Still Striving For that Elusive Halo

Many, many years ago my sister and I used to spend the whole of the summer holidays in Budleigh Salterton with our maternal grandparents.  The sound of waves sucking the pebbles back into the sea sent always awakens my memories of those days.  The red cliffs - I never understood why people always talked about white cliffs for me cliffs at the sea were always red; my grandparents’ beach house with the old tea tin filled with pear drops up on the shelf, and the hooks which housed our damp costumes so they would be dry for next time.  We never minded that there was no sand on the beach the sea and pebbles kept us occupied for hours.  Swimming; sitting on the shore line so that the sea pulled the pebbles from underneath us and sent our legs into the air; building stone castles; seeing how long we could stand on the stones that had been made hot by the sun; running down the big banks of stones after a storm only to find that our grandparents warning of we wouldn’t be able to get back up always came true, then crawling back up on our hands and knees taking an age as the pebbles moved beneath us.  The café where on sunny days we got our ice-cream and on colder days toasted teacakes and hot chocolate, my father seemed to always have a teacake even when the sun was out.   The house they lived in was still being built first time we visited and down its steep driveway would sit my grandmothers green mini, while the garage housed whatever new car my grandfather had got this year.

A few miles down the coast over the border and into Dorset and unknown to me at the time Hubby was spending many a happy summer holiday in Lyme Regis, the beach had sand when the tide was out, but we rarely visited Lyme, for us Budleigh was home from home. 

Today is Hubby and my second wedding anniversary, Hubby has to work today but for a surprise Hubby arranged that we would visit this old haunt together and share our old memories and make some new ones.  We stayed in Lyme Regis in a hotel overlooking the beach and the Cob, and were well looked after by the staff.  I don’t really remember much about Lyme, however it is quaint with some good shops, the bank manager certainly knew where we were!  The weather the first couple of days wasn’t too great but we finally managed a walk along ‘The Cob’ and sat in the sun watching the cormorants drying on the rocks. There is also a water mill which still produces some flour, but more of that at another time. 

Of course we visited Budleigh, even drove past my grandparents old house, a shiver went down my spine when there in the drive was a mini. 

For me no visit back to the area would be complete without a visit to Bicton Park, which seemed far smaller than I remembered it, I was glad the train still ran as while up at the Hermitage the rain started and we got back in the relative dry for a most enjoyable ‘cream tea’.  Then it was a wander through the glass houses as Hubby agreed with me that if money ever became no object we would have a Palm House just like the one at Bicton. 

For Hubby the caves at Beer were a must, and just as Bicton was new for him, Beer caves were new to me.  The caves were made by the mining of the rock and it is like some grand undercoft of a cathedral.  An added bonus that we weren’t expecting was that bats hibernate in the caves and some were still some greater horseshoes bats hanging like washing on a line and dotted around the caves lesser horseshoes too.  It was wonderful photo opportunity but as taking photographs of hibernating bats is prohibited one that had to pass us by.  Our guide Heather was a fount of knowledge and tales of the people and things that went on down in the caves and also in the surrounding area.

More from our travels tomorrow.