bank holiday at the beach
bank holidays are not called bank holidays here. it’s a bit like saying ‘butcher holiday or chimney sweep holiday’. it means nothing to them. but that’s still what it is.
it’s also a long weekend, i’ll grant you that
holidays
te puke – kiwi capital of new zealand
we went to a kiwi farm and learnt more than we thought possible about kiwi fruits.
mount maunganui
day 1 of our holiday last week
the seagulls love butlins
here’s the view from our kitchen window at butlins. it’s not luxury accommodation, but then we didn’t come here to sit in the chalet (although i’ve been doing a fair bit of that). anyway, we’re having a jolly good time thanks for asking. wish you were here.
tourist information
jane’s aunt and uncle kindly hospitality-ised us at their house for a few days on the way up to the highlands, and again on the way back. h’auntie barb set up a mini-tourist information facility for us which was nice.
holiday amusements
on the first morning of our holiday in devon i bought a play station 1 with a few games for five pounds. it proved to be good entertainment in the evenings, and the children quickly organised themselves to turn taking.
we’re back
we’ve been in devon for the last week, but i preloaded lots of funkypancake goodness so hopefully you won’t have missed me – although i did stuff up by forgetting that May had 31 days not 30 – but i managed to man handle the server remotely so you might not have noticed.
plenty of photos to follow. here was our holiday house. it was called Columbia in Ashcolme (near Teignmouth / Dawlish) and was mostly good. here is a list of things which weren’t good about it.
The bar was closed our week too, although we didn’t put this on the list
funky holiday flat living room
we stayed at the hurst dene guest house
butlins with my mother in law
if you’ve noticed funkypancake has been a little less interactive this week, it’s because i’ve been at Butlins. with jane’s mum (hello if she’s reading!). and it was jolly good. although the chalet left quite a bit to be desired. cleaning mainly.
going to butlins with your mother in law is a traditional british thing. it wasn’t just me and her. it was jane and the girls and some other families too.
sedgeford hall
the great thing about t’internet is that people can search for things.
for example, someone might be going on holiday to the same place we stayed and want to know whether there were enough coat hooks or what colour the sitting room carpet was.
so. if you are planning on going to stay in the library at sedgeford hall near hunstanton and want to know more then let me know ! It was very good.
here’s the swimming pool:
and here’s the lounge (can you see why they call it the library ?)
road trips (for the elderly)
when we usually end up sharing our holiday days out with bus loads of european school kids. on one particualr holiday jane and i were bumped in to the same class of french school kids for three days running.
our recent holiday in norfolk was punctuated by coach loads of elderly people. these coaches unload their contents next to the tea room in whatever attraction we’d be visiting. they would queue up, drink their tea and cake, then get back on their bus to be transported off to another tea shop.
it sounded ideal. and all the people were really nice.
here are bunch of olds queuing at a tea shop, viewed from up a windmill.
click for big
king of the castle
this is one of my favourite pictures from our recent holiday.
click for big
the long journey continued
here is a rare sign of family togetherness on the journey. about half way in esther moved up front and i was relegated to the back with kezia. this worked much better and reduced my moanyness greatly.
once we got to cumbria the scenery started to pick up:
