Holiday Part 1

How am I going to remember 3 weeks of holiday stuff then?
I might just have to be a bit listy and refer you vaguely to flickr I think.

(Let's get the bad stuff out of the way first and refuse to dwell) F was very very difficult four or five times, which may not sound like much but did have me seriously considering heading home and forgetting the whole thing on a few occasions. She did a lot of 'why do we have to get dressed/have breakfast/go out/etc.?', which was frustrating when I really believed she would enjoy what the day had to offer if we could only start the bloody thing!

So, what we did in brief
We stayed in Littlehampton, Bournemouth, Weymouth, Plymouth, Penzance and St. Ives. We visited Shell Bay, Corfe Castle, Weymouth's Sea Life Park, Portland Bill, Plymouth Hoe and the Eden Project. We travelled by trains, buses, open-top buses, steam trains, land trains and our very busy feet, which hauled us up lighthouse steps, paddled in the Atlantic, the Channel and some other waterways, padded on golden Cornish sand, clambered over rocks and tripped over themselves on Amusement Arcade dance pads.

Day-by-day what I can remember:

Tuesday afternoon, I finished my last piece of work at lunchtime and we were off by 3pm, decided to make Littlehampton our first stopping point. We got off the train and wandered towards the sea. The hotel I had looked at online was full so we checked into a nearby one that had teddy bears as a motif - real teddy bears on windowsills at front and little carved teddy bears on keys, etc. The woman running the hotel/guest house was Russian, so I got a rare chance to practise just a few words, mainly thank you and please. F had a go too and the woman was very encouraging. That evening we had a late paddle and splash, a 'standard British fayre' meal (Harvester - awful food) and didn't sleep well as F had an hour of the squits in the small hours. All fine in the morning though - F loved exploring our hotel rooms each time and finding the Gideon bible and the hairdryer in whichever drawers they had been hidden (she got me to read quite a lot of Genesis to her in various rooms as we went along, which wasn't something I'd envisaged and entailed some interesting conversations!). At breakfast, chatted with two elderly sisters at next table, talking about their childhood in Littlehampton and how their mums would send them out for the day and not expect to see them or know where they were for 9 or 10 hours in summer. They shared some of their memories and we all chatted. F was very charming and managed to say 'dasvidaniya' as we left.

The weather wasn't that good, bit grey, so we decided to head straight on down the coast to Bournemouth. Went to Tourist Info straight from the station and they were really helpful and found a good small hotel that sounded just right. We headed there by the seafront land train - weather no better at this point, sand blew straight off the beach onto us as we waited for the train, covering us really quickly, amazing to see it. Walked up from the beach to the hotel along a chine, very beautiful, tall trees towering above, steep banks, F scrambled about in a ditch along the side, exploring. We walked down that way and back again in the evening and had a fantastic Italian meal - F's dessert was this amazing concoction of about 7 different fruits and 3 different ice-creams/sorbets, all of which had that 'real' taste of good, fresh ingredients. Really delicious. I had a great pasta dish, simple but perfectly seasoned and so tasty.

Settled into our nice big room with light bay window, played some DS and slept really well. Woke up to blue sky and a stroppy F whose main aim seemed to be to reject any suggestions I made for the day. Had nice showers and I read my book a bit whilst waiting for her to decide whether getting dressed and going out was in her best interest! Eventually it was, apparently, and we walked up to the nearby shopping area and caught the open-top bus. Before catching it, we had lunch and bought some fruit. Then there was a lot of waiting at a different wrong stop each time and seeing it go a different way across the complicated junction, then moving on to another stop to try and catch it there, only to see it go across the junction in another direction, etc. We amused ourselves by considering ever more ludicrous things the bus would do to avoid us getting it, like turning itself into two single-decker buses, pretending to be a furniture van, fire engine, etc. We spotted many such strategies, but finally it gave in and came obediently to the stop we were at and allowed us on.

A great open-top bus ride - bus goes onto a ferry for a short ride across the water, which was fun - we watched the huge chains and saw the man up in his control cabin. We got off at Shell Bay and enjoyed some afternoon sunshine and paddling, before getting the last bus back. Chatted on the beach to a little boy who played with F, and his mum and dad. We all shared the fruit and some crisps and talked a bit about education.
We caught the last bus back and got off in town and went to a Pizza Hut for dinner, so F had an ice-cream factory thing. I asked her to rate her puddings out of 10, but nothing ever quite matched up to the fabulous Italian one of the night before.

Next day, we packed up and paid and caught the open-top bus again, this time going right the way to the end of the line, where we then caught the steam train up to Corfe Castle and had a good explore of the ruins there under a brooding sky, and in my case a weighty rucksack that had me at a huge disadvantage when F went off on her own round corners and clambery bits. Not the most relaxing hour I've ever spent! Then back on the steam train and the open-top bus all the way back to Bournemouth station, to catch a train heading West again.

Next stop was Weymouth, where I had already booked our hotel, so we just headed over along the seafront and checked in. Really nice hotel, comfortable and spacious, just that nice level of anonymity that I quite like. And a Gideon bible of course - F demanded bible readings before unpacking so I did a few chapters, then had a cup of tea and sorted our stuff out. We had baths and went out for crap fast food, which was good in a bad way - vegeburger and chips for me, pizza for F.

We stayed in Weymouth for 4 nights and really enjoyed it. Spent quite a bit of time on beach and paddling, plus in amusement arcade and on small rides. We took the open-top bus over to Portland Bill and climbed the lighthouse. Generally had a lovely time. At one point when F was paddling, there were quite large fish jumping about in and out of the water right by her.

We also went to Weymouth Sea Life Park. A small turtle convinced us of its communicative intelligence, rearing up to bring its head close to wherever F's face was nearest the glass. F worried for the seals - their enclosure was seriously lacking, not a good environment at all. A penguin came right up to me but F missed it as she had run off. They have a small rides area there, so we went on a boat thing (not on water) that had a nice trajectory roll, pitch and yaw thang going on. F went on it about 8 times I think. I managed 4. Have a nice little .avi file of her on it, waving. Had a snack at the Park cafe just before it closed and noticed variety of birds that came to get crumbs (RSPB Lodmoor is next door) - robin, chaffinch, wagtail and some I couldn't identify.

There was a launderette up the road in Weymouth too, so managed to get most of our clothes clean and introduce F to the concept of launderettes.
On the Tuesday, we packed up again (F had a small rucksack containing 2 books, a soft toy pony and soft toy unicorn, her DS and games and her nightie) and headed off to Plymouth.

Plymouth was very different - a city hotel, 9 floors up. Spacious room, big bed, great bath and fantastic view of the city and the Hoe as the sun went down and the city lights came on. We spent rather too much of the next day on a bus and then a train, due to a bit of timetable negligence on my part. Nevertheless, before that, we had strolled out on the Hoe and down to a waterfront cafe for breakfast and F sketched the flags there.

A long but beautiful train ride from Plymouth finally took us to Cornwall, for two nights in Penzance. We found a large old-style hotel, one of those with a formerly grand air about it, bit chintzy and strangely sprawling over floors and corridors. A proper sea view - F spotted a line of 8 swans swimming determinedly across the bay. In Penzance, what did we do? We frequented a fair that never opened, looking rather abandoned and spooky, talked to the guys running it - apparently it was 'too windy'! Walked around the town and the seafront and harbour a lot. Ate vegan pasties!

And that brings us to Friday when we met up with J and moved on to St. Ives. Will have to blog that tomorrow though as my eyes are really not wanting to do any more tonight.