A Box of Favourites

With 40 years of official togetherness that this mid-December brings, we have been looking back at things we have done and places we have been, 40 years of favourite things, particularly holidays and trips. There is a recuring theme to our breaks away, that is, they nearly always involve trips to the South Western corner of the UK.

Courtship - oh what an old-fashioned word! Courtship days would include such places as Kingston in Surrey and Richmond, with its Deer Park, Brighton for chips and seafront laughs and Bath. Ah Bath, beautiful Bath, a favour for a mate, wanting to impress a new girlfriend with a day out, but not wishing to scare her off, he asked us to make up a foursome. A day trip which, resulting in a proposal and an engagement for us, made Bath, that place full of history and architecture, shopping and culture, green parks and the river, into a sentimentally special place. A year later and the next trip would be our honeymoon, a pre-Christmas, snow covered trip to Vaduz, Liechtenstein, visiting Austria, Switzerland and Germany, with steep sided mountain train rides and Alpine views from a picture book. Returning 2 days before Christmas to our tiny brand-new home we were to find the parents had left a tree with strings of lights and a fridge full of food and champagne.

Holidays were precious when they could be afforded, with a couple of locations that were to become top of the list for all the family, pre children, with children and after children. Our very first holiday together would be to Wembury Bay, just east of Plymouth, on the south Devon coast. A tiny wooden cabin, on the Churchwood Valley estate, which at that time still had outside ‘facilities’! It was here in the cold March weather, that we walked the coast path, warmed out hands around mugs of hot sugary tea outside the beach side kiosk, within sight of the Mew Stone island, dining on chicken curry at the local pub or feasting on meals made from packets of ‘Vesta’ in a single saucepan in the miniature cabin kitchen. The streets of Plymouth were explored, the view from the Hoe, standing beneath the red and white lighthouse, gazed at. Like children we searched Dartmoor for ponies and watched the spectacle of soaring Buzzards, still a rare sight at home. Later when we returned with children, first one, then two, fishing in rock pools and birdwatching along the coast for rare Cirl Buntings, it was to luxury cabins, a full sized kitchen and indoor facilities, the kiosk now a warm inviting café and the Buzzards a familiar sight, but the place, the atmosphere, the sea views and breezes are just the same.

A couple of years after this first Devon trip, although we would still return there from time to time, we made the discovery of what was to become our longstanding favourite, coveted place which we would, and will still, continue to return to again and again. A small advert placed in the back of a National Trust magazine by Sheila and Malcolm caught our attention and brought us to North Somerset, to Allerford village and The Packhorse holiday lets. We visited as young carefree things, then frequently with the children, mostly for Easter school holidays, then returning in all seasons, and after 38 years the Packhorse has become our ‘go to’ retreat. Visiting still, we walk the hills and woods, the coast path to Porlock, have breakfast feasts in seaside cafes in Minehead and climb to the top of Dunkery Beacon to drink in the 360-degree views and up to Hurlstone Point to converse with Raven and Peregrine Falcon.

Of course, Sheila and Malcolm have long moved on, lovely Linda and Brian have been and gone, now replaced by Wills and Paul. All have been, and are, the most marvellous hosts and visiting again in this our year of retirement and special Anniversary not only gave us a relaxing, joyful celebration holiday but exceeded all expectations. Fresh baked scones, cream and tea, an ice bucket of chilled sparkling bubbles, if you can picture this you will surely be able to see how perfect a Somerset break can be.

Memories are made of this –

Woodland whispers - bubbling, laughing, chuckling water, transparent, tumbling over a rocky riverbed, dancing around the reflections of trees, tossing golden leaves around clumps of reeds, pottering, idling, not rushing, beneath tiny stone bridges no wider than a pony wagon.

Wayside wanderings - Great wafts of pale silver pink willow herb stems releasing fairy wings to fly up high on the softest breeze. Grey trunked stands of beech teased by golden rays, shifting halos of sunlight, touching and caressing, kissing the yellow green tinted outstretched branches.

Moorland climbs - swallows twirling, waltzing together, low across the heather-clad floor resplendent navy-blue trailing ball gowns and tail suits - may I have this last dance before summer's end? A rising carpet of purple, speckled with yellow gorse flowers, creeps steadily upwards until it seems it will mix and blend into the grey rain-soaked clouds, which retreat, disperse and float away at the softest touch revealing the hidden late summer hue, greeted joyfully by a masterful pair of Raven, stretching their wings across the blue. With the return of the sun the moorland glows, chasing shadows away across a patchwork of russet edged bracken, purple heather, dark green forest and golden grasses down to a sparkling pebbled strip of coast floating out into a multi shaded blue green sea.

Relaxed riverside courtyard evenings - Kingfisher, dipper, wren and robin fade gently into the dusk, the last of the gathering martins settle to roost and the reflective surface of the river ripples and shivers as high-speed bats dip to pick off their supper. As the last of the August light slips away the evening sky changes from summer stripes of lemonade and peach to autumn's scarlet rowan and purple sloe.

September arrives on a near moonless velvet night to tawny owl calls, the soft grey dawn bringing those precious in-between days of the last summer harvest and early autumn bounty. Dew covered grass, pale lingering mist and drifting woodsmoke, tiny toadstools spring from leaf mould scented woodland floors and we swap corn dollies for blackberries, summer frocks for corduroy and check flannel shirts. But our holiday season is not over.

In between times there have been other discoveries. With our joint ancestry ranging from the very tip of Cornwall at Penzance and Scilly through Truro and Liskard, the very east of Sussex at Rye, Brighton and Shoreham by Sea, we have been drawn to visit the western Lizard peninsular and all places Cornish through to Devonshire Ilfracombe, Glastonbury, Bath, the Isle of Wight, to Sussex’s Willmington, Sissinghurst and Rye, Tenterden and the Kent marshes.

Memories are for making throughout the years, for treasuring, for keeping in boxes to bring out on a gloomy day, to say ‘hey, look what we did!’ and ‘Oh dear, bad hair! Oh, cardigan and flares? Really!’

Words and pictures by Artist and Druid © 2022