Wednesday 17th, Drive to Torquay.

• We drove to Torquay via Brean
• Arrived at the Somerville B&B.
• Visited Auntie Jean and Uncle Frank.
• Drinks at ‘The Hole in the Wall’ followed by Italian for dinner.

Thursday 18th, Helping Out, relaxing a little!

• Visited Jean and Frank, bought a new iPhone 7 for Jean and set it up.
• Dinner at Cary Arms.

Friday 19th: Steam train, ferry ride, and more castles.

• Caught a steam train to Dartmouth.
• Small ferry to Dartmouth Ferry and checked out the Castle.
• I steered the boat back (for a minute) to Dartmouth from the castle.
• Cream tea at around 1pm at the Sloping Deck restaurant.
• Steam train and bus back to Torquay.
• Dinner at Hanbury’s Famous Fish and Seafood, followed by a stroll along the cliff.

Off we set again, early in the morning, picking up our clean washed clothes before heading out. Our first stop Brean, was a little disappointing, but that was more the weather’s fault! It was a long 1.30hr drive there from Bath. We stopped in to have coffee and toasted sandwiches for lunch. Taking a photo of the miserable looking beach. There were quite a significant number of holiday homes there. Clearly in summer it must be quite busy.

From there we drove straight to to Torquay, taking about 2 hours. We arrived at the hotel a little early and were not able to check in as Mum and Dad were already there, talking to the owners!

Once in and settled into our amazing room, we chauffeured Mum and Dad to Jean and Frank’s and said our hellos! It was really great to see them again and for Bel to properly meet both of them.

After such a long day we had a lovely dinner at Amici just down the road from the Hotel.  Dad and I ended up drinking the nice little bottles of Scotch I had bought in Guildford earlier in our trip and I ended up with a nice hangover the next day.

Thursday was spent mostly helping Mum and Dad help Jean. Her iphone was faulty, so we went to Vodafone and bought a new one for her, setting it up again. We did try to restore a backup of her old phone however it was damaged and backups wouldn’t work. Nonetheless, we were able to restore all her contacts, photos etc just by logging Jean in with her AppleID.

We had dinner that night at the Cary Arms Restaurant which had beautiful food and views of the bay.

On our last day with my parents we did some more ‘touristy’ things. We caught the steam train down to Kingswear then the short ferry to Dartmouth. There is something special about steam trains and we enjoyed the trip. We explored the town together and took a small ferry (read: dingy) to the Castle guarding the river mouth. On the return trip I had the privilege of manning the tiller for a moment while our ferryman collected the fares.

We had a lovely cream tea at a Tudor built house called the Sloping Deck. The floor was quite literally sloping.

We finished the afternoon with a short ferry across the river, back on the train and a bus back to the hotel. For dinner on our last night we went to Hanbury’s Famous Fish and Seafood, recommended to us by Peter, the proprietor of the Somerville B&B. We had a great stay in the B&B, Peter and his wife are fantastic hosts. Our bed was extremely comfortable, the internet was fast and we really enjoyed having a TV that pops out of the end of the bed. I put it to good use with our chromecast and caught up on some of our shows. All in all, a very happy and relaxed stay.

Next stop Naples!