Day 7 & 8 of my hols

Happy 17th Birthday to my daughter

Birthday Girl

Time passes so quickly and then they are grown up. She wanted money from everyone for her birthday so she can go clothes shopping. Today she's gone with a group of friends out for the day and then on to somewhere for a meal. We shall have a birthday cake and candles when she returns this evening.

DAY 7
COMBE MARTIN

Rain was forecast on the news for this day so we drove north to Combe Martin which is a lovely tiny place and has a lovely bay. We spent the whole day on the beach exploring rock pools and relaxing on the beach reading and having a picnic.

The day turned out to be a lovely hot day and we stayed on the beach until quite late then went and ordered a pizza and ate it in the car before driving back to our hotel. Another lovely cheap day.

DAY 8
WESTON-SUPER-MARE

After checking out of our hotel we went to Weston-Super-Mare for the day. We went to see the Sand Sculpture Exhibition then spent the afternoon on the beach and ate lunch.

The sculptures were really good. I heard a little boy ask a guy who was repairing a sculpture how long they took to do. Some were 5 days up to a week with a team working on each sculpture. They were very impressive. Another very cheap day.

From Weston-Super-Mare we headed up to Worcestershire to stay overnight in a hotel so we would not have a long journey home in the morning. We came in budget with our holiday so no getting into debt on this holiday. Even came home with £50 spending money left. back to saving each month for next years holiday now.

Day 5 & 6 of my hols

Blackpool Sands Beach, no not that Blackpool but a lovely little bay in south Devon. It was raining when we arrived so we sat and had a hot drink whilst the weather was at its worst. The bay has a cafe, shop, loos and changing rooms that's all and there is nothing else around. Only a few people were here when we arrived. The girls and hubby got their wet suits on and were in the sea. Like hubby said, doesn't matter if it's raining your going to get wet anyway.

Hubby and daughter No3

 The rain stopped and the day turned into a gorgeous day. Then the people started to arrive. We had a great day here. We had our picnic on the beach and spent the day in the sea and lazing on the beach till late. Lovely.

Blackpool sands beach, Devon

DAY 6 OF HOLS

Weymouth Carnival & Airshow

Arrived in Weymouth to rain and it rained most of the morning. We did not like Weymouth, too busy and not our cup of tea really. We stayed the day though because we wanted to watch the air show and the display we really wanted to see (The Red Arrows) were not on until 5.00pm.

 Little did we know that a few days after watching their great display one of the pilots, Jon Egging would die in a crash whilst doing a display in Bournemouth. RIP.

The Red Arrows

Home Sweet Home

We're home! Had a really nice holiday which was jam packed and feel like I now need another holiday to just relax. The washers on its second load and there's plenty more to wash. Can see my Sunday being an ironing day. Need to go to the supermarket as the cupboards are bare but shall do that tomorrow as I'm too tired today.

DAY 4 OF MY HOLS

EDEN PROJECT

Did not find any discount vouchers for here so I ordered my tickets on line which saved me 10%. We had a lovely day here and sat in the gardens and ate a picnic. The tropical dome was the best but if you have hair that frizzes in humid conditions like mine go in this dome last! I had a right mess of a hair do when I came out.

A bee

Day 2 & 3 of hols

Not been able to blog whilst on holiday my dongle was not really working that great in the area we were in so I gave up. We are still away but have moved on to a hotel half way home to cut down on the travelling tomorrow. This hotel has free wifi so here I am catching up on a bit of blogging before we eat our evening meal.

Last Saturday we went to the Bristol Balloon Fiesta. We had plenty of food in our cooler box for our lunch so only had to pay the entry parking which was a whopping £10 for the day. We did get our monies worth on the parking as we arrived just after 10am and left around 10pm.

85 balloons were launched in the evening which was great to watch. We have been 3 times to the Balloon Fiesta over the years and we felt it was too busy this year. You could not move along the paths by early evening and the queues for the porta loos were ridiculous.

We ate from a fast food stall which were ridiculously priced and the queues were ridiculously long too. We could have taken some extra food for our evening meal but we thought not having it refrigerated all day could have been a bit dodgy.

Night Glow

We watched the night glow when it became dark which was lovely to watch. They fire up their balloons to the rhythm of the the music then they had a fireworks display. An enjoyable day in some ways but too busy to call it a great day.

DAY 3

On the Sunday we went to Bristol Zoo. We printed off some tickets from moneysupermarket site for 2 for 1 on entry into the zoo which gave us a great saving (can't remember now how much it was in now) We called at the supermarket on the way to the zoo and bought bread, sandwich fillings and drinks. We did this every day and it saved us a fortune. We never spent over £10 and that was for four of us. The prices in these cafes at venues was ridiculous so it saved us a lot of money taking our own food. Parking was only £3.00 for the day.

 

Huge fruit bats, lovely cute faces

Dragonfly sculptures

The zoo has lovely gardens with lots of sculptures and the gardens are well tended. I was pleasantly surprised with the zoo. A lovely day out.

My Girls

After the zoo we headed to our country chain hotel for 5 nights b&b in Devon. Hubby printed off the hotel website 2 vouchers for a free glass of wine if you order a main meal so we took them up on the offer. 

Day 1 of our hols

Day one and it's been a lot of travelling. I did the first stint of driving then we stopped at a park in Birmingham and had planned to have a picnic outside on a rug but the heavens opened just a few minutes before we pulled into the car park. Ended up having our picnic in the car. The rain stopped so we went for a stroll around the park. We then had a coffee in the cafe which was not budgeted for but we indulged. It was not even a very nice coffee. One daughter got a hot chocolate and the other a small bottle of milk shake. All this was at a cost of £7.00! I'm not used to paying for hot drinks in cafes and I do find it a rip off and just think of what I could buy with the money in the supermarket instead.

Hubby took the second part of the driving and we arrived at the chain hotel in Bristol for our stay in a family room for two nights. You should look into family rooms when you ever want a stay in a hotel with kids. They are really good value and when you pay for breakfast the kids eat for free at the chain we used. So four of us are eating breakfast in the morning for £13.24 which works out at £3.31 per person for breakfast. It could have been cheaper but hubby wanted to have a cooked breakfast so it did make it a bit more expensive. If he chose to have a continental breakfast like me we could have all had breakfast for £2.62.

We ate in the Beefeater restaurant in the hotel and came in budget with what we allowed ourselves for the meal. Hubby received a confirmation of our booking through e-mail the day before we left and attached to the e-mail was a token for a free drink for us with our meal. We had £9.80 deducted from the bill for our drinks.

We are now sat in our room having a bottle of wine which we brought with us. We bought the wine in Aldi for £3.99. So much cheaper than buying a bottle in the bar and we can sprawl out  and relax whilst enjoying it.

So a good start. Came in budget with what I estimated we would spend. Tomorrow will be even less because we still have plenty in the cooler box for lunch tomorrow and we shall only be having some food from stalls at the Bristol Balloon fiesta for tea tomorrow.