A week by the sea......and a new home!

June 13, 2016

Sometimes we get beautiful sunny days in England, and last week, we had several, as we spent a quiet week 'at the seaside' in delightful, slightly shabby, old-fashioned Sidmouth, in Devon.

Lyme Regis - a spa town of monarchs

Sidmouth promenade

It's near neighbour, Lyme Regis, is a little less shabby and certainly more lively!

The idea of a week away was a whim - we appeared to be in a stasis situation with respect to the apartment we were buying in the delightful Cotswold village of Mickleton. So rather than just sit by the phone, or wait for the postman, we just drove south to Devon. Good decision as it turned out, but we could not escape the lawyers dealing with the purchase of the flat. I finished up hiring an asbestos surveyor to complete a report on the property demanded by the mortgage company we were getting a small loan from!Inspite of this we did have a restful, if not entirely stress-free week. We played a little tennis  - on a grass court no less! - and a couple of rounds of golf. Now they were experiences. As you might tell from Irene's stance here, the course was a little....tilted, to say the least. Apart from the couple of par 3's, every hole was played 'blind' from the tee, and every fairway and green was.....tilted, to what felt like 45 degrees! We have played in many parts of the world, but this was the first time we drove off on to an entirely wrong green, much to the consternation of the oncoming group. Of course, they were English, so terribly polite: "I say, I believe you are going the wrong way". Embarrassed, we scurried to pick up our balls, and retreated to the tee and aimed in the right direction!

Irene, at an angle!

Later on, after a couple of splendid drives, we lost the green altogether! We arrived at a small fence, exactly where the markers had directed us, but sign of a green, there was none! We were about to simply pick up our balls and trudge off to the next hole, when I decided to advance, gingerly, beyond the fence a little, and to my surprise, there was the green about 100 feet below, across a path, nestling at the edge of a very high cliff! Problem solved, the usual shots lost, but the...eventful round continued.

Mickleton House

A few posts ago, I promised to reveal the mystery behind this photo:








Truth is, we just completed the purchase of it, today, June 16th! Well, to be more truthful, we purchased one floor of it!! After all our seemingly endless house-hunting, we found this wonderful flat, in this hundred-year-old house. We picked up the keys just an hour ago:

and are planning to move in within a few weeks, after having the place decorated. I'll refrain from positing any more shots of the inside until we've started the redecorating process. Watch this space!