Peep show

When you have seen the highest mountains and paddled in the clearest seas, drank from medieval fountains and ate two tonnes of cheese, travel seems to become less and less about the places and more about the people who you share them with. With ten days in Spain you could pack in a lot of bays and villages and arid ranges. Or instead there can be siestas, swims and holiday waters with very special friends. I was very happy with the latter option... a few days calm and quiet for siesta catch up, followed by a week with Ollie, Jenn and their two young nippers, Hayden and Max.

So, I don’t really have any scenic photos to show you from Spain, as days were happily filled with splashes in the pool, natters with neighbours, multiple visitations of Consum for holiday water ingredients, and the odd trip to the seafront at Guardamar. More mundane was the casa cleaning and bazza bothering battery charging and replacement; but the real highlight for me were simple suppers out on the veranda, a holiday water beside me and two friends just as close.

Temperatures were halved on the return to England, and a final few days to spend with family down in the home town that is Plymouth. Plymouth is looking a bit jaded, struggling on the periphery of England, dependent on money the Government doesn’t have, and with a football team fading into obscurity. But I still love it very much...I think the familiarity and sense of home that still comes from being somewhere you grew up always comes to the fore.

Not that Plymouth was all doom and gloom – there was razzmatazz aplenty on the Hoe for the America’s Cup, and the sun was out some of the time. There was also proximity to mammoth cream teas on Dartmoor, and a roast dinner, and two nieces to alternatively play with and escape from. There was a roast dinner and another source of crumbly fudge discovered, although the pasties could have been better – I have to say I’ve been a bit down on the pasties on this trip, though it has been lacking a Pengenna moment.

But all in all I give Plymouth the thumbs up, which is handy. Yes, in the realm of travel disasters a lanced thumb is way down there, but it’s my own little incident, and one which required an over-dramatic dressing by the wonderful NHS nurses...

But that’s not the end of the story, as I have a little day trip to tell you about and – ahoy there – some scenic photos of this beautiful county in southwest England. This was pre-thumb lancing and you have no idea how painful taking photos were with the swollen pus-filled lump on my thumb. Anyway, let’s not leave you with that image but these images, from the South Hams area and across to the very English Riviera. It’s all part of what turned out to be a very popular ‘round robin’ trip from Totnes down the River Dart to Dartmouth, across to Kingswear for a steam train ride to Paignton, and then back to Totnes via the wonders of an open top double decker bus. If you want to capture the essence of Devon in one day, this would just about fit the bill.

I like Totnes a lot and, though I should probably wait until retirement, I could see myself happily living there. It’s only half an hour by train from Plymouth but nestled in the rolling green hills that yield so much fresh, local, yummy food and an above average quota of cake shops. The Dart here is suitably picturesque, broad and lazy and ideal for a cruise. At least, hundreds and hundreds of pensioners thought so, as they crawled laboriously onto the surprisingly spacious ferry.

It was an idyllic blue sky day for the meander down to Dartmouth, an impressive Devon town resplendent with its harbour and parks and cobblestones. With a well-to-do air there are plenty of expensive eateries to match, but there is also fish and chips and pasties and fudge, staples of the Devon day, and all off the diet itinerary for Mum. So she had salad while I wolfed down some deep fried battered cod and picked up some fudge to nibble on over the next few days.

We (well, I should say I) didn’t exactly walk it off – more a meander around town and along the river for a little while, before crossing that very river to Kingswear and onto the steam train towards Paignton.

I don’t get over-enthused about steam trains and engines and things in the same way many others do. Perhaps it’s too much Thomas the Tank Engine, or the acceptance that perhaps rail travel wasn’t really as comfortable as people like to remember it. But it was nice to get a seat and hear the steam try to drag us up the hill from Kingswear, through dripping green woodland and over to the red sands and cliffs of the English Riviera.

Such was the rhythm of the day there wasn’t much time to explore in Paignton, or to rediscover more youthful days like waiting for the train to pass at the level crossing, visiting the pier, and popping up to Nan’s old place up the hill. I do remember the drive from Plymouth to Paignton and back, and the crazy lanes to navigate. Perhaps because I was so used to them they didn’t seem so untoward back then, but now, the pure thought of trying to squeeze an open-topped double decker through the giant hedgerows and then downhill to Totnes seemed a bit ambitious. But we made it, and it wasn’t even too cold or breezy up top, though I did duck once or twice from marauding brambles.

Thus the round robin was done, much like the European travels, starting and finishing as they did in Devon. Despite having what seemed like record-breaking time to indulge, it felt like it went quicker than ever and there was so much I didn’t get to do. Like a trip for a Pengenna pasty for instance, though I probably made up for that in the cheese department. The signs were right to go though as, for once, Devon was gloomy and drizzly and cold as I left on the train to London and beyond. Like many before me, departing Plymouth – next stop the Americas and a return to the new world.