Snow clouds yesterday evening.

And at 9 this morning.

10. The snow is horizontal and the wind chill making it feel about -8°.

More snow forecast for tomorrow, but Friday is supposed to be much warmer and rainy. The bus may be cancelled - I emailed to ask and was told if there's too much snow they will, reluctantly, have to cancel it for safety reasons - but it's only about 3 miles from Millbrook to Torpoint, and the interior of the peninsula is a valley, so hopefully the snowfall won't be too bad. I should be able to get a taxi. Fingers crossed. (I did debate going home early, but I really don't want to lose any of the holiday. Not going to get another for quite a while.)

Occurred to me my mention of a llamahat may not make too much sense. This is it...

Will get to try it out in a couple of hours. There's supposed to be a break in the snow, and I need to venture out to ditch the rubbish and recyclables.

England. Where you can sunbathe one day and get snowed in the next...

Labels: holiday, snow, weather

Woke to glorious sunshine, and a chilly but not strong wind. The tide was the lowest I've yet seen...

...so I went for a walk...

That's Kingsand in the distance. Apparently you can walk there along the coast at low tide, although I'd call it more of a rock-scramble than a walk.

The back - landward - side of the fort, with the main entrances to the apartments. Given that the lift is still out of order, it's easier to use these and walk around to the front than go down the longer staircase to the underground car park.

Steps up to the gardens. Too steep and no handholds, so I haven't risked it.

The plaque on the front door!

It's still gloriously sunny - just had a coffee out on the balcony, without a jacket on as it's quite warm. There's been a few flakes of snow back in Bristol, but not even a flurry here yet. Though there are clouds now rolling in from the south and the wind's picked up, so we'll see...

Labels: holiday, Song of the Sea

Sunrise.

So it was off to Millbrook this morning, in glorious sunshine but an absolutely freezing wind, for supplies and to check out the charity shop, because while I came packed for winter, I did not expect Siberian weather...

The shop is great! Picked up three warm tops (cotton too!), a very cosy woollen llama hat, and a large colour-changing mug (because the ones that came with the apartment are dainty little things no good for packet soup or frothing salted caramel hot chocolate (with or without the salted caramel liqueur!) The whole lot came to only £6.35! Either the shop is very cheap or Bristol charity shops are overpriced... On the way back the taxi driver (there's only one, a grizzled man in a brightly coloured knitted hat and silver hoop earrings: we're old friends now!) said that occasionally you can see dolphins in the Sound. Will keep fingers crossed but I doubt I'll be that lucky.

Millbrook is tiny, but still has everything you might need. This is the shopping centre...

The reddish building on the distant right is the Indian restaurant and takeaway (yes, they get everywhere!): the Co-op is tucked in just beyond it. Extremely well-equipped with everything you might want (except salted caramel ice-cream, dammit. I was hoping for some for my dessert tonight. Got a double pack of individual strawberry cheesecakes instead).

This is the pedestrian access to the shopping centre!

Now I don't need to go out until Friday morning, unless I want to, which is just as well as it's clouded over, the wind's picked up more and the ice green sea is decidedly choppy - heralding the Plymouth version of the Arctic blasts. Though if it's clear tonight I might step onto the balcony: woke up at 4.30 this morning (as I usually do) and the sky was bright with stars, but I was too tired to get dressed and go out and look. Now I have warmer clothes will see if we get a clear spell tonight.

Wildlife watching: three different types of seagulls, and a large cormorant flew past an hour ago. Also a helicopter in the distance, if we're counting such things...

The bookcase. There are also a selection of games on the alcove above the wardrobes, including Monopoly, the Cornwall version.

TinyScream, Smallwave and diddy Ratchet enjoying their first view of the sea.

And last night's sunset...

It's probably time for a lie down now. Later!

Labels: holiday, Song of the Sea

Later edit: A submarine has just sailed past!

Lutra says I should start a 'wildlife spotted' list - seagull, fish, submarine...

I went for a walk around the immediate area yesterday afternoon, to enjoy the sun (though not so much the bitter wind!) before, as Ken put it, the icy blasts set in.

Have some pics...

The small harbour. There are boats here in the summer.

The private beach. A bit tricky to get down to, but very nice all the same.

Not doing much today!

Labels: holiday, Song of the Sea

...with quite a few photos (having found I'm missing the .ini file from my .ftp program I've used the integral blogger photo upload for the first time. Fingers crossed the pics don't disappear!)

Yesterday was ridiculously long. Up at 7, last minute prep for K&K, and making sure I had everything: easily got the 9.30 coach to Plymouth. More than half empty, so had a double seat to myself.

Pleasant trip down, sunny most of the way, and pretty peaceful. I found myself checking lorry drivers for illegal phone users (obviously been watching too many cop programmes...) No phone users, but there were a cheeto-eater, someone getting himself a cigarette, and one driver pouring a coffee from the biggest thermos I've ever seen...

Reached Plymouth at 12.45, then had a 20 minute wait for the local no 70 bus. At one of the coldest bus stops ever, in a bitter wind, because of course the UK is on track for a spell of absolutely freezing weather. Of course it is. I'm on holiday after all...

But the bus ride was fun! Went across to Torpoint on the ferry (never been on a bus on a ferry before), then all around the tiny villages of the Rame Peninsula along the tiny country roads. Hairraising in places. A Millbrook inhabitant got on the bus at Kingsand and sat behind me, so I asked her to tell me where to get off (we got talking and I found out a lot about the area, including the best places to visit if I had time. Which I don't. Maybe next time.)

Millbrook is very pretty. Picked up loads of shopping at the local supermarket (ready meals I can just nuke. No cooking or washing up!), then got the taxi down to the Fort.

... aaaand the lift was out of order. Well, something had to go wrong, didn't it? But one of the lads working on the doorway of the little library in the lift lobby offered to help me carry everything up to the first floor, so that was OK. Actually getting in was a bit of a performance, as the keysafe is very stiff to open, but I managed.

The apartment is exactly as in the online pics, so I'm not going to duplicate them here. It's wonderfully comfortable: the mattress is memory foam and I had the best night's sleep I've had in months (even the lighthouse light wasn't disturbing - more like a slow heartbeat). Going to put new mattress at the top of our 'to buy' list! I did miss my pillow, but the soft ones provided were OK. Neck wasn't aching when I woke.

I have found, however, when the sun isn't shining, it feels quite cool, even with the four heaters. Not overly surprising - it's a granite fort, after all! I brought warm clothes with me and there are plenty of blankets!

The kitchen has an induction hob (I think: haven't used it yet), and there's a bookcase full of a wonderful variety of books and DVDs (including the Lord of the Rings trilogy). Setting up the WiFi for Prowl wasn't too hard, but I can't get phone reception here - don't know how to connect to the network. May sort it out later, but I have skype, and that's what matters.

The beauty of the apartment is the view. This was first thing this morning...

The rock pool immediately outside the balcony.

View from the bed! Sorry about the quality: camera doesn't cope with high contrasts very well.

Oh this is great. Brand new speakers, played fine last night, today the left hand one has packed up. This is why I loathe Hewlett Packard products.

I think it's time for lunch. More later!

Labels: Cornwall, holiday, Song of the Sea

Last post before holiday. Bit of a catch up.

Forgot to mention last time that Kai went to Weston-super-Mare with about 15 friends: they played Cards against Humanity - and he won! I'm too scared to ask him with what...

On the 17th Ken and I joined his old workmate Caroline, who's from Singapore, at Oriental City to celebrate the Chinese New Year. It was great!

The Chinese god of money throwing riches into the crowd (we were too far back, unfortunately!)

Young dancers...

... and their teacher.

Elite dancers.

The city itself. The Water Sky restaurant is the green semi-circular building.

We had lunch here: had to miss the Lion Dance in order not to have to wait an hour to be seated! It's very popular, and I'm not surprised. The food was delicious. Dim sum is apparently appropriate for New Year: Caroline advised us what everything was then ordered in Chinese. The dishes came a couple of minutes or so apart (the restaurant was full by then and the staff kept the orders straight by putting clothes pegs with the table numbers on them clipped to the dishes on the trays!) The king prawn dumplings with salad cream were particularly yummy. We gave the chicken feet and tripe a miss though. Planning to go back with Kai - he'd love it!

And I couldn't resist this...

A rather aggressive looking 'lucky poo' trinket thing. The Japanese gold ones are for good luck: the brown ones are, apparently, for good health. That would be nice! Anyway, it's now attached to the zip of my new rucksack. (Treated myself to a wol wheelie and matching rucksack after finding another, black, wol shoulder bag up at Broadwalk. No pics yet as my camera is packed: maybe when I get back!)

I found rather sweet little logos on the Lipsy orchid bedding...

  

Films watched... The Bourne films: Bourne Identity, Bourne Supremacy, Bourne Ultimatum, Bourne Legacy and Jason Bourne. All a lot of fun! Kai and I have finished House season 1 (surprised me that I remembered nearly all of the eps for House, but hardly any for Eureka...) which was all most enjoyable, if gory in places. Hoping to start season 2 when I get back.

Of course, a planned holiday just wouldn't be us without something health related: I got a nasty pain under the root canal last week. Luckily the dentist had a cancellation so I was able to be seen that afternoon: she took out the old filling, smothered it in a medical dressing then put a temporary filling over the top, which will be fine for the holiday as long as I don't eat anything too hard on that side. Fingers crossed. Made another appt for the week after I get back to decide whether to try another full filling or just extract it...

So, I'm just about ready. Middle drawer in the freezer is full of half-prepared meals for K&K to make up next week: fridge has plenty of snacks and nibbles, and larder is full. It's Kai's reading week, so he has no classes, so no need to set alarms for early rising! They're both quite happy about that. I've got everything working on the laptop (I hope: will see the first time I try to upload photos here!) and the forecast for the Plymouth area is for very cold weather and snow on Monday and Tuesday! (Been a very long time since I've walked on a beach in the snow...) Ideal weather for writing.

Wendy, many thanks for the card. Going to open them all when I get back rather than before my birthday!

Labels: festivals, films, holiday, medical matters