Chores At Cockle Cottage

We still have to do a few chores on our Cockle Cottage holiday, but being here makes everything seem so much more romantic and poetical.

Darrell is in charge of preparing breakfast each morning. We didn’t bring a lot with us, as we like to source our food locally and experiment a little when we are away, but, we did bring our savoury spread of choice, marmite, with us just in case they didn’t have any in Brixham..

I am tasked to do the washing up, but having a cottagey kitchen to do it in just doesn’t seem to be the chore it is at home…..

…. but Darrell is a little curious to know what lies beyond the padlocked door in the kitchen!

 

Taking out the rubbish is the same too, no wheelie bins at the top of our hill, just two small old fashioned dustbins with  big rocks on the top to stop the wind blowing them off and scattering potato peelings, Jaffa Cake packets and Smartie tubes everywhere. They also stop the seagulls from getting into them.  We’ve seen some really mahossive seagulls in action and they are very feisty birds of a scavenger type nature.

And pegging out the washing is especially romantic, when you have such a wonderful vista  looking right over the sea….. plus your washing comes in smelling of proper fresh air.  Both Darrell and I agree that we are in our domestic element!

Pasties or Pasties?

I think Darrell needs to spend a little less time on the inter-web when we get back home because  when I asked him to get a couple of pasties (for lunch) he got very flummoxed. When I enquired as to why he seemed to be so ill at ease with my request, he blushed and stuttered that he wasn’t very comfortable going into a ladies shop for that sort of thing.  It seems that he had once been on a website where pasties were things that ladies put in their braziers to avoid a certain embarrassments!  What is he like?

I stifled my amusement and explained to Darrell that a Cornish pastie was pastry based item, traditionally filled with meat (usually beef) and vegetables (usually potato, onion and swede) and seasoned with pepper. He didn’t bring back exactly what I wanted, as I think he was still feeling a little awkward.  But it was still very nom nom in a local delicacy type way.

Nigel Spends His Pirate Windfall

The other day Nigel found 62p on the beach while building sandcastles.  For Nigel, this was akin to winning the Euromillions Lottery, so we advised him to think very carefully before investing/spending it.

After  several days of great angst and consideration, and now all the pirates seem to have gone, Nigel asked Darrell if he could take him down to one of the gift shops in the the town as he knew exactly what he wanted to spend his good fortune on ….

For 60p he bought an enchanting necklace with seashells and bells on, “What a wonderful memento of our holiday” mused Darrell “Bells and shells ….. so very Nigel”  With just 2p left Nigel and Darrell then nipped into the amusement arcade and chanced it on the Penny Falls …. they didn’t win anything ….. but the memories they shared on their little trip were prize enough!

We’re So Sorry Archie

Since Darrell treated himself to a new all singing and all dancing phone on holiday, he has been able to access all our e-mail, how brilliant is that?  But, it proved to be a double edged sword because when he logged on there was an e-mail from Lynne plus a picture our friend Archie, maintaining a vigil by his front door waiting for his postcard from us!

Lynne said that it had cost her a small fortune in digestive biscuits but thought that in a way Archie was secretly glad that he does not have to wait there any longer, now he knows that a postcard won't be coming, as it is a bit draughty and depending on the angle of the Scottish rain it can also get a bit damp too.

Archie, we are inconsolable that we inadvertently forgot to add you to our self adhesive address labels that Darrell pre-printed before we left,  BUT, we promise that we will make it up to you when we get back home ….. promise!

Brixham – A Town Of Many Steps

Cockle Cottage enjoys  vistas of a very spectacular type nature, but there is a price to be paid ….. hundreds and hundreds of steps to get to it ….

Even our garden is not without its heights to scale

So when we go out, we have to allow ourselves plenty of time to get down and back up again.

We have found a few short cuts ….

But there’s no getting away from the climb!  Darrell however has turned this slight negative into a huge positive, musing that after a week or so of this, he will have calves as taut and toned as any Olympic Athlete and the gluteus maximus he has always dreamt of, akin to a tight walnut!  What is he like?

Trying To Catch Up With Our Tails!

Oh dear, oh dear and zut alors,  what with our rather extended holiday and so many Monkey adoptions we have got VERY behind with things …. and it was a comment from Lynne and Archie that made us realise that our address book is in rather a mess and that Monkeys we should have sent postcards too were missed off our list!  So if you have a monkey living with you and you think we may have lost your address, especially Lynne and Archie (and accept very recent adoptees)  … could you re-send us their name and address and we will make sure you are in our NEW shiny address book.  MonkeyAndDarrell@hotmail.co.uk

Poor Darrell is also working very hard backstage to get a “new look” adoptions page up and running. All the unloved and abandoned  monkeys we rescued from e-bay have all found lovely new homes and we have lots of news and photos to put on the page if you can bear with us a little longer.

Our Message In A Bottle, Tossed On The Tempest Torn Sea.

Today we decided that the time was right to send our message in a bottle on it’s ocean going adventure.

We were sat half way along the breakwater in Brixham harbour, Darrell licked his finger and then held it up in the air to see if the wind conditions were right, I checked the times of the tides on the notice board on beach masters hut and Nigel said something like “When the seagull doth fly high, ‘tis a bonny tide to let ye bottle float on by” or words to that effect, goodness only knows where he got that little nugget from!

Anyway, we cast our bottle out into the sea, to hopefully travel the oceans on a journey of an epic type nature…….. hoping that it wouldn’t get swallowed by a whale or some other large marine creature…..

We all then took a little time for contemplative reflection , each lost in our thoughts, pondering our bottles fate……. only time will tell. Then Darrell suggested an ice cream ….. which broke our solemn mood - I had passion fruit chessecake, Nigel had a coconut delight and Darrell had a chocolate fudge brownie ….. nom, nom nom.

Pirate Day in Brixham And Home Decor

Ah ha me hearties ……it was Pirate Day in Brixham yesterday!

The harbour was awash with pirates going about their everyday lives, doing thier shopping, buying postcards and having a latte and a slice of lemon drizzle cake in the coffee shop, but we sensed a little retisence in Nigel

We think it had a little something to do with his finding his 62p on the beach, he really didn’t want to have much contact with any of them, just in case the said money belonged to any of them. He was frightened that if they sensed that he may have it, they would splice him to the main brace and make him walk the plank until he confessed that it was now under his pillow. What is he like?

Talking of pirates ….. Cockle Cottage is filled with all sorts of object 'd’arts of a pirate and nautical type nature …..

We are very struck by some of them, and have spoken at length, during our stay about purchasing  and taking back a few key pieces for our home decor ……..

…. However as we mused,  we realised that though they look at home in a cottage by the sea …. back home in Wolverhampton they may not evoke the same effect.

Which is a shame really!

A Fortuitous Find For Nigel

There are not any beaches conducive to the making of sandcastles in Brixham, so we promised Nigel a trip to Goodrington Sands where the sand is very red but perfect for his needs of a constructional type nature..

And, to be honest  we were quite struck by the artistic flair he showed in his sandcastle making when we got there.

However Nigel struck something much more wonderful …..  just as we were telling him it was time to start packing our bags to go back to Cockle Cottage he struck gold …. he only went and found 62p in the sand ….!  There was no doing with him after that …. he was convinced it was pirate treasure and wittered  on about pieces of eight, doubloons and Long John Silver all the way back to home and well into the night  We are never going to hear the last of this.

Whoppie Pies – None Nom Nom

It seems that our Cockle Cottage holiday has taken on a culinary type flavour, with us trying lots of new foods …..alien to Wolverhampton. We have heard that whoopie pies were going to be the next big thing after cupcakes, so when Darrell found these in Brixham’s Co-Op we were eager to sample their delights, never expecting to do a review on our holiday!

We looked up what a whoopie pie actually was and it seems it is  “a sweet baked item which is a cross between a soft biscuit, a cake and a pie. It is made up of two round pieces of cake-like biscuits which are sandwiched together with a sweet, creamy filling” – all sounded very promising …

I only took a small bite  …..  but was not really that impressed, to be honest I had texture issues.

Darrell tried a little more “Hmmm” he mused “ Not a biscuit, not a cake ….. though their appurtenance promises much, for me,  they deliver very little, and are frankly very disappointing after all the hype”

Nigel just ate ….. and said nothing, but indicated that he was willing to take the remaining pie off our hands too, but sometimes, we have found that the functionality of his taste buds is questionable at times

Sorry whoopie pies …. no nom nom!

Come On …. We’ve All Done It …..

  

One minute you’re sitting on the beach, you’ve built a sandcastle, you’ve been for a paddle, you’ve had an ice cream  and looked for creatures of a marine type nature  in the rock pools…. so what’s your next seaside activity of choice ………….??

Bury Nigel ………….

All the time he had the daftest expression on his face

Darrell was very gentle, and Nigel was a very willing victim, participant …… but it took ages to try to remove the tiny pebbles and sand from his erm …. bits and pieces, in the end Nigel had to walk like John Wayne back to Cockle Cottage, where we had to hose him down in the shower …..and give him the flannel  for his said regions of great delicacy!  Boys will be boys! What are they like?

Brixham Fudge

While Nigel and I were in sailing the high seas to Torquay and back yesterday Nigel busied himself in Brixham and found the Fudge Shop, something we are all very partial too.

He said “It would have been rude not to pop in and avail myself  of several 100 grams of made on the premise fresh fudge and you know how we much prefer to source all our food locally and in season when we can” he added  What is he like?

He said that they had flavours that, until now, he had only dreamt about and  making his sugary selection of choice was no mean task, but in the end he plumped for 100 grams of Malteser and 100 grams of lemon meringue fudge.

A most unusual but excellent confectionary purchase.  For the malteser fudge we gave 9 noms and the lemon meringue 7 noms.  Nom-fudging-tastic!

We Are Sailing ….

Auto suggestion of a Rod Stewart type nature …. while you are reading this try and stop yourself from humming Sailing in you head ……

While Darrell decided to go looking for holey stones for his collection, I thought I would treat Nigel to a boat trip on the Western Lady to Torquay.

Despite making sure he was wearing his seasickness wristband, taking a couple of sea sick tablets and telling him to look at the horizon ….

….. he still succumbed to the turbulence of the almost flat sea  …. what is he like?

However he soon perked up, and to be honest it was only a very short trip, but I said a coke was out of the question!

I wasn’t sure about this hole near where we were sitting, so as we hadn’t been issued with life jackets, flares or whistles for the journey, I told Nigel that he should be ever attentive to the perils of sea travel, no matter how short the journey, as we didn’t want the embarrassment of a  “Monkey Overboard” situation if we could help it. Poor Nigel, what was supposed to be a pleasure cruise was proving somewhat traumatic for him.

However, overall I found it all very romantic .. the salty wind blowing through my hair, the cawing of the seagulls as they followed our boat, and the anticipation of perhaps seeing a flock of dolphins swim alongside us (alas, that dream was not to be) …. and all the time I could hear the gravelly voice of Rod Stewart singing Sailing in my head.

And then I made a startling comparison …….

A return ticket on the Western Lady to Torquay and back  cost us £3.50 each  whereas the return bus fare from our village to Wolverhampton on £3.60! It’s not got the same allure has it?