2025 Catch up

 2025 Combe Martin, in no particular order.

Low tide on Newberry beach, the summer dog beach just round the corner from the main beach.

              

Hunting of the Earl of Rone, May bank holiday.
I'm still a bit confused as to what went on, but for 4 day's the villagers marched round the village dancing and drumming, whilst looking for the Earl, they found him on Monday, marched him down the village to the beach, backwards on a donkey, then threw him in the sea.

They marched past our house several times, the last photo is taken from my balcony of the school with the children congregating for their part of the march.

            

The sunsets are spectacular from the main beach.

                                                   

      The family came to visit, we had breakfast at Bobby bakes, well worth a visit if you come for a trip.

                                               

Then Fred & James took us to Cornwall to celebrate our joint wedding anniversary's for the night. We stayed at Gurnard Head, which is a bright orange dog friendly hotel. On the way home we went to the Eden project.

                   Siri's family came to visit, then they came back again for a second visit.

Summer sunset, watching the sun go down with a bottle of wine, what more could you want in life.

The beach is spectacular with caves and rock pools and the dogs absolutely love it.

         

                        

I spent months clearing the ivy out of the front garden, cut the corner of the lawn off so we can squeeze 2 cars on the drive. Siri had to be taught "off the flowers"

                        

                           And we had a new balcony balustrade as the old one was rotten and dangerous.

Lots of other small things happened, none of them truly memorable, but they all add up to a perfect summer on the beach, in the garden with our family.

Life is very different here, we used to have an extensive social life that I sometimes miss and knew every face in the village. 

We don't have it here, we know and chat to our neighbours, we chat to tourists on the beach, life is very easy, there are no expectations, I finally feel at peace.

Photo's on my Phone 5th of September to 10th of December

 This is a deeply depressing blog post, but it does have a happy ending, I felt I couldn't write about my misery until there was positive news. It's been a long time since my last post as for the past 3 months we have lived in limbo. Every day the same, a constant sense of despair, pointlessness, feeling that we had no future, nothing to do, but stalk the rental sites desperately trying to find a needle in a haystack.

We took the dogs to the beach a lot, the wind and the rain and emptiness fitted our mood.

We searched for a house in Lynton or Lynmouth or even one of the out laying villages, but there was nothing. All the rental houses had been sold for second homes and Airbnb after the pandemic, we've been here for 12 years, moved several times and never had a problem finding somewhere local.

So resigned our selves to the fact we would have to leave our home and community and look further afield.

 

We won second prize for the best allotment for an allotment we have to give up.

We walked on the beach some more, all the time grieving the fact that these things would not be ours anymore.

However leaving was made slightly easier as Daisy had already gone, she and Sam found a beautiful house down a quiet lane in Hele, just outside Ilfracombe.

The flat upstairs was so quiet it felt like part of me was missing.

I drew my "Now house", its A3 drawn in fine line pens, so you can see all the pen strokes, normally I would tidy them up, but to leave it messy fitted my mood.

Sandra and I walked our dogs everyday and as all good friends she listened to my misery.

I finally decided to go to the Drs and was prescribed antidepressants, they made a huge difference, it meant that I didn't burst into tears every time someone asked if we'd found somewhere. They didn't solve the problems, but gave me the impetus to do something proactive. 

So rather than stalking the rental sites finding nothing we wanted, we finally started applying to look at houses.

There weren't many that were suitable, most wouldn't take pets or didn't have a garden or were a top floor flat or most of insulting of all were the short lets of holiday rentals, owners looking to make a bit of money over the winter. We carried on packing and stalking the sites. I soon discovered that agents only show the houses to a few people, so you need to be on the phone as soon as something suitable comes up.

I drew my "Never home", because that's how likely I felt we would find something. In the whole 3 months we only found 3 houses that we would want to live in, we applied for all 3 and were turned down for 2 of them.

BUT we were offered the 3rd one, I still can't believe it's going to be ours, it's a 3 bedroom house with a garden, garage and balcony over looking the sea. 

Even though its perfect it has 2 faults, the first is it isn't in Lynton and the second is it doesn't have a woodturner/open fire.

Its in Combe Martin which is 10 mins drive from Daisy, not too far from Lynton so we can still spend time with our friends.

I can see my house from the beach.

And the beach from my balcony. It means we can walk the dogs on the beach everyday and swim and sun bathe in the summer.

We move in 9 days I still can't believe it's going to be ours, I'm still not sleeping, still feeling anxious, but the emptiness has been replaced with plans for the garden and trying to work out where all the books are going.

The moment I stand on the balcony and look at the sea will be the moment I can relax.

Photo's on my Phone 11th July to 27th July 2024

I don't have many photo's as we've been stuck at home due to all 3 dogs catching kennel cough from one of their dog friend's. 
The boys sailed through, but poor Tinks sounded like she had been smoking 40 a day for a couple of days, they are all better now.

While we were stuck at home the big boy's watched a football match.

While Mummy and Maggie pulled stupid faces.

We left the dogs at home for the Lynmouth Regatta, luckily the torrential rain that was forecast didn't happen, so much beer and laughter was enjoyed. 

The highlight of the regatta is always the seagull race, which involves running across the foot bridge with an outboard motor, attaching it to your dinghy, starting it, racing around the first post past the harbour wall while trying to keep the motor running.

Many fail at starting the motor bit, much to the amusement of the crowd who shout encouragement from the footbridge.

Our first trip out with the dog's when they had all recovered was to Braunton Burrow's, we all love the Burrows which is a vast area of giant sand dunes. 

This trip was very eventful, Ron disappeared chasing rabbits and didn't come back, Phil had to search for him while I put the other 2 on their leads (as we didn't want to lose them too) and looked in the opposite direction. Eventually Ron was captured and put on his lead, as we walked back to the car Tinks disappeared into a hedge and came back covered in fox poo, it was dripping off her collar, all over her head and back.

I dunked her in a very shallow muddy puddle to get the worst off, then Phil rubbed her down with handfuls of grass, we travelled home with all the car windows open!

And after 2+ weeks of quarantine Siri was finally reunited with his girlfriend (and hogged all the balls).

Photo's on my Phone 2nd July to 10th July 2024

 Another week of not much, except dog walking and drawing.

My friend and I took our love bugs for a walk up Hollerday Hill, where they chased each other up the hill, dug holes, slobbered on each other and played gentle tug of war. Siri always lets Edie have the stick/ball, he's twice her size and could easily win, but always defers to her in the end. Their bond is a beautiful thing to witness.

We spent some time at the allotment, its divided in half by the Tayberry (covered on green net on the second photo). 

Phil's half is neatly organised in rows, each time he plants he sifts the soil, all very scientific adding the right nutrients at the right time.

My half is chaotic and continues to evolve in its own special way. I've planted flowers and herbs along the edges, because I've always wanted a walled garden and this is the closest thing to one I can get. I'm growing a lot of onions and garlic, planted all over the place, courgettes, peas, beans and fruit bushes. I also have an asparagus bed which I'm very proud of, both my mother and granny had asparagus beds, neither were gardeners, but always produced a good crop each year. My bed is only in its second year, our soil is the worst possible soil for asparagus, I dug a couple of bags of sand in before I planted, the plants seem to be thriving and I have my fingers crossed for a good crop next year. I hope that one day Dais will follow in their footsteps and have one of her own.

My flowers are beautiful at this time of year, I'm especially proud of my rose William Lobb. I've had him quite a few years, he's moved from house to house in a pot, he's been at the allotment since we had it 3 years ago and this year he is spectacular and smells even better.

William Lobb grows next to my compost bins, those of you who remember NDS will recognise the bins.

On Monday we walked to the top of Dunkery Beacon, which is the highest point on Exmoor and Siri tried to dig up a stone to play with.

I was going to add more landscape photo's and talk about my relationship with the landscape, but I'm going to write a second post instead.

Ilfracombe is finished, I'll write a blog post when I've finished tidying it up.
Woolacombe is almost finished, think I might have spoilt it by colouring the roof's black, but never mind I might frame it anyway.

I only did one sketch last week, waiting in the car while Phil walked the dogs on the wrong side of Countisbury Hill, I'd strained my back from standing all day at the town hall market the previous day. The market was so good that I've treated myself to a posh concertina sketch book, I'm very excited, can't wait till it arrives.

Looking towards the East Lyn, drawn with a 0.03 pen