The Best Kept Secret Ever…

Since the end of October I have been planning and scheming with Karen (P’s sister) and Marg (P’s Mum) to arrange for them to come down from Birmingham to Cornwall for the weekend of Paul’s birthday.

The amount of double meaning telephone conversations and voice messages that have been made and left over the past few months in order that he did not work it out has been incredible.

Well the plan worked.  Karen rang the doorbell first, and I sent him to answer it, while his mum hid around the corner.  She then rang the doorbell, and the tears and happiness flowed.

What a blindingly wonderful weekend of love, and hugs and family and relaxation and good food.

Thank you both for helping to make Paul’s weekend so wonderful.

 

Jo Anne

 

Birthday!

It’s my birthday, and Fred has been really enjoying himself with my goodies….

		Freddie Enjoying my Prezzies VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

If you slide show the above pictures, it’s almost like he is moving LOL

We had a lovely wander out this afternoon, wandering Carnwas and Bedruthan Steps, and ending up at Padstow for a wonderful birthday Sunday dinner.

It was then back to the van for an early night once more.  All of this fresh air is very tiring at my age you know!

Jo Anne

Karen and Dave arrive in Cornwall

We drove home from Dartmoor this afternoon and Paul went to collect his little sister, Jannah-Beth from Perranporth. 

Shortly afterwards Karen, Paul’s sister, and Dave, his brother in law arrived from Birmingham for a long weekend with us.

We were so looking forward to having us all together for the first time in what seems like forever.

It was Karen’s birthday a couple of days before so, having thrown together a coffee and walnut cake the moment we got home from the first leg of our holiday, we were able to have a  nice slice of birthday surprise, and make plans for our day our tomorrow.

So lovely to be all together again!

Jo Anne

Mike’s Birthday Roast

As it is Mike’s birthday we had decided to go for a Sunday Roast at the local Premier Inn that had opened recently.  The Trevithick Inn has given us 3 or 4 really good meals so far, so we knew were would have a good day.

We arrived and ordered the 2 course meal each.  and settled down to catch up on the latest gossip.

We had a great roast, followed by some very yummy puddings.  A great treat.

Happy Birthday Mike.

Jo Anne

Happy Birthday Daddy Bear

I Love you and miss you so much.

Jo Anne

 

43 Today and off to Godolphin House

I have wanted to go here all year.  The house is only opened on very short time slots, over about 3 weeks throughout the year, but happily, it’s the last day of the year that it will be opened today,and it fell on my Birthday!  Yay, todays day trip is sorted!

The rooms have been restored to an amazing level of craftsmanship, and flow beautifully.  The volunteers on site told us that it was actually available to hire on the weeks that it wasn’t open to the public!

It was a lovely few hours, finished off with carrot and coriander soup and a roll, sat at the picnic tables in the grounds.

Having got back in the car we headed home stopping off so I could buy some cakes on the way back, and then headed on to eat them with a nice cuppa.

What a great birthday, spent with the best of friends!

Jo Anne

 

Jailhouse Rocks and Fowey is Fab

Another daytrip is planned to make the most of our at home holiday, and I decided that I really wanted to do the dungeons at Bodmin Jail again.  It’s been about 17 years since we last went down and did the tour, so to be honest I was dredging my memories to try and remember it.

I messaged Sally-Ann and Mike to see if they were up for joining us, and they didn’t hesitate!

The first thing you see, even before you enter the restaurant for the door to the stairs down, are the execution sheds, and hang mans drop. There is nothing left to the imagination!

Once you climb down the staircase into the depths of the building, the atmosphere changes.  There is only ambient lighting, and your eyes have to adjust.  Needless to day, there is still probably more light than the inmates would have seen back in the day!

Each room is set up as a diorama of a possible event that took place in there, along with mannequins, tools and furniture.  Some are quite quirky and others really quite gruesome.

We took the chance to act daft…..

but generally took our time strolling each room and cell, reading all of the literature that was placed around, and getting a feel for how terrible life was back then if you were a naughty person!

As we climbed up the six floors, we could see that there was still an awful lot of building yet to be salvaged.  The enormity of it is astonishing!

A couple of hours or so later we came to the final area, which was down near where we had parked the car…

I posed for my final picture as a 42 year old, but at least I did it in style, taking on my other persona the gorgeous and glamorous Flossie Merryweather (long story! LOL) Flossie now makes more outings than Jo as she is younger and far more fun Ha Ha!!

Anyway, that’s enough silliness, time for lunch!

We were going to get a snack at the Jail, but it was full on meals, rather than light bites, so we headed off with no particular plan in mind. 

Now we are very used to seeing where the road will take us, but Sally-Ann and Mike like a plan of action, so it was a bit of a leap of faith for them to trust that it would all work out…… and amazingly it did!

We ended up in Fowey.

Lunch was wonderful. We went to The Galleon and had Thai fish cakes and salad – Yum! A wander around the streets of Fowey showed us that it would be worth a trip in the Summer to spend more time there.

A truly lovely day, but we are all shattered now, and so headed back home to our ever faithful dogs.

Such a wonderful day.

Jo Anne