My mum and I had our annual - well, actually, we will have two this year - break in Devon during the second week of May. We were blessed with good weather and had an enjoyable time staying in the Premier Inn in Tiverton, a place we like and which we are familiar with. It seems also that the staff also now recognise us.

I usually try my luck beforehand for rooms overlooking the meadows rather than the ones overlooking predominantly car parks. Yes, of course, it's nicer to look over meadows but, in my case (and I am sure that I have mentioned this before), it's because I can rekindle fond memories of walking down a path through the bottom meadow whilst at school to reach Tivvy when I was banned from visiting. Which, I have to say, wasn't quite that often. Anyway, my advance request was politely declined as they now charge extra for meadow-view rooms. It mattered not because we were subsequently allocated one room overlooking the car park and the other overlooking the meadows and Mum kindly allowed me to, well, rekindle those memories. The breakfast is always very good too and the hotel is an ideal position for us.
We had had a remarkably smooth journey down once again. Normally, going around Bristol can be a little lengthy but no such problems this time and we managed to park in one of the Blue Badge spaces which the hotel has. It is always a delight having a walk along the canal before checking in at the hotel.

Our first full day was spent in Torquay, a place I haven't visited for probably thirty years since going on a cricket tour accompanied by our dog who didn't like being left alone when I wasn't in the room. He had dragged me across the hotel's floor to the reception, did his best to stand up at the desk whereupon the slightly bemused receptionist had asked if my name was Roberts... Said dog had to be put in the car outside the breakfast room so that I could see what he was up to and the memory of his neck going up and backwards relentlessly barking furiously all the time will live long in the memory. It was hard work, let's say.

This time, we went by train from Tiverton Parkway and changed in Newton Abbot. It may be me, it may be a persecution complex or it could just be that I view car park infringements as easy pickings for fines but I would have appreciated better painted signs and directions in the main car park after I later noticed that I, like others, had gone down a No Entry lane and eventually deciphered where the Blue Badge spaces were. I guess that I shall know for future reference.
Anyway, we enjoyed Torquay. The journey was delightful and we enjoyed our time walking along the beach and having lunch by a nearby pond watching swans protect their young. It was a lovely, warm day. Back in the afternoon, we revisited one of my favourite spots, the Canal Tea Gardens, where I spent many happy hours whilst at school. It is a very popular place.

Quite often, we eat in the Wetherspoons pub on the bridge over the Exe as we always have a good meal there. After Torquay, we went to another favourite place, The Waterloo Inn near Uffculme, and had a good meal there. The Wetherspoons is nearly always busy but the following evening, a Sunday, was much quieter.
On Sunday morning, we went to a church service at St. Peter's in Tiverton, a church we had visited previously. It is very friendly and, even from only one previous visit in November, we recognise people and are recognised there. At our church near Swindon, we are going through an interregnum and, as churchwarden, I have a lot to do which included making myself available for any potential dilemma two-and-a-bit hours away. There was, inevitably, and it involved technology, the new laptop - whoops, chosen by me - apparently playing up. I was mortified to find my telephone ringing when I would have preferred to have left it off (even if it was before the service started) and trying to sort things out. Anyway, a vibration later with a message saying All sorted made me enjoy the service in Tivvy more.

It was odd afterwards talking to a couple who knew our school chaplain who had sadly died a fortnight earlier and who had been part of the congregation at St. Peters. We found out the funeral date and will attend.

The weather changed but we had a ride around Devonian lanes. Usually, this type of drive leads to some animated conversations between mother and son but, as we had plenty of petrol, it was less frantic than usual. We had an interesting ride without getting lost - although it felt like that at times - and the weather again perked up when we arrived back.
Looking for needles in haystacks is one of my hobbies and I visited the library close to the Premier Inn on Monday before we left to try and find an old map of Tivvy when I was at school in the late 1970s/early 1980s. Yes, it was a dubious request in an attempt to try and remember the route into West Exe for an illegal pint (and, yes, occasionally when once again banned). Well, of course, I remember the route but Tivvy changed a lot in the mid-1990s and is now completely different to the time when I, and others, had to slither down a railway bridge bank after which it was a short walk to the Prince Blucher pub. It interested me finding out more about the Tiverton branch line which had been discontinued before I went there in 1978 but which, at that stage, still retained remnants. The library had the perfect Ordnance Survey map which sent me, and Mum, back to Swindon happy. We had another easy journey back.
In September, we will return and, for some daft reason, I have made myself available to play cricket again, having just turned 60. Time will tell how it goes, if selected but I have made myself available to turn out for the school at the Valley of the Rocks at Lynton, surely one of the country's most impressive grounds. It was worth booking another weekend for the potential chance and I shall keep my fingers crossed. Mum, having seen and enjoyed the ground previously, wasn't going to allow me to go alone and enjoy such an idyllic spot so she's coming too. But hasn't made herself available for the match.