More on the Holiday.

So back to the holiday. I may have finished regaling you with tales of the last holiday before I go on the next…. Just.

Anyway, you’ve heard about the Saturday and the Sunday; now I shall tell you about Monday. On the Monday we went to Padstow, also know as Padstein as most of it now seems to be owned by Mr Rick Stein. When I was a child we holidayed in Padstow a number of times. We camped and then caravanned at a campsite at the top of the hill overlooking the town. All very basic stuff, just a filed and a hole in the ground dug every few days to empty the chemical toilet in to. Those were the days!

Wifey and I got their early (by our standards anyway) about 10am. This turned out to be a master stroke as we parked in the car park closest to the town. When we left about 1pm, there was not a car parking space to be found in the entire town.

Padstow is a beautiful fishing town that surrounds a working fishing harbour and it used to be an undiscovered gem. When Wifey and I visited it appeared to have been discovered by the masses. They were bussing them in by the coach load to eat pasties overlooking to harbour. To be fair, I can see why. The locals (and not so locals) have capitalised on this fact and are catering (literally) for the tourists. An interesting biography of Mr Stein can be found by following the link Welcome to Rick Stein Seafood. It really is worth a look. Someone has spent far more time, effort and money researching Padstow than I.

As it is an overriding requirement to feed the baby, almost constantly it seems, we headed to a café so we could get the bottle warmed. We managed to do so (credit to the establishment) and had a cup of tea and a slice of cake each. The food was good, but the service exceedingly slow and muddled. After the bottle stop we headed out for a walk around the harbour. We found a gallery and admired the art work (Wifey and I collect modern art) but the painting we liked was £800 for an original oil, which is beyond our budget at the moment. We settled for a printed montage of the artists canvases for £12 instead. According to Wifey it’s destined for the downstairs loo!

At the outer breakwater we saw a couple of speed boats plying their trade for the tourists. I noted that the boat ‘Jaws’ had been the boat my brother, father and I had been the same one we enjoyed 20 odd years ago. Some things just don’t seem to change. We stopped a while and took in the scenery; we also took a great number of photos while we were playing around with our shiny new SLR. When we downloaded them later there were some great shots and on particularly of note were Wifey had managed to capture two sailing boats moored up with their perfect reflection in the water.

We decided to more on and head for Newquay for lunch. The drive over was interesting and we passed Jamie Oliver’s 15 restaurant, but didn’t stop. We got to Newquay and were so disappointed we didn’t even stop. Sorry folks but I thought it was a dump. We stopped in a car park and fed the baby, which was messy, and moved on to another National Trust place that appear to be just around the corner. It was and two cream teas were promptly demolished. Trerice is a wonderful old house. Go and look at it here;

That was pretty much Monday of the holiday. Anyway soon I shall do Tuesday and on Tuesday we went to the Eden Project. But know I have just had an email telling me about my assessment centre. It’s being held in a hotel on a costal spit that is renowned as being the most expensive real estate in the world. I am also entitled to claim expenses and an overnight stay if I so wish. Having read the itinerary for the day I’ll need the weekend to prepare and the rest of the week off to get over the shock!

Also my best man and the God Mother of the baby are coming over for an impromptu bbq tonight. I hope you all have a great weekend and I’ll be back sometime later next week!