Clovelly, Dartington Crystal & Bideford

I know I'm missing some days... Bear with me here!!!

We get up and leave at 8.55am – wahey! We're practising for when we have a long haul journey (like tomorrow!). We head into Clovelly (cloh-vellee) first, a tiny fishing village situated on a very steep slope of cobbles. (I found out later that it was actually the setting for the old Hovis ad, where a young boy drags a trolley of bread up the slope with an old man's narration over it.) The cobbles were a nightmare to walk on, especially since it was drizzling quite a bit and threatening to get heavier, so all the (uneven) cobbles were very slippery! We all inched (well, Jenny bravely marched) down into the village, heard about their way of life, and admired the fantastic views of the Bristol Channel and Barnstaple Bay. Debbie and I trekked along the part-stone-part-sand beach while Jenny walked along the harbour and Melissa… disappeared for a good ten minutes or so!! It later transpired that she took a pathway back past Crazy Kate's Cottage and stopped to talk to a local! Looking at the steep hill, walking back up was not an option and we paid to be driven back by Land Rover. We lunched in the café overlooking Clovelly and watched the donkeys feed on the grass slope outside.

We then braved the rain again and drove to the Dartington Crystal factory. The factory was very cool and had some great pieces of crystal glassware on display. There were boards and audio-visuals about how the crystal is made and we were able to watch some glassmaking first hand. One guy was preserving a couple's handprints in glass and we watched people round the back rolling and blowing glass into shapes. The gift shop, of course, had a marvellous display of ornaments, glassware and figurines, all of which were either too expensive for me to purchase, or too delicate to take back with me. I'm guessing I can order stuff off the Internet…

The rain still pelting, we head to the Atlantic Shopping Mall in Bideford, purchasing chocolate and banana chips to munch on. Later that evening we ate spaghetti and played Gloom. Gloom is a card game whereby each player has a set of cards representing a family. The player then has to kill off each of their family members with the highest number of points displayed as possible. Apart from the not-too-solid game rules, I found the hardest part was concocting a story to accompany the various ailments, deaths and tragedies bestowed on my characters! Melissa thinks that’s the best part…