castle...


Having done so, we returned down those steps and advised Lisa and Toby to withdraw to the café. They didn't need much persuasion.

Amelie and I then headed up the even steeper steps to the Island Courtyard, and higher still to the Chapel, for views like these...




That long bungalow above is the café where Lisa and Toby hung out for an hour while Amelie and I enjoyed refreshments of a different kind, in the bracing cliff-top breeze...





Our family was eventually reunited at the Tintagel Castle café in the heart of King Arthur country to toast the legendary knights of old...


They only have square tables. I couldn't believe it.

Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Beth Tweddle, eat your heart out...


Admittedly, Beth probably didn't train for her competitions by drinking Slush Puppies in the nearest cafe, but if she had, she might have done better than Olympic bronze.

Anyhoo, yesterday can be neatly divided up into two distinct chapters: 'Before Toby's Earache' and 'After Toby's Earache'. The middle chapter, 'During Toby's Earache' is best forgotten. I'll probably tackle it in therapy in a few years' time.

Our plan for the day was to visit The Milky Way, an adventure park near Clovelly, which I visited about thirty years ago when it was just a barn with a few cows. It's changed slightly since then. The cows have gone, presumably because they wouldn't go on the rollercoasters, and the sheep have been replaced by dodgems.

We arrived 15 minutes after they opened, and for the first hour were the only ones there, which was more than a little spooky. I felt like we were burgling the place. It was basically the theme park version of '28 Days Later'. The plus side of that is that there was no one there to witness me taking a full ten minutes to psych myself up before I could launch myself off the top of the drop slide. That's the small drop slide. I didn't even attempt the big one.

Having done it once, I naturally insisted on doing it again with Amelie, and getting Lisa to film it, partly to prove my bravery, but mainly so that I could see how much I look like a blubbery seal slipping down an ice floe...



Of course, we weren't the only ones who conquered our fears. Lisa agreed to go it alone on a rollercoaster...


... and Toby risked drowning in a ball pool...


Having crashed a few dodgems, been scared witless by aliens, and eaten lunch in the cafe, we decided to head to the trampolines, at which point Toby suddenly burst into tears. We assumed he was just tired, so Lisa sat down with him on a seat... then on the grass... then took him back to the car... and to cut a long, painful story short, we ended up having to leave. Amelie and I had experienced a few ups and downs...


... but this was definitely the low point of the day. We'd just finished watching the Birds of Prey show when Lisa returned from the car with a sobbing Toby, and we realised we had no alternative but to go. At which point Amelie burst into tears.

At the time, we didn't know what the problem was, as it's hard to get a 3-year-old to string a coherent sentence together when he's in severe pain, but three hours and a dose of Calpol later, he told us it was earache.

The Milky Way is a 40 minute drive from where we're staying, and it was due to shut in less than two hours time, so the idea of getting Toby back to the cottage and then returning with Amelie was a non-starter. But to placate the older of my two upset children, I told her I'd take her out somewhere else.

So having deposited Lisa and Toby back at base, Amelie and I made an impromptu visit to Bude...


It actually turned out to be very nice. The tide was out...


... and with the shallow water and soft sand, I didn't take much persuasion to get my kit off...


The last time my feet featured on this blog, they were being savaged by a pack of wild animals, but this time the only bite I was at risk of was frostbite. The sea was bloomin' cold. So cold, in fact, that having dipped her toes in the water, Amelie ran back down the beach, attempting to get her tights back on with one hand...


So instead, we went rock-pooling and cave-hunting...


... before walking around the mostly closed shops, and buying a few postcards. As for Toby, he appears to be ok. In fact, this is the scene across the living room as I write this at 9am on Wednesday...


I'm not sure if he's holding his ears or just relaxing, but either way, I think we'll risk a trip to Tintagel...