Greencliff

Last Christmas Eve we tried to come here for a walk with the children. Eleven months later I finally made it. I parked in Abbotsham as before, and the dog and I set off down the same path as before. This time, not being in a rush or having children to worry about, we just kept walking. There are sign posts all along the route to Greencliff, so it is pretty much impossible to miss.

Once you get off the road and onto public footpaths through the countryside it's lovely. There are boardwalks to start with, but after that it got VERY muddy. I was glad I had my new pinky spotty wellies on. But the views, once you get to the coast, are stunning and well worth the walk. The only slightly negative thing I have to report is that the signpost back to Abbotsham village is missing. I had to guess based on the map I'd printed from the internet before I left home. If I'd got it wrong I would have ended up in Westward Ho!

The whole circular route took me 1hour and 10minutes. The dog would have gone round again, but I was knackered by then, and if she'd have walked through all that mud again she'd have been completely brown instead of only partially brown.

Barnstaple Rugby Club Fireworks

Firstly, I must appologise for not posting earlier. I have been a bit distracted by things at work.

Now, let me tell you about the Barnstaple Rugby Club Fireworks event. It has changed somewhat in recent years. It's been a while since I've been able to go and I wanted to make an effort to go is year, as its been good in previous years and also there was a danger that next year it would not be able to go ahead without enough support so I wanted to do my bit. In previous years it has been run to raise money for charity, but the costs of putting on the event now mean that they are really only doing it as a community event, there is no way they can make a profit. Tickets are £3 adult, £2.50 child, or £10 for a family.

Last time we went there were a few people selling those glow-in-the-dark toys at the entrance to the Rugby Club ground and that was it. This year there was a whole raft of people, from pancake sellers to people running trampoline things for children to go on, and everything you can imagine in between. I wonder how much of their money went to the Rugby Club? We walked past and ignored them all. I went to watch fireworks, I don't want my children to nag me out of more of my money!

We got into the ground proper and staked our claim to a good-ish spot (all the really good ones having been taken by people prepared to wait in the cold much longer than we were). 7.00 came and went. We waited. We listened to the music being piped through the tanoy system. The fireworks eventually started and the music stopped! What was the point of that? Again, I have to refer to previous years and say that they used to have the firework display to music and it was MUCH better. The fireworks were good, well worth the ticket price, but a little bit of rousing classic music to accompany them would have made it that little bit more atmospheric.

So come on organisers, I find I can't recommend your event as much as I was hoping to be able to, get your act together for next year please! Learn something from the Torrington Calvaliers, (see earlier post), they had it spot on.