Bude to Ilfracombe. well, nearly.

 

This trip almost cements my growing desire to stitch together all the fantastic areas I have had the pleasure of paddling.

2 weeks ago I enjoyed a fantastic kayak from Lyme Regis to Lulworth Cove. If you remember the previous post, you will see I went from PLymouth to Lyme. Having paddled round Cornwall for charity just before Morwenna was born, it only makes sense to connect this trip together with the paddle out to Lundy I did with John Kellie 8 years ago.

You can probably see where this is going. Its really only a small leap of faith to do the trip from Lundy to the Gower and then the Gower to Pembrokeshire the the circle is complete. Then I can really allow myself the sense of completion.

Anyway, recently married Will Batho joined me on this leg of the journey, and much fun ensued. We cut the trip short by finishing at Appledore and got some welcome help with the shuttle from Nick, Jenny and Amy. Hope you can come on many other weekends like this Will.

Kids and Doors

 

I think the kids must have seen that viral video of a little girl climbing up the doorframe, since this has been their favourite pastime since school finished.

 

Family Bowling reunited!

 

Joe and Alayna came down last weekend with the baby Lily. Lovely to see you all, glad you could finally make it down. There were of course countless photo opportunities with the kids, but here is just a smattering.

Missing the chickens.

 

We lost our chickens this spring to another fox attack. Bugger. Kids were upset, not to mention us. I refused to get any more until we have fully fort-knoxed (fort foxed) the area. I’ve compared our eggs versus the ones from the shops-guess which is the odd one out?

We will be doing some work on the house this summer, so I going to build a low wall around the enclosure, then the welded mesh that stops foxes. There was I thinking that chicken-wire was to keep foxes out, but it seems its only to keep chickens in. Oh well, you live and learn.

The garden just isn’t the same without them, but the kids are now very clued up to other nesting birds. This is an old blackbird nest that we found empty. Bryn has just found a pigeon nest up his favourite tree, so watch this space for baby pigeon photo’s!