My Average Holidays

August has not been great. My car developed a random fault that only lasted a day and hasn’t come back. Thanks to Warmington’s Garage for giving us a loan car for the weekend, not making anything up and not charging us. I can’t recommend them enough. I found out I got arthritis in my right foot, worse case they could cut a toe off… but probably won’t. I did get the worst case of sciatica I’ve had in my life and had to spend over a week “sleeping” in a chair. And the council are trying to change the planning for turning what was a library into a gym and are now placing solar panels on the roof and 3 industrial air pumps pointed in our direction. August has not been a positive for my mood… but it’s not all bad.

We did manage to have a family day out to the North Devon Show. I’ve lived in Devon, specifically North Devon for a quarter of a century (sounds a very long time when you say it like that) and I’ve never been. Lyn and the children went not long after we moved here. So again nothing recent. She did say it was now much smaller than when she last went. The main pull, at least for Lyn and Victoria, was that they wanted to see the animals. So on that metric a win!

So will I be going back to the North Devon Show next year? No, no I won’t. It was definitely not my thing, although I did win the family laser clay pigeon shooting match much to Victoria’s disgust. It is definitely something for the farming community or maybe a farm groupie. If you are thinking of going next year I would recommend taking a picnic because the food stalls were an absolute ripoff.

Lyn and I were discussing what future things we might do in the next few months as we were flicking through various local events and I said ‘How about Marcel Lucont the multi award deserving French comedian’. I love the ‘award deserving’ line and may steal it. Lyn said it wasn’t really her thing (true) but when I asked her what was her thing she didn’t know. At the North Devon show she decided that ‘animals’ are her thing. Keep that in mind for later in the year as it will show why I’m a top husband.

We went out for a couple of meals one at Mill Street Brassiere as usual and another at Merchants which is attached the Royal Hotel across the river. I’m glad to say they have followed my feedback from a few years ago and are now concentrating on quality rather than quantity. Lyn had a roast dinner so she was more than happy. They’re apparently revamping the menu soon so we’ll definitely go back.

We had a meeting with a couple of our local councillors about the air pumps and solar panels that Lyn arranged. She was quite chuffed that a few of the local residents turned up. Despite being the strong ‘community’ people that we are (I hope you can sense the sarcasm dripping off that) we’re not members of the neighbourhood WhatsApp group. However our neighbour is, so put the word out. I think nothing will change. It’s a council project of the wrong type in the wrong place but for anything to change they would have to admit it and when has any politician ever done that. So they’ll press on and waste millions in public money.

Two good bits of family news. My daughter Victoria started her new job/career as a nurse. Well done Tiggs, very proud of you. Remember it’s a stepping stone onto better things i.e. Australia (here’s a link ). And Mary (my mother-in-law) has had her other knee replaced and is making a recovery that’s probably better than people half her age and I mean that literally (she’s 84). To celebrate that and the completion of her garden revamp we had a family takeaway on what turned out to be the last rain free day of summer.

That’s it for August, the Gallery theme this month is ‘God(s) House. I was thinking of not writing anything but that’s a slippery slope. What with one thing and another we’ve not been able to do a lot. Not that we ever do in August because the tourist season is in full swing. It has meant I could do a little bit of planning so we’ve booked our first holiday of 2026 (Italian lakes) and October is going to be epic!