Marie's Web Log

Today we drove down to Totnes, about 25 miles from here. It's not on the coast, but has a very quaint town centre. We stopped for coffee and a scone as it had suddenly started to rain, as it is apt to do here. (I've never seen so many rainbows.)

Then we scooted down to the coast, to Torquay, which bills itself as the main centre of "The English Riveria." Well, there are palm trees and spectacular cliffs, and many of the hotels and other buildings are painted white or pastel colours, but it's not quite Nice or Cannes. Still, it had something of a genteel feel about it in the off-season. It must be heaving with people in the summer. Another sudden downpour, and Amelia was asleep in the car, so Ian made a foray for fish and chips - very fresh. Yum! We decided to limit ourselves to one meal of fish and chips a month, and one Cornish pasty a week. The pasties are so good, we'd be eating them all the time otherwise.

Amelia is going through a stage of interrupted sleep patterns - perhaps triggered by all the changes lately, or by Ian's increased absence. This is making us tired, especially poor Ian who has a lot of reading to do. Otherwise Amelia is doing very well. Today she said "picture" and what sounded like "boat."

Not much else to report. I've started taking a night class in Mandarin Chinese at the university. Halloween is coming up, and I'm not sure what to do about it. When we lived here before, it didn't exist - there was only Bonfire Night in November, which is entirely different. Now they seem to have both, but Halloween seems to be mainly for parties, rather than going door to door.

One thing the shopkeepers don't seem to understand is that you don't get the Christmas things out until after the Halloween stuff is put away - Christmas decorations started appearing in the shops in September!

More soon...