Damp Devon

Each year for some seven or eight years, husband and I have taken two or three grandchildren youth hostelling.  This year we aimed to do it again, but this time two parents came with us, and my daughter. This year the company made up for the rainy weather.
We visited SS Great Britain in Bristol on the way down there, the most fascinating old ship I've been on.  I've been on older ships (in Stockholm and in Portsmouth) but this one related to relatives that I could imagine in the 19th century who might have travelled to Australia on such a ship. Its engineering is amazing.  How did they work out the maths to create those structures?  They must have applied calculus and had the machinery to create the propellor and the bows.
On the Monday,  thought we'd hide from the rain by investigating the hidden underground passages of Exeter.  Unfortunately too many others had had the same idea and it was fully booked.  So we paddled around,saw the outside of the cathedral, picked some blackberries at the park and ride car park and went to see my revered first mother-in-law.
Later in the week some of us walked up Dunkery Beacon, and we visited Dunster Mill and went round  Dunster Castle, which was probably the most exciting event of the break - husband left his brolly there.  Yes we needed umbrellas all week.

Youth hostelling again

Youth hostelling provides such social fun: the grand children, the other guests, the people running the youth hostel, and the kitten that the people running the youth hostel have.  This year, we went to Cornwall, to Boswinger, hiring a family room as usual, but for a day longer than usual because it takes so long to get there.
Getting there, we went via Devon, and popped in to eat our picnic lunch at my MiL's, where the children enjoyed playing her square piano, the one that used to be in the Green Room at the Old Vic, and sounds great when you play Bach on it.
Then we had three days to explore:

• the Lost Gardens of Heligan
• the beach at Porthcurnick, where the grandchildren built such a splendid sandcastle that the tide took six minutes to wreck it.
• a day at the Eden Project

Visual memories

We spent a few days last week with three grandchildren at the Cheddar Youth Hostel here.   Previous years we've stayed at Totland Bay on the Isle of Wight, Wilderthorpe Manor and Pembrokeshire, Wales.

I checked back in this blog to find at the Isle of Wight http://ejh2.blogspot.co.uk/2009/04/isle-of-wight-youth-hostel.html youth hostel grand daughter #1 lost her tooth and we needed to call the tooth fairy.  This time her little sister, only five, had a wobbly tooth, but nothing was lost.

The blog reminds that husband had planned the trip telling me we were going but omitting to mention that we were staying in a youth hostel with grandchildren.  Now I might know better and be less surprised.

In August 2009 we went to Shropshire here and I took photos, photos of the birds nesting in the youth hostel, and photos of the gliding site we visited.  Last year at Pembrokeshire, when I had a great time surfing I didn't blog, and husband didn't get much in the way of photos of the surfing.  I had an unforgettable time surfing, yet I remember little of the hostel.  I remember going round a castle and someone falling and not being able to get down a narrow staircase so a helicopter came to rescue her.  I took photos but didn't blog the holiday.  A blog helps me retrieve these memories.  This trip I would have taken my camera but it is being mended.  The visual memories are

• walking over the hill top the first morning, and sheltering under trees with another family under the next trees waiting for the rain to stop;
• watching rain coming in over Cheddar reservoir and we are already pretty wet, and hoping the others will hurry up but we're about to become thoroughly drenched. 
• the high roof of the Cheddar cave
• the huge cliffs of the gorge
• the soft sleeping face of granddaughter #4 on her bunk in the morning

Youth hostelling

We're off youth hostelling again with the two eldest grandchildren. We leave our Austrian visitors in the charge of daughter.

Wilderhope Manor is our destination, a National Trust property. But the trip to get there is itself interesting. We headed for Ironbridge and visited a couple of its museums: Engenuity and the Museum of Iron. Engenuity enticed the children with its many activities, water & potential or kinetic energy, damming fords and opening dams, splashing the water to encourage it to flow, electrical energy to power a radio, a light, a vacuum cleaner, a video camera and TV or a pair of flying pigs - they took little energy. In the Iron Museum we explored history of cast iron and had a cup of tea.

The hostel was somewhat difficult to find - we had the address and a map but not directions so by heading off in the wrong direction on the right road a couple of times, we had to triangulate in on it. But arrived too late to order supper. See similar situation in Ireland a couple of weeks ago. We toddled off down the road to the local pub again.

The hostel is this amazing Elizabethan building with stone fireplaces, fancy ceilings marked with 'S' for the Smallman family who lived here and two oak spiral staircases, one for the servants and one slightly wider one for the family. The children have great times haring up and down the different staircases, romping along the corridors, chasing each other, playing hide and seek.

We share a four bunk attic room with our own bathroom. Breakfast in the large stone flagged dining hall. The upper floors are boarded, which is why we can hear the children thumping along the corridors and through the dormitories. The entrance hall is embellished with swallows' nests - one still occupied in the evening by "teenage" swallows, well able to fly, but squawk loudly when their parents arrive.

Sunday in Ireland

Still away celebrating the fortieth wedding anniversary of old university friends (OHFs). After a long late evening that included a Spanish buffet, a quiz on our hosts' friends' activities,

• (who has an o-gauge in his garden?
• who has a dog called Ceviz?
• who're vegetarians?)

and a sing song round the campfire, we repaired to our various dormitories and bunks. People worried about waking each other in the night.

"Do you snore?"
"I have to get up in the night - I'm sorry."
"I always have to get up in the night."

We allayed each others' fears and set to sleep. At 3.30 in the morning, my new friend in the top bunk quietly crept down her ladder, and..

kicked over the bedside stool of my friend sleeping in the next bunk. Over went her alarm clock, book and contact lenses. On went someone's torch. Muttered apologies all round, giggles from some of us. Since we were awake, four out of the six of us then got up and went to loo. One of the loos didn't lock very well - there was a man in it. Given that we're all old enough to be celebrating decades of marriage, you might not have expected this much activity in the wee small hours. Or perhaps it was the wee bit that was the problem.

Morning dawned. We anticipated a long or a short walk. Some stalwarts set off to trek to the top of Powercourt Waterfalls. Others (like me) just reconnoitred the river, leaving some including the children for a nice swim and a splash. It was a lovely spot so not surprising that it was rumoured that some of us women had been skinny dipping that that morning. I came back to the hostel and sat in the sun, listening to interesting chat, looking over the hills, idly watching a helicopter.

The swimmers returned with our hostess. Sadly, our hostess's mobile phone rang with bad news. Three of the stalwarts had gone even further ahead of the main party and one had collapsed with a suspect heart attack. The helicopter had picked the invalid and her husband up, and taken them to hospital. The third was walking back on her own.

Fortunately, an hour later we heard from the husband in the hospital that heart attack victim was alive and well, and having tests. We were able to take the bus back to the station in peace. It had been a lovely weekend.

What was lovely?

• The Saturday afternoon weather was sunny, not rainy like during the morning walk.
• The meal was delicious.
• OHFs' friends were as lovely, as interesting and as bright people as our OHFs, people you'd like to get to know better.
• The honeymoon suite was lovely - comfortable, and fun.
• The hostel was clean and functional.
• The green countryside was fascinating, smelt and looked beautiful.
• The Irish transport (DART, taxis, buses) worked and went on time.

Saturday in Ireland

Am I tired!

Husband suggested we take a stroll to Powerscourt, this ancient Irish house, with wonderful gardens. We'd need to walk back and catch the bus - not far. But he thought we should walk round the back way and be there quicker.

"By coffee time"

he promised me.

"That's eleven o'clock?"

I checked. Yes, fine.

At ten o'clock we leave, down narrow lanes with high hedges. I can't see a thing. We're not there by eleven, and then he starts to read his map. We're not there by twelve. We're not there by one o'clock. We arrive around 1.15, and I don't get to sit down until 1.30. We must have walked nine miles. And husband's in the doghouse again.

We lunched, then sat around a bit - my legs being too tired to explore the gardens, enjoyed a cup of tea on the terrace, then got a taxi back to the hostel, where all the other guests were beginning to congregate, ready for the party - our friends' fortieth wedding anniversary.

Now we are allocated bunk beds in dormitories. There are seventy guests, so I assume lots of us are in dormitories. I'm in the girls dormitory and our husbands are in the boys dormitory next door. I bag a bed and start to make it up when two jolly women arrive. I've already met them in the hall, greeting long friends. But now I see them together I realise they look very much the same.

"We're twins."

I spend the next few hours meeting friends of our friends, memorising names, comparing how we know know them. I videoing meeting and then the speeches, and the song that two of the granddaughters sing. I'll put them all on a CD as a memento for friends.

Champagne drunk and toasts made we repair for the meal - a Spanish buffet

Ireland - youth hostel

We're in Ireland, some miles from Bray in a youth hostel, here to celebrate the 40th wedding anniversary of some university friends. Tonight we're berthed in the "honeymoon" suite. May be it's called that for its splendidly large double bed - the sort that comes with two single mattresses that fit onto one slotted wooden frame, like you get in Germany. It promises to be very comfortable. But even more impressive is the view. (Wait for photo - not allowed uploading from hostel). Lying on the bed, I look out across rolling green hills, pine trees and deciduous, dells, dales a farm house and a pair of serious walkers with big back packs.

But I'm hungry! We left home before eleven, so well after breakfast, drove to the airport where we ate our packed sandwiches, tomatoes and apples while waiting to board. The airport was the usual unpleasant experience, bombarded with warnings about liquids having to be in plastic bags, and anecdotes from fellow travellers on being allowed only one bag and squashing a handbag into your on board bag. If they hadn't killed themselves in the tower, I could thump those terrorists that have caused all this hassle round the world. And I guess so would everyone else in that queue.

We ate nothing on the plane, landed and caught a city bus straight into Dublin.

On the city bus, husband took suitcase upstairs. So we're looking out from the top deck, when he suddenly decided it was our stop, hurled himself and suitcase at the stairs just as the bus jolted away. Husband and suitcase tumbled down stairs, he splitting his nose open as his head hit the wall at the bottom. The whole incident made a whopping big noise and upset everybody on both desks. The driver was most concerned - bless her - it wasn't her fault. But at least it meant the bus stopped again for us to get off at the station.

At the station, we don't break for tea, nor even for plasters, but jump onto the DART (rapid transit) to Bray. At Bray I drag behind him, pointing out the tea stall as we're leaving the station but he says we'll look outside. Then he looks for a bus, not for tea. Not for plasters - you should see his bloody nose - wait for the photo. We catch the bus. I put the suitcase on the luggage rack and we stay downstairs.

At the end of the bus line, we have to walk for 40 minutes along a peaceful and increasingly narrow country lane. It's a nice walk apart from the din that his suitcase wheels make on the tarmac. By six o'clock we arrive at the hostel. The hostel doesn't do food.

Bah! Husband's in the doghouse.

He's arranging a taxi now, to take us back the seven miles to the nearest pub for supper. Good.

Isle of Wight Youth Hostel

We're at this lovely Victorian place. I love the big rooms, the bare polished floor boards, the way people talk to you, are happy that you've got children. The first I noticed of this little girl was her feet flying past the window as she was practising her cartwheels. Granddaughter and little girl made friends being in same year at school.

Youth hostels have changed. They provide sheets for your bed so you don't have to take your sleeping bag like you used to. This one offers an evening meal and breakfast, English or continental. Continental is affordable and filling: muesli, cereal, jam, butter, toast, white rolls, croissant, pain au chocolat, cheese, ham, yoghurt, boiled egg. No-one has asked me to sweep the floor, but you do have to clear your washing up, and you have clear your place, sort your cutlery and crockery into piles, and scrape your plates.

This hostel has a TV room and a quiet room with lots of books and magazines, and sofas with enough good light to read by. It's peaceful with deep blue on the wall and sofa covers, brightened by deep red cushions. But don't bring in alcohol. Not allowed.