Saturday, 31 May 2008




Now seeming to have a feed at midnight and then another at around 0500h, nights are getting better. Rachel takes the credit though, as Heidi’s Moses basket is beside her, plus she now has control of the bedside cabinet. On her is placed the bottle warmer and the two or three bottles for the night time.

No longer can I access the radio for all night listening sessions, but I guess that is good in the short term. After three of four months maybe Heidi can drift in to her own room next door and I can reclaim my bedside table and radio….

It is a lovely sunny day as forecast and croissants once agai9n are the order of the day. We get the uncooked “blanks” from the farm shop and let them prove overnight, where they have trebled in size and only take a few minutes to crisp up. They are actually quite rich, so only one each for us at the moment.

We meet up with Becky, someone I used to work with who met up with Rachel a few times with Fred. We meet her, with her daughter Ellie and her brother Dominic. Whilst Rachel and Becky chat by the kiosk on Broadsands Beach, Ellie and I go rock pooling. My mum and dad live about 500 yards away and I grew up on this beach. It was fun to show her the creatures under the stones and she learnt all about razor shells.

We move on after 90 minutes of chatting and head to town.

We parked at The Paignton Club, which is on Paignton Esplanade. Followers of Fred’s ‘blog will know that I am a member there, a large detached building on Paignton seafront which is I suppose a “gentleman’s club”. Excellent food etc mean that it is a good place to visit, and the views are quite special on a nice day, whilst tucking into a plate of whitebait and mayonnaise. It means free parking for us as well, so we troop in to town.

The butcher in town is a little glum as hot weather in not good for trading, although the barbecue stuff seems to shift, but joints of meat stay put. Also, the meat tends to appear dried in the window, and so people move on.

We do our bit in the town and come back and sit on the seafront, with each tucking into a bag of chips and a small sausage. Very very nice and the sun is still shining down on us all. Happy days. The second photograph down (above) shows Paignton beach, looking toward Torquay. Just to the left of the photo - above the pier - you can see a small white blob. This is the great Lindstrand fixed balloon ride which rises to 400 feet above the Torre Abbey sands, where you can see Dartmoor in the distance. It is a contraversial project that goes up and down in defiance to its objectors, but is a flying machine that I shall travel in soon. It has only been flying a few weeks though.

I catch up with a colleague Paul who has pulled in the club car park to pick up Poppy, his other half who works there. We have a chat and then head over to mum and dads briefly.

Heidi has a quick dip, whilst I fire up the barbecue. As I type I can hear her protesting loudly as R single-handedly deals with her.

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