We are into our last week at Sandays before we close for Christmas and most of January; you can see the details on our Enquiry page.

There are many lovely festive events to chose from this weekend all around the local area.
It is hard though to beat a Christmas Tree Festival in the setting of a beautiful old church, and this we have just down the road in Dawlish at St.Gregory’s over this weekend. Lovingly decorated by many local groups aiming to inspire you in all sorts of ways; go and take a peek.

This is the time of year for Christmas light switch-ons and many in the south west have become festival days with lantern parades and special illuminations, sometimes fireworks. There was an event in Truro this week and there will be one in Brixham this weekend.
Today we took ourselves from Sandays to Plymouth “Illuminate” in the Royal William Yard for a wonderful evening. This is a marvellous setting for an event such as this with plenty of space for people to mill around or just stand and watch the stories unfolding on the buildings. Some of the features are interactive, so created by people joining in.
All very well organised with plenty of options for food & drink.
Illuminate continues for the next 3 evenings and is definitely worth a visit.

Beautiful colours around here at the moment. After some strong winds the ground has a multi-coloured carpet, just stunning.

Happy Halloween from Sandays!

It’s a busy week around here, still half term for many people. Cold frosty mornings and sunny days so far.

More Halloween happenings than you could shake a broomstick at throughout the Teignbridge area and beyond. Have fun!

Happy Halloween

Halloween at Sandays

Sometimes the unplanned half term events are the best of all: there is a new little family of 4 cygnets on the brook in Dawlish. Very little and fluffy as I passed by today and being harassed by other swans. Fingers crossed for them and the adults, our black swans are such a lovely sight, we do enjoy seeing them.

Especially for half-term!

The wonderful South Devon Railway is offering half price tickets for all this weekend: Saturday 27th and Sunday 28th October. 

Big free car park at Buckfastleigh, ride the steam train to Totnes and back.

The same car park serves the Buckfast Butterfly & Otter Sanctury if there is time to spare (separate entrance charges apply).

We visited Hannahs at Seale Hayne today; always one of our favourite places. The Gallery is currently home to 2 exhibitions: Devon Remembers and Healing of the Mind. 

Devon Remembers is a tribute to those lost from the South West during WW1, an astonishing carpet of over 33,000 hand made poppies, each one being a person lost.

Healing of the Mind is about lives being saved and transformed in an exhibition commemorating the centenary of the opening of the Seale-Hayne Military hospital and the remarkable, and often controversial work of Arthur Hurst. More than 300 soldiers were treated at Seale-Hayne with the most remarkable results. The accounts of some of these cases are very moving.

Would recommend at trip to Hannahs to catch these exhibitions and check out their website for other interesting stuff.

Devon Remembers

Devon Remembers

This most iconic of locomotives is scheduled to be coming through Devon on 4th (Taunton to Plymouth), 6th (Plymouth to Penzance) and 8th (Plymouth to Exeter) October. Ask at the local stations for details/timings. 

A chance drink at the Pavillions bar in Teignmouth last weekend provided a front row seat for a Starling spectacular as the sun went down! Gradually the roof tops and wires around were filling up with starlings that would suddenly take off and fill the sky and then settle back again. As the sky turned pink the chattering and activity increased until, as if having received a signal, they all disappeared under the pier. It really was a wonderful thing to witness.