Valentine's Day

Why are hotel rooms so hot? Even with the door to the balcony open all night it was still like an oven in our room!

I was up early and looking out to see the sun rise ...

A good sign for a topless drive around East Devon today - the car that is!

After breakfast and a stroll along the prom we all met in the car park and were joined by four cars from the local area. Mike and Sharon (our leaders) used to live at Ottery St Mary and so they knew all the best places for us to visit. We began by driving out of Sidmouth through the ford where a friend of theirs was waiting to take our photo and as we made our way to Sidford, the eventer Mary King passed us exercising two of her horses.

From Sidford and Sidbury we made our way to East Hill ...

where we stopped for a look at the fantastic view of the Otter Valley ...

We then turned down towards Tipton St John, driving very narrow lanes and praying that nothing would be coming up the hill!

On through Metcombe ...

and over the main road towards Woodbury Common where we had a coffee break ...

Exmouth was our next destination and we parked at the far end of the prom near the toilets ...


which were locked! It may be winter-time but people still need to pay a visit. Most inconvenient!

So back to the cars, out of Exmouth and on to Otterton Mill where we were booked in for lunch ...

As we had Hamish with us we couldn't eat in the restaurant but they said we could have it at our car ...

It was very yummy too ...

and Hamish wondered if he was going to get any!

After lunch it was just a matter of driving along the coast road back to Sidmouth. We passed a tree with a bird of prey sitting and watching us and then a short distance further there was another one which just took off as I went to photograph it ...

This is a lovely road to approach the town by as you drop down the hill and the view is great ...


We all parked up and returned to the Hotel as the men wanted to watch the rugby!

While we'd been out all day a friend of Sharon's had been decorating the table for our Valentine Dinner and it looked really lovely ...

This was a beautiful light in the Hotel entrance ...

Once again the food was excellent and Hamish was allowed to join us in the Lounge for coffee. We had a raffle, where we won two 'Tales of the Unexpected' DVD's and then the table decorations were drawn for and I was lucky enough to get one ...