SUBJECT TO WHIM AND ADVENTURE

The plan was to catch the open-top bus today, all the way to Lynmouth (Devon), faff around there for a while, then catch the same bus back on a return ticket.

How do you plan your days on your holidays? I know some people who wake up as late as possible, read the paper, lounge around, and then decide what to do with the rest of the day. They focus on relaxation. I also know people who meticulously plan every single detail required to get the most out of their time away, not wanting to waste a moment. They focus on maximum enjoyment, which for them is more like a militarily precise schedule.

Never go on the same holiday with both types of people! It’s fine if you’re either, but go with your tribe.

Having said that, I think the Intrepids are a bit of a mix, but they’ve learned to use their 50 years of compromise to land themselves somewhere in the middle. My Dad needs a plan, my Mum needs an adventure. So we usually end up with a rough idea the night before, a sensible get-up-time and an outline of what we’d like to do, that can be fine-tuned, and if necessarily (though it would be difficult for Dad) completely changed. As I mentioned last year, that works, but only if you keep going over and over it with everyone - which can sometimes be exhausting.

So, en route to the bus, ‘faff around in Lynmouth and Lynton’ was about as clear a plan as we needed. And it was just as well.

The open-top bus upper-deck was full, so we had to sit downstairs for the journey. That was okay until just outside Minehead.

There was a thump, followed by a cracking and clattering sound. Something heavy seemed to fall out of the trees, straight by the window of the bus and into the road! Calmly, quietly, without the hint of any kind of surprise, the driver pulled over to the side of the road, left the engine beeping and rumbling, and walked back along the pavement to investigate.

Moments later, he was back, holding a very recently detached and smashed-up wing mirror - something that had clipped a yellow signpost, and had been snapped from the side of the bus!

Without a hint of drama, the driver simply climbed into his seat, clicked shut his little door, and moved the bus out into the road for his onward journey to Lynmouth. I’ve never seen anything like it.

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Lynmouth and Lynton are two extraordinary villages: one’s at the bottom of a cliff (Lynmouth) and has the harbour, the rocky sea and the river churning its way over the rocks to the ocean. The other (Lynton) is at the top, overlooking Lynmouth Bay with its beautiful sweep into the bright blue Bristol Channel. Gainsborough apparently, said it was a landscape painter’s dream, the best in England, and on days like today, I can quite see why. Good call, Thomas.

I did sketching in Lynmouth first of all. It was so nice to pull out the sketch pad and pencil case, and just draw whatever was in front of me! I drew a telephone box, a river scene, and some jackdaws who were poking around on the grass. I think my drawings still have that cartoony feel, but all the really good artists I know (Sammy, Jenny, etc) tell me that’s just part of who I am. Who knows what Gainsborough would have made of it! As Jenny might say, who cares?

Then we went up to Lynton on the Cliff Railway - the world’s highest and steepest water-powered funicular railway. It’s amazing: two carriages are counterbalanced, given weight (with either people, or a tankful of water). One’s at the top, one’s at the bottom, but the two carriages are linked by a pulley, so that the heavier of the two slides down the track, and the lighter one is pulled up! It’s so clever! Then when the lighter one reaches Lynton at the top, they fill up its tank so that it’s ready to pull the other carriage (water out) up... as it ratchets heavily down the hill. Someone figured all that out in 1888!

We stayed up there for a wander round and then an ice cream. Then, after a heated debate about why salted caramel might melt faster, we climbed on the downward carriage and acted as ballast while gravity did its thing and pulled us back to Lynmouth.

Having checked the bus timetable, we wanted to be first in the queue for the open-top bus going back. And so, in the shadeless car park, we sat boiling for forty minutes.

The wing-mirror incident was the talk of that car park. We weren’t the only ones who’d been on the same bus in the morning. What we all failed to anticipate though, was that the open-top, the so-called Exmoor Explorer... had now been taken in for servicing, due to a ‘wing-mirror related incident’. So after our long swelter in the car park, the bus that pulled round the corner turned out to be a single-decker replacement.

I strapped my mask to my already sweaty face, and climbed aboard. No matter I suppose. One hour later, we were back in the cool sea breeze of Minehead eating fish and chips on the sea front.

So that was that day; our last full one. Tomorrow we pack up and head home. I have a sense of finality about that, but also transition. I know it will all be okay. And this time has been very sweet actually.

The outline plan (subject to whim and adventure) is a time on the beach tomorrow, followed by a decent lunch at the good old Driftwood Café, then the long trek north, east and home.

Honestly? I’m kind of looking forward to that.