Synopsis: Helen was keen to do some family visiting so she planned this short break in England. Combined with cycling, jogging, swimming, sight seeing and one museum, this was a lovely time.
(selection of photos from Flickr photo set – use link above to view album)
Helen’s flight was a day after a major airline crash in the French Alps. Everyone was just a little bit nervous about this flight, but Helen seemed reasonably unperturbed. She IM’d with me over Skype, she at Stuttgart Airport departures, me in Reading Services. I had arrived too early and spent a lot of time watching children devouring doughnuts from the Krispy Kreme doughnut stand, a photo of which I sent to Helen as I waited.
Thankfully Helen’s flight, although delayed by 25 minutes, went well, and I met Helen at Heathrow only a little later than her expected arrival time. Sadly the KFC, a major reason for Helen’s visit, closed at 10pm, and we didn’t arrive until 10:30. Never mind, a sandwich, muffin and some lemonade each in the car, and we were satisfied sufficiently to make our way home, where we arrived in the early hours of Thursday.
I wanted my garden to look nice for Helen, so I’d mowed the lawn and planted up a couple of my pots with heathers and ‘raspberry’ violas. Although the pot planting was done rather last minute, courtesy of the Homebase DIY store, I think they turned out rather well. Helen said my garden was looking pretty, which pleased me.
Helen intended to cycle over to Grandma’s in the morning. She had some stuff to carry with her. I felt it would be useful to carry her things in a bicycle pannier, but Helen didn’t have a bicycle rack on her bike. We set about pilfering sister Laura’s from her bike, and attaching that to Helen’s bike.
Later in the day I met up with Helen outside Riverside Leisure Centre where we parked our bikes. We jogged along the banks of the river and then the canal, as far as Double Locks, which was no mean feat, at least for me, as it had been more than two years since last I had done any jogging. After our run we had a relaxing swim in the leisure centre before heading home.
We stopped for a drink and a muffin on a bench overlooking the River Exe and the old fish market shed. Helen was amazed at how low the river was. I explained that a sluice had been opened on Trew’s Weir to allow the river banks to be inspected and repairs carried out. As we cycled home, we stopped briefly to take a look at the work going on at the site of Trew’s Weir.
On arriving home we drove over to Tesco as I had a small amount of shopping to do. We picked up some pasta and pesto at the same time, which we intended for our supper at Mum’s. Helen also picked up the ingredients for a curry for the following day.
Sister-in-law Christine (Helen’s aunt) joined us for supper.
Helen had asked Grandma if she would like a curry, and she had said she would, so Helen had offered to cook one for her. She set off on her bike from my home with all the necessary ingredients stuffed into her bicycle pannier.
Later Helen and I met up on our bikes down on the quay. I had been reading a book about the old cinemas of Devon, and mentioned to Helen the fact that there is a cinema museum in Exeter, out on the university campus. We thought we’d take a look at it, so off we set across town from the quay.
The Bill Douglas Cinema Museum contains a lot about the preliminary history of the cinema, in that it tells the story of the quest to capture movement through fast rotating reels of card with images on them. An early gadget present 3D images through a handheld device with two lenses. And magic lanterns projecting images with the use of what appeared to be paraffin lamps with lovely, but dangerous looking, little chimneys on top.
Later that evening we met up once again at Mum’s. We did try to see if we could use Helen and Can’s Amazon Prime facility on Mum’s TV, but we couldn’t. Apparently there are country restrictions that don’t permit this to happen. Seems rather a serious limitation to me, but apparently it is the fault of the major media distributors, and not within the power of Amazon to do anything about it.
Helen told me at breakfast that she’d only just seen some emails from me. One had been about Tesco Clubcard and bicycle accessory shop Evans Cycles. Helen said that she’d like a pannier/rucksack of the type that I had bought last year, and found very useful. I said I would set about acquiring the vouchers and making a purchase of such a bag. It was going to be touch-and-go whether this would arrive prior to Helen’s return to Germany (see below for more on that).
Helen expressed a wish to have another email address. I said in reply, that I thought she might find it useful to have a Microsoft account, as this would give her not only another email address, but access to all of Microsoft’s cloud based services. We sat down in the morning and attempted to set this up, but the Microsoft account sign-up process wasn’t working for us, so, rather frustratingly, we had to delay that for now. I reported the fault online. Later that evening I discovered that the problem had been rectified by Microsoft, and I was able to begin the process of defining a new Microsoft account for Helen. I also installed OneNote on my laptop, as it is free. And, as it was becoming a laptop day, I also installed the latest Digital Professional Photo software from Canon, as this now comes with HDR capability, which I was keen to explore.
Helen cycled off to spend time with Grandma later in the morning. I grabbed a quick pasty and baked beans lunch for myself.
I walked into town in the afternoon. I stopped in the library for a short time, and then went shopping, and picked up a second-hand Blu-Ray copy of The Life of Pi which I had been looking for for some time, which I was pleased to find.
After the church service Grandma and Helen were picked up by Helen’s Uncle Peter, who drove them out to the Swan’s Nest, a favourite haunt of theirs, where they had a big family gathering. After lunch they all returned to Grandma’s. Helen was dropped back to my place by her cousins Christopher and Michael.
Helen said she’d like to make a trip to Lydford Gorge. That sounded like a really good idea. We hurriedly made ourselves some crab paste sandwiches, collected a couple of muesli bars and Cadbury’s creme eggs, and filled a flask with some hot squash. I drove over Dartmoor to Tavistock and then cut up to Lydford Gorge, as I knew this would make for an enjoyable drive out.
The weather forecast wasn’t good for today, and it was trying to rain a little when we arrived, but actually we suffered nothing worse than a very light shower. I had it in mind that I’d like to attempt some HDR photography once again, after something of a lay-off. Trouble was, could I remember how to do it? I had to figure out once again how to take a series of bracketed exposure photographs using my camera’s burst mode. Eventually it did come back to me.
This photo really captures just how narrow and steep sided Lydford Gorge is. The River Lyd can be seen gushing through this narrow crevice, under the feet of Helen, poised to get her photo. Angles are difficult and lighting almost impossible. This is where HDR has helped me capture this shot, in that I was able to blend information from the triple exposure-bracketed shots I captured to bring back detail in what otherwise would have been significantly underexposed areas of the photo.
I was using for the first time, the free Digital Photo Professional software, as supplied with my camera, for the HDR processing. A recent update to this software has seen the inclusion of this facility for the first time. First impressions suggest it is good, if not quite on a par with the best in terms of amount of available control over the process. The software got a mention on Captain Kimo’s HDR Software Review, and that’s how I got to hear about it.
This is my favourite shot. The lovely green mosses, soaked in light rain, reclaim the walls of the gorge and give it a rich green carpet. The tree, just left of centre, perched on the corner rock, just makes it for me, standing proud and defiant. This shot took a bit of reworking, as Helen had moved slightly, and of course movement is the bane of HDR photography. A bit of jiggery-pokery in Photoshop Elements soon had that sorted.
Later that evening, at Mum’s, I checked Mum’s email for notice of Tesco’s Clubcard account vouchers, to see if they had been sent to her, and they had. That meant that I had the means to place an order for the pannier/rucksack that Helen was interested in. Whilst Helen was upstairs showering at Mum’s, I placed the order with Evan’s Cycles, not really expecting this to arrive in time for Helen.
More HDR photos from this day at Lydford Gorge, and the non-HDR originals, can be viewed on my Flickr account. There, you will also find four brief videos that I shot at Lydford Gorge.
I spent some time during the morning setting up birthdays in Helen’s new Microsoft Outlook contacts list.
An email from Evan’s Cycles arrived which said that they had processed the order for Helen’s pannier/rucksack, and that it should be with us in 2-3 days. Would it make it in time?
I spoke to Helen again about my desire to do a little HDR photo work with the newly available Digital Professional Photo software from Canon. As Helen had some time to spare before going out for supper, we fired up the software and loaded some of the photos that I’d taken at Lydford Gorge the previous day. We had some fun playing with this, making various adjustments until we got the effect we wanted. We were both really impressed with how well the software worked, especially as it is free. Helen said that she would like to try it when she got home, perhaps when next she cycles up to Adelberg Lake, which she intends to do this spring. Helen will probably have to use a tripod, since her camera does not have AEB functionality, but this should be quite possible.
Later that evening Helen met up with her cousins Christopher and Michael and they had a supper at George’s Meeting House, in town.
The plan had been to do a cycle ride, but that was seemingly too energetic for some of us. Alternative plan number 1 was a trip to Killerton (NT), but a check of their web site on the previous evening announced the fact that their gardens had been closed that day due to the danger from high winds. Alternative plan number 2 was a trip to Lyme Regis. This came off. At the last minute we discovered that my brother Mike had the day off, so he said he’d like to come too. And then his daughter Becky got to hear about our planned trip, and said she’d like to come too. All-in-all, it had become quite a large family outing. Squeezed (Becky is pregnant) into two cars, off we set for Lyme Regis.
Some complications about which car park we were to meet in arose. My brother David thinking, when I had said the ‘high car park’, I meant the far end of Lyme Regis, when I had meant the near end. We finally got that sorted and met up and had a lovely stroll through the gardens of Lyme Regis which were looking gorgeous. The sun even managed to put in the a occasional appearance.
We took a stroll through the lovely Langmoor and Lister Gardens that make a backdrop to the beach. The gardens are full of colour at any time of the year, and I always enjoy a walk along the winding paths. It is a garden with a view, since the harbour, seafront and the Cobb can all be seen from the garden paths.
We dropped down to the seafront and then walked towards the town. Here we sought out the Bell Cliff Restaurant for our lunch, in the hope that we might be accommodated on this busy day in Lyme Regis. The staff were most welcoming, and found us (8 in our group), a couple of tables. We had a lovely lunch, main meals delicious and hot, and puddings to die for.
We could hardly visit Lyme Regis and not go out on the Cobb, so that is precisely what we did after lunch. Mum chose to sit on a bench and wait for us. From the Cobb there is a splendid view to be had, looking across the harbour full of small craft, of Lyme Regis and the gardens that we’d walked through earlier. Further along the high cliffs of the Dorset coast stood tall and colourful.
Mum hadn’t eaten the pasta meal which still sat on a plate in her fridge. I picked up some garlic bread from our local convenience store and we heated this up for our supper. Sarah and Matt joined us later in the evening. During the evening we played a ‘guess who I am’ game, whereby we were all given secretly celebrity identities, and the others had to figure out who we were by questioning each of us in turn.
More HDR photos from this day, and the non-HDR originals, can be viewed on my Flickr account.
It was Helen’s last day in England, and we had free time to ourselves. We thought it would be nice to round off this little holiday as we had begun, with a jog and a swim. I suggested we take a trip down to the coast for a bit of a change of scenery. At first I had in mind Dawlish or Teignmouth, but jogging near Dawlish probably wouldn’t have been ideal, and Teignmouth doesn’t have an indoor pool. Then I remembered that Torquay had a leisure centre perfect for a swim, would provide good jogging space along the seafront, and best of all, it has a KFC. Having missed out on a KFC on Helen’s arrival (as explained above), this was the perfect opportunity to remedy this tragic circumstance.
My jogging was a little improved on last time, possibly in part due to having shaken off my cold, but also because I was that little bit more run-fit. It was nice to have a change of scenery for our running. As we ran along Goodrington seafront I heard a whistle which could only have come from a steam train, and it wasn’t long before it was within sight, chug-chugging along, with everyone waving from the train. Helen waved for me, as I needed to conserve my energy if I was going to make it back to our car. You can see our run route on Helen’s Runtastic pages, at Helen and Daddy’s Run.
Coming back from Torquay we pulled into Tesco to allow Helen to do her shopping for goodies to take back with her to Germany. She had quite a large order. We also selected some cold snack goodies for our supper, and picked up some beer and cider to go with it.
We had supper back at Mum’s. Then, later in the evening, we put on our first film of the holiday to watch, a new adaptation of Jane Eyre. A lovely story, and beautifully acted, although certain aspects of the story seemed to have evaded the director. Still, it was an enjoyable and relaxing way to spend Helen’s last evening in England. And of course there was the occasional Cadbury’s creme egg to go with it.
I dropped Helen over to the Honiton Road coach pick up point, where Helen’s bus arrived right on time.
Sadly, this was the end of another lovely holiday. But I’m sure there will be more to come.
P.S. – Well, what do you know Helen?
I had thought that I had polished this plant off whilst removing a plant close by over the winter time. But hey, no, up it pops. This is a lovely peony, so I'm looking forward to some beautiful red flowers a little later in the year.
And how do you like the buttercups? Some say they’re weeds, but I think they add a little early colour to my garden, so I always leave a few in place.
Addendum: now in flower (see: ‘WP_20150512_09_14_45_Pro - my peony’), and looking lovely!
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