Adventures in Devon: Teignmouth

Remember when I visited Teignmouth way back during the cold and rainy winter? Well I vowed then to come back in the summer, and when I awoke bright and early on an equally bright Thursday morning, I could think of nothing better to do. So I woke up my ever-patient companion (to his delight) and off we set to the train station. Thirty minutes later, and we were welcomed to a lovely little seaside town on the best kind of seaside day.

Rory has an aversion to sand and the tide was way in anyway, so we sunbathed for a while at The Den, which is basically a park just across the road from the seafront.

Then it was time for one of my favourite summertime activities, mini golf. I only ever actually play this about once a year and in the long, long time between each trip I always convince myself I am the Tiger Woods of minigolf, so it’s always a surprise to me when I am horrendously, unbelievably bad. By about hole 7 we’d given up counting how many tries it took me to get the ball in…

After a break for a 99 (which cost £2! what?!) we decided it was high time we actually went to the beach, which had reappeared now the tide had gone out a little.

We had a little paddle before doing a spot more sunbathing, and eventually caught the train home feeling hot, happy, and more than a little sunburnt, for an evening of Dominos pizza and watching England crash and burn their way out of the World Cup. I’m glad I finally got to see Teignmouth in the sunshine (although have to say I still prefer Exmouth beach!) – and over the last few days I’ve been doing lots more getting out and about in this gorgeous weather, so stay tuned for more Devon adventures!

(PS – excuse me while I play around with my layout! I’ve got the summer itch and just feel it’s time for a new look…)

A Very Devon Thursday

I woke up yesterday morning to absolutely gorgeous blue skies and immediately committed myself to taking a break from uni work / anything stressful. When I received a text 10 minutes later from Mae saying something very similar, I jumped at the chance to take a morning excursion out and we hopped straight in the car to go exploring.

We figured it was best to stay away from poor, storm-ravaged Dawlish, and so headed on through it to Teignmouth, which I have never visited before. It’s full of the kind of great tacky souvenir shops that I adore so obviously that was our first port of call. I’ve never seen flavoured rock before but they had loads of different kinds!

Next was a brief trip to the seafront, where the sea was looking perfectly calm – for once.

No, I don’t know what I was doing with my legs in this picture either…

Unfortunately, those blue skies didn’t last too long and before we knew it it was raining again. With our hearts set on cream tea, we ducked into a nearby restaurant/tea room and opted for some adventurous-sounding teas: blackcurrant, ginseng & vanilla for Mae, and cranberry-elderflower for me. I couldn’t really taste any elderflower but the colour was a gorgeous pink!

But obviously the main attraction is the scones. Now I am not a cream or butter fan at all so I can’t weigh in on the great cream/jam debate, but these scones were delicious and still warm. They were so good I may have eaten two, and not only that…I may have specially requested my second. What was that I was saying about cutting down on the bad stuff?

I didn’t take any pictures of the restaurant/cafe/tearoom, but it was hilariously old fashioned and Mae and I felt like we’d travelled back to the 70s. We had to head back pretty much immediately after (and it was raining, again), but we had such a lovely morning playing around in our fave Devon countryside and we have planned many more fun adventures so keep your eyes out!