Day Two in Devon. Our return to Beesands and Britannia at the Beach.

Today was meant to be better, but it ended really well.  After breakfast we relaxed before driving to Beesands for lunch.  We have been there before and while there are places closer, this has a memorable place in the hearts of my wife and I.  I am not too sure about how much the children remember about being here in the past, but my wife remembers this for good and not so good reasons.  I love the fish here, so we drove there.

It was after we encountered the first blockage in the road that I started to think that there might be a better route there.  Our Sat-Nav had decided to take us on a direct but challenging route.  I took a different route and realised when we ended up part of a convoy of cars that the algorithms must be similar, and wrong.  When we finally ended up there, it was busy.  Social distancing was taking place, which was just as well for the man in a wheelchair that we saw along with a woman pulling along her oxygen cylinder.  But while the day had started sunny and promising, it started to rain.  It was just spotting for lunch and we drove back along the coast, ignoring the Sat-Nav for a while.  Sadly due to a wrong turn we did not get to walk about in Ottery St Mary.

What we did do was to go for dinner after I had my evening walk.  While there, my cool daughter and awesome son played articulate.  Dinner though was amazing and while my wife too tired to go, we all enjoyed being there.

Day one in Devon

We are resting after a long day.  We set off in the morning but had to turn around as I had forgotten a few things.  After that slight delay it was a trip on The Road To Hell, which was not as bad as we expected.  My wife did the first part of the drive and we swapped round after taking a break at a Costa drive through in Bagshot.  

I drove most of the rest of the way.  We had a few more stops to stretch our legs and eat the lunch that had been provided for us, as well as to stock up on driving snacks.  Driving past Salisbury was an experience as there has been an accident at Stonehenge.  This meant that I got to see the stones from a distance and gained more of an appreciation of how big they are compared to us humans.

We got some final supplies in Exeter before my wife drove us on the final stretch.  Which meant retracing our steps.  But we have arrived.  She had booked dinner and we ate in the sun, me having a beer while she had a shandy with a trace of alcohol in it.  Dinner was great and the kids, who on the whole have been great for most of they day enjoyed the game we played while eating.

After dinner, my daughter and I went for a walk, the photo being one of several that were taken by the two of us.  

Anyway, now to rest and hopefully to enjoy the first proper day of our holiday tomorrow. 

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

Our journey has begun.  Right now, we are at my parents in law resting before the long drive to Devon.  We have looked at the route, but are not sure where we will be stopping for rest, food and drink yet.  A lot will depend on traffic as well as the time we leave.

When I woke up this morning we watched he end of Star Wars, Episode Nine, The Rise of Skywalker.  I have posted about this earlier in the year, but now I feel free to discuss the film more.

It was well directed with better acting than the prequels and tugs on the heart strings well.  But while it appeals to the boy inside me who sided with the rebels/terrorist scum, it has made lots of errors.  Examples of this are how Finn and Jannah are rescued from a falling Star Destroyer, or how only a few knew the way to the planet of  Exegol, but there were loads of people there already.  In fact, there are so many errors and issues, it amazes me that people focused on the lesbian kiss instead!  But, despite the many issues, it is still a good film.  Not up to the standards of the original three, or even Solo and Rogue One.  But it is probably my sixth favourite Star Wars film.  Considering there are eleven, that is not saying much, but seeing Wedge Antilles in the final battle made the child in me sing for joy.

We did get to see my mother.  My wife had to stay in the car as it was full of our luggage and it was great to briefly see my youngest brother.  The visit was much briefer than I would have liked but my son claimed that his sister was mean to him 75%.  While he later said it was only 50% of the time, my Mum made things worse when she asked my daughter to be nicer to him.  Worse, I had asked her to get him to justify the maths behind his statement, but she decided to ignore me and upset my daughter so we left early.

We have eaten, been watered and I watched THAT interview with my father-in-law.

So, to bed soon for our journey tomorrow...

Don Peyote

This is a very interesting film.  One which is strange, but I think makes sense of why some people like conspiracy theories.

Warren does drugs, I presume because he likes them and because reality is not what he wants.  And he is obsessed with conspiracy theories.  Conspiracy theories that attempt redefine/explain reality.  The film is an interesting chart looking at his path to madness/clarity and most of the time, this is like one of the more eclectic films that I watched in the past.  I say ‘like’ as it has tackled issues I had not looked at before.

When it comes to the family, my son and I prepared he car for our trip.  We aim to start the first leg tomorrow and hopefully will see my mother before staying over at my parents-in-law.  My daughter is ecstatic as she found her phone (finally) and as I type, is going through two months of messages.  I did try to interest her in the latest interview by Trump, but she was convinced it was a spoof.  To be fair, my wife did as well later. 

To rain or not to rain

In summary I went to the dump today in preparation for our trip to Devon later in the week.  Afterwards, we went to Brightlingsea were we shared a beach hut before it started to rain.

We got to spend a bit of time there taking in the sun and the view before it started to rain.  So we packed and left and then it stopped.  We stalked an ice cream van and drove home as the sun not only came out, but shone and it was like it had not rained at all.

I watched an episode of Rebels with my son, my daughter joining us as well before we had some friends round,  I do get nervous with people round as while I am at work, I am rarely within two metres of anyone and often, I am wearing PPE when doing so.  But it was nice to see them and have human contact.  We did have a discussion about the recent allegations of rape in parliament and the existence of the gagging order preventing the culprit from being named.  While we all agreed that rape and sexual assault are wrong we had some disagreements as to if the culture that makes some men feel that they have to right to molest others has changed or not.

I have been blocked again on Twitter despite being polite.  It was an interesting discussion but the person who blocked me kept responding on tweet with a deluge of tweets and then would get annoyed if we had not answered every point that he had raised in an attempt to avoid the points that I and others had made.

That is it for now, though my daughter is still having to cope without her phone,

Little Women

I have finished most of my work today.  I have had to into work to complete reams of paperwork that I really should have completed over the last two months or so.  Cycling there and back today after doing it yesterday was a bit more tiring than normal as I have not done this on two consecutive days for a while.  But the more I can do the better.

Later on we went to visit two friends who had put on a socially distanced film showing in their back garden.  While my son did not watch it, we watched Little Women.  My wife and daughter loved the book and loved the film as well.  I watched bits while I was going through my e-mails and while I found the beginning of it hard going as there were so many characters.  But I did get into the film and would love to watch it again another time.

Watching how Scarlet Fever was an issue then did make me think about how COVID19 is to portrayed in fiction in the future.

Anyway, other than a few odds and ends, my holiday has now started and I can look forwards to our trip to Devon.  Not sure how my daughter will cope though as she has no phone still.

Arsenal and the 14th FA Cup

We won!  An amazing game.  I admit to thinking that we were doomed once Chelski scored, but we did really well.  Our defence was outdone by a run from midfield but we changed our tactics and thanks to a dodgy second yellow card, Chelski were down to ten men and were punished.

It was strange watching it in an empty stadium but I am getting used to it.  And it was great to see the reaction of Ian Wright when we scored, along with the sickly feeling Cashly tried to hide.

Needless to say, I am going to be unbearable when back at work.  I had gone in yesterday to finish my paperwork and will need to do so today to complete it.  It was annoying that we finished below The Scum, again, but at least for this season, I can keep asking the three supporters when they last won a trophy.

My son congratulated me at the end of the game, my daughter watching it with me.  My wife was unaware we had got to the final, despite me telling her several times, an indication of how much she tunes me out when it comes to foot ball.