random ramblings: As I was going to St Ives....

sorry for the lack of blogging but as you will see from the title, we have been on holiday. I had told Daughter that we were going away on the Friday evening, so didn't want to have to cope with Nathaniel on the Friday, so she swapped her work days to Wednesday and Thursday.
I spent the day sorting out ironing and trying to get washing dried, as the weather had been so bad I resorted to the tumble dryer. I also packed and hunted out beach towels, just in case, and various other items which we do not seem to be able to survive without. we also had to pack towels and bed linen as they are not supplied with the flat.
Husband came home early, and soon he was loading stuff into the car. Eventually he announced that nothing else would fit in, he refuses to use the roof box these days as since our Son borrowed it, it has to be assembled back onto the rack before we can position it on the car. We eventually locked up and hit the road at about 7.30 pm, taking a different route from normal to avoid an accident which had happened on the M25.
We stopped for dinner at Fleet on the M3, we didn't fancy the cooked meals so bought food from the Waitrose, and ate that. I had a very nice ham hock salad, husband had a sandwich. The traffic wasn't too bad and we arrived at our Travelodge in Somerset before midnight. The room was very small, they have built on extra rooms, the bathrooms only have a shower, and it felt a bit claustrophobic. For me the bed was like sleeping on a concrete slab, but husband managed to sleep, which is more important, as he was driving. I must have slept a bit but was very stiff in the morning with a sore hip.
After a quick shower and dressing we set off again, and were quite soon pulling into one of our favourite spots for breakfast. we were amazed at how it had changed. Cartgate is an area set aside by Somerset Council, it has lots of parking spaces, picnic tables, and when we first started going there, there was a van which sold bacon rolls, bacon and egg rolls, and other breakfast items, as well as burgers. Then after a few years, the van was replace by a cabin, but this year they have opened a huge 24 hour cafe. There is also a tourist information centre. We went into the cafe, and ordered our breakfast, orange juice and a bacon roll for me, and a bacon and egg roll for him. we ate in , but husband was bit twitchy as he had left something in the car, so whilst I used the facilities, and ordered a coffee, he dashed back to the car. As I carefully carried my coffee back to the car, I heard someone call my name. 'That's odd' I thought, '150 miles or so from home'. I looked and immediately recognised D, from our church. he and his wife S were on their way back from North Cornwall with their 4 children. They go down there almost every half term. they looked a bit tanned and said that the weather had been mixed, with some sun, so that gave us hope. I told husband who I'd seen and he said 'Crumbs, they must have left early'.
We had a fairly uneventful journey, but once we got into South west Devon we could see why D&S had left early, the Northbound traffic was bumper to bumper, of course this year half term was later, so many people must still go away, and the A30 still has single carriageway lengths which cause congestion.
We reached Penzance at about lunchtime, it's tradition for us to go there first, as at one time there was no supermarket in St Ives, not that there was much room in the car for shopping. We did our usual wandering around Penzance, husband wanders off on his own, to look for pasties.
I found a little cafe called Lavender's where they did salads, so rang him, and he joined me, and had one of their pasties.
We left Penzance at around 2.30, and drove back to Loggans Moor, and got out the shopping bags. we went in M&S food dept and stocked up on food for the weekend. Then drove into St Ives, parked the car outside the flat, and walked down to pick up the key. it was quite taxing unpacking the car, as we had to lug everything round to the back of the building then up about 26 steps to the flat. Eventually we were able to stop and admire the view.