Friday 28 August 2009

Brief Holiday

On Wednesday and Thursday I took a couple of days in north Somerset, where I stayed overnight in Dunster, walked on the sands of Blue Anchor and Dunster beaches, up to Dunkery Beacon and along the Quantocks. I broke the drive down to have lunch at Glencot House...





...and then took a walk on the Quantocks which started in an obscuring mist that cleared enough to see the reactor houses at Hinckley Point. (Click on the photos for a little more details)



The north Somerset area, between Bridgewater and the Devon border, is a time-warp: I've been going there since the late 80's and it hasn't changed in any way. If anything the fields and forests are lusher than they were twenty years ago: the hedges are certainly higher.



It's a very marked contrast to north Devon - for reasons that turned out to be bad, I thought it might be an idea to look at Ilfracombe, and was reminded of why I never go to English seaside resorts.

On the next visit I will work out some way of breaking up the drive back. Two and a half hours of on the A358 / A303 leaves me feeling a little hyped at the end. The trick is to avoid the M25 during the rush hour, which means you have to pass it before about four in the afternoon or after about eight in the evening, so you leave either just after an early lunch or have a very long day. I will also remember to stay for some time in one place on the return day – perhaps sit on the beach for a couple of hours – so that I don't spend the whole day driving. I will also remember to take the camera along when I'm on the beach.

I'm very bad at taking going-away-somewhere-holidays and this was the first this year. I thought that if I kept it short and simple, it would give me some encouragement to take a longer, foreign, jaunt later on.

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