A Typical English Holiday
The one thing you can never guarantee in England, is the weather!!! You can plan the date for a holiday and find a lovely farm cottage to rent, but the weather, well you don't really know what is going to come. It could be anything from glorious warm sunshine to clouds, rain, a cold wind or even thunder storms. So being typically English, you go prepared for everything, just in case.
And so, all the Snook families loaded up the cars and we all went on a Snookahol as I called it or in more normal words, 'a holiday', seven adults and 2 and a half children!! (Well the half is due at the beginning of July, and it will be very exciting to welcome yet another Snooklet to the clan!)
My daughter in law helped us choose the cottage as she had been there before when she was a child and so with a great sense of adventure and excitement, we were off to Holsworthy in North Devon, a very lovely part of the British Isles which, my mum told me, is very near to where she went on honeymoon.
The cottage, was once part of the main farm house, but because it was so big, the farmer had it divided into two and now lets out the part we were in as a holiday cottage. It had 4 bedrooms all with on-suite bathrooms, a large kitchen and lounge and a massive dining room with a huge snooker table which was also used as a dining table when the lid was put on. Both the dining room and lounge had a huge ingle nook fire place too.
Outside there was a jacuzzi and a BBQ area. Then as you looked down the garden there was a lovely play area for children which also included a marquee with table tennis, ball pool and many trikes and games. There was even a trampoline!
Beyond the play area 2 lambs looked on and were duly fed each day from a bottle, which the grandchildren loved doing, and myself.
We had our food delivered by Tesco to the door, which was a brilliant idea, but did wonder as tray after tray was carried in, if we had bought up the whole shop and the van was only coming to us as it was so full!
The weather was never really that warm and on some days it did rain, but we enjoyed our holiday. Mornings started early with a knock on the door at 7am from our grandson who enjoyed getting in bed with us. Then we spent our days visiting some lovely wildlife parks, where we had picnics in the rain while watching the peacocks displaying their beautiful feathers, or huddled on the beach and eating ice creams.
The family mostly went ahead, but I wanted to enjoy the walk, carefully picking my way down the street, looking at all the little houses still lived in to this day and browsing the little gift shops too. Eventually I made it down and joined the family. I was rather tickled by the photo I had taken at a view point on the way down. The tide had gone out and you can just see a little pink dot making a bid for freedom! Yes, my grandaughter, crawling down the beach amongst the stones.
At the end of the day, it was a relief to get a ride back up the cliff with my daughter in law who is expecting a baby, rather than climbing back up again which the rest of the family did.
Family times together are always special, making many memories for the different generations of the Snook family to remember in the years ahead.
It was sad when our holiday finally finished, but the memories will always be cherished and we look forward to another one in a couple of years or so.
