So there you are, in Cornwall, having a seasiderful great time, and its hot and sunny and everything you could dream of that doesn’t come on a plate with either chips or clotted cream. And you’re happy as can be. And then you wake up in the morning and…

…and its pissing down with rain. So what do you do? You’d probably cry and go home, you’re such a wuss. But Mel & I, adventurers to our very cores, we put on our raingear and hit the headland for a coastal walk. Which was as exhilirating and beautiful as it was miserable. So we left Padstow for the next and final destination of this ‘total tour round all of England excpet the bits we’re not doing’, Barnstaple. Which added the perfect extra dimension to the rain; traffic jams. Loads of them. Or maybe just one fucking great big one, I’m not exactly sure. For a small town, those council boys sure know how to fuck up traffic totally and horribly. They must be very proud. And summer season doesn’t start for 2 weeks. God help anyone headed to Barnstaple in August. They’ll still be there in September.

But undaunted by the weather, we watched both the mens semi-finals from Wimbledon AND the Germans beat the French in Brazil. What a stunning afternoon. In a stunning place.

You know sometimes you book stuff up on the internet and you get there and wished computers had never been invented? And other times you just strike gold. Well Barnstaple may not be in the Klondike but found the most amazing hotel.

Its called the Broomhill Arts Hotel and sculpture garden. Its appeal: it was in the right place. Its USP? A ‘garden’ (about the size of Hampstead Heath and more personal forest than garden) filled with all manner of sculptures. All for sale, if you’re interested in a 5 ton painted boulder, a bhudda the size of Croydon or a 17 foot high steel horse. For that awkward corner in the lounge.

Then we had dinner. And the hotel has high praise. 50th best restaurant in greater Barnstaple, top 400 something else. But it was quite spectacular. Inexpensive and fabulous. Like me. Not many things fall into both those categories.

Now I’m home. London never looked so… whatever, after a 215 mile burn down life’s freeways. And Kvitova just won the women’s tennis, even though the other gel, a Canadian, was a bit of a babe.

Happy Saturday, welcome home

A xxxx