Brilliant procession in Dawlish this evening: colour, noise, action, and excitement all round. Lovely end to the “Dawlish Celebrates Carnival” week.

The local History Society of Babbacombe & St.Marychurch offer guided walks during July, August and September on Tuesday mornings. Meet near the Cliff Railway Cafe at 10.30am and they alternate between the 2 places each week.
I went along to the Babbacombe walk today and really enjoyed it; learnt a great deal, went into All Saints church and other areas I hadn’t seen before. I drove to Babbacombe from Sandays (took about half an hour today) and parked in the large public car park in St.Marychurch; the No.22 bus is another option.
The walk lasted 2 hours with 2 very knowledgeable friendly guides; more talking than walking! Once back at the wonderful Cliff Railway it would have seemed silly not to take a trip down to Oddicombe beach on such a lovely summer’s day! The Cliff Railway is also quite historic of course, having been originally built in 1926 and had various different phases during that time. Spare a few minutes for the information centre at Oddicombe beach which provides lots of background detail and photographs.

Some rain and cooler weather is a bit of a shock for most people this year after the lovely spell we have had. Despite that Torquay was looking beautiful as ever today with loads of potential options for all ages.
We took the opportunity of exploring the museum and were greatly impressed. The Lego exhibition is proving very popular, not to mention the activity tables so the kids (and has to said, some of the adults too!) can get stuck in and build their models.
In addition to all the usual attractions there is a large funfair on the sea front at the moment; lots of colour, noise & action!
It is very easy to get to Torquay from Sandays, just 30 mins on the train.

Torquay Funfair

Torquay looking beautiful

‘Tis the season for summer holidays here at the Warren and with the lovely warm weather so far it has been amazing. Everything is in full swing and this coming Saturday (August 11th) the Dawlish carnival kicks off too with lots of events all week. The big day for the Warren is THURSDAY 16TH when we have our firework evening. This is always a really enjoyable evening with families gathering on the green from early evening, lots of music and picnics, The Boathouse serving drinks as fast as they can(!) and finally a great firework display.
Don’t miss it!

A beautiful warm & sunny evening spent walking to the point and back. With the threat of cooler weather on the way this was a gem. As usual once past about groyne 4 hardly soul to be be seen …. but plenty of birds!

It was such a pleasure to go along to Bridge House in Dawlish last Saturday to enjoy their Centenary celebrations.
The gardens and grounds were looking beautiful as ever despite all the dry weather we have had, and the sound of the wonderful band drifted across the whole area. We enjoyed the stalls, marvelled at the gorgeous cakes produced by Bridge House, and took some very good eats home to Sandays with us.

Hard to imagine the horrors of the First World War on a sunny July afternoon in the beautiful Northernhay Gardens in Exeter.
The current SSAFA exhibition “Lost Lives” certainly brings home the scale of the tragedy of this war. The exhibit has one shrouded figure to represent each of the 1561 days of the war, and each by each figure is a small plaque showing the number lost on that day.

On this weekend 6th to 8th July hundreds of men were lost each year. For example in 1915, 802 men lost their lives between the 6th and 8th July, and in 1918 it was 1081 in the same period.

Each little shrouded figure was stitched by artist Rob Heard.

Another amazing and spectacular display of cars at the Warren this weekend. All thanks to Cofton Holiday park who hold a whole weekend and include in it a “cruise” to Dawlish and back via the Warren.

These cars vary from unusual to completely crazy but it is a very colourful and lively event and was lovely in the sunshine on Saturday with all the flags flying and chrome gleaming!