Merry Christmas to all our Readers

The Devonian Period

It's a Saturday, 20th December 2014, and Jane and I are cleaning around and packing up the cottage we have been staying in in Devon since 3rd October 2014.  When we arrived here outré plan was to stay for two months then continues our Gap Year travels staying with friends in Toronto, New York and Miami before having Christmas with my sister and her family in Orlando, Florida.  How the best laid plans of mice and men can go awry!

Merry Christmas everybody.

In very brief summary, Jane was not only diagnosed with bowel cancer, but thanks to the quick ministrations of the UK National Health Service she was diagnosed, admitted to hospital, operated upon, discharged and, according to the consultant surgeon, cured, within a apace of 8 days!  Now that what I call service.  Any follow up treatments will now happen in Australia to where we will return in early January 2015.

Tomorrow we drive to Jane's sister's house in Bramley to have a relatively quiet Christmas there before finally packing up and returning to the UK, with Jane in particular leaving a little more of herself behind here than she may originally have anticipated.

Ian outside an historic pile.

Our time here has been spent in the lovely village of Blackawton, off the beaten tourist track but a just a few miles from Dartmouth and Totnes and an hour south of Exeter.  The weather here since we arrived has been pretty wet and windy, but interspersed with some glorious sunny days too when we have escaped into the Devon countryside and just enjoyed being here.  Great local pubs and restaurants to snuggle into when its too awful to go outside much.

We have visited all the local National Trust houses including Greenway, Agatha Christies seaside house, Saltram House and may other more historic piles.  Walks along deserted beaches and windswept cliff tops have rounded out the experience, between various trips to hospital.  A trip to London also took in the poppies at the Tower.

The poppies at the Tower of London

Jane is recovering brilliantly now and we look forward to seeing or hearing from you all again the New Year. Have a very merry Christmas and a really wonderful New Year .

We leave you with a selection of photos from our time here in Devon.

View from Darmouth over to Kingswear

Buckland Abbey, house of Sir Francis Drake.

Love and peace to you all

The rood screen in Blackawton Church, with Advent candles.  Beautiful.

Ian and Jane