Dartmouth

So I've come away for a short break to see a dear friend who lives in Newton Abbot, Devon. 

We have known each other for about 10 years I think and met through our love of knitting as we both travelled solo to Yarndale when it first opened and met up with fellow solo travellers in the evening for a meal.

Since then we have had several joint trips back to the show and over the past couple of years I've had the pleasure of being able to come and stay at her beautiful flat.

We always love planning in advance what we are going to do and this trip was no different, other than the fact on the Friday we were due to go to a seaside town and have fish and chips, but it took me 4.5 hours to get to her, so she suggested we stay put and have them at home instead! A wise move.

Last week we had temperatures in the 30's which made it unbearable, but the gods where looking after us and it cooled significantly and is much more manageable low 20's now.

So for our first day out we were initially going to drive to Dartmouth, but the Rosy suggested why not get the train and foot ferry. We'll I jumped at the chance, as the train was a steam train!!

You depart from Paighton and the train journey is about 20 glorious minutes. I do so love train travel, you can just sit and watch the world go by.

I just love these stylised billboards.

Loved the name of this train which was made in Swindon in 1951.

This wasn't the train that pulled us but it was a beaut.

The smell, the whistle and the sound of steam trains just can't be beaten.

Almost everywhere I go I have a knitting project I can do a few rounds on.  This was no exception.

Having had such a hard precious 12 months of not being able to travel and with the pandemic still with us and travel being so much more limited, the British tourist industry is very popular!

In England the rules on wearing compulsory face coverings has been lifted, but for me and Rosy we still wanted to safe when indoors or crowded spaces. (The above picture was taken before many people borded the train and they had done seating opposite each other which was good).

I have been to Dartmouth many years ago as I did a river trip up to the famous Agatha Christie home Greenaway which overlooks the river, a stunning property worth an absolute fortune I'm sure!

The river is buzzing with activity, so many yachts, kayak, paddle boarding.   I just loved the so houses too, wow they are so colourful and different. So different from the area I live, with modern day housing estates you could be anywhere in the country and they look the same!

We had a mooch around the town and sat in the park for our lunch which we got from the local bakery. Wow I had a roast chicken roll in a delicious roll, followed by a Devon apple cake which was so moist!

I loved this windowsill isn't it just so colourful and the above picture was the view they had from their window, not bad ah!

We came across a lovely craft shop too which had lots of lovely crotchet and sewing options.

Then we found a perfect seat to sit and watch the world go by as we had an hour before our train back.

The knitting came out. I'm working on a lace cardi I've designed and Rosy is making a beautiful shawl.

We watched families doing crab fishing, oh my so so many crabs and some so big.

I'll leave you with my favourite picture which reminds me of Shetland (not that I've had the privilege to go yet) but I see the image of the iconic cottage that Jim Perez lives in based on the Shetland books by Anne Cleeves.