Monday April 9th 2012 - Staying local

Another grey and cloudy morning arrived; there had been a fair bit of rain overnight and when I ventured out to take the dogs for their first walk of the day it was still drizzling so I didn't go far. It rained on and off for most of the morning and it certainly wasn't nice enough to go anywhere, but by lunchtime it had stopped and was starting to get brighter with odd patches of blue sky showing through the clouds, so I decided to take the dogs for a walk up to the castle and back. 

The castle is a sprawling place set up on a grassy incline at one side of the lane, and with its many towers and turrets looks like something from a fairy tale - it's quite easy to imagine Sleeping Beauty or Cinderella living in there. Unfortunately, while it looks to be fairly complete from the outside it's actually a derelict and dangerous ruin and is inaccessible to the public - a shame really, I'd love to be able to explore the place. I don't know who owns it but if I ever win the lottery to the tune of several million pounds I'll buy it and have it restored - it would make a great country house hotel and would be brilliant for weddings.

It was after I'd got back to the awning and was chatting to some of the others that Scooby told me that there's a path through the woods which goes up above the back of the castle and it's possible to get some good photos from up there. I didn't really feel like going all the way back again so I decided to leave that one for another time - the camp site was such a lovely place that I would certainly make a point of returning before long, so I could seek out that photo opportunity then.

I spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing in the awning then later on decided to make a quick trip along the road to Tesco - I could have walked as it's only a few minutes away from the site but I put the dogs in the van and drove there so I could go down to the beach afterwards. After a brisk walk along the promenade from the car park to just beyond the station and back I returned to the site and made a brew and something to eat then prepared to settle in for the evening. It was just after 9pm when a really high wind and a deluge of rain arrived from nowhere and battered the awning for about twenty minutes, then stopped just as quickly as it started - and my new awning took everything that was thrown at it. Its first time out and it had been well and truly christened!

By the time I took the dogs for their bedtime walk just after 11pm it was fine with a sky so clear you could count every star, but not long after I'd gone to bed the rain returned with a vengeance. Lying there listening to it hammering on the roof of the van I just hoped that it wouldn't be like that the following day - I had to go home, and I wasn't really looking forward to the prospect of packing up in a downpour.