Long Weekend

I had a great birthday weekend and a big thank you to all those who took advantage of my special offers. Looks like the money will be going towards a new washing machine as I think ours is broken. It's been playing up for last 2-3 months and already had it fixed once & it'll cost too much to get it fixed properly. It's a Hotpoint washing machine and it's just over 2.5 years old. I'm not impressed! Should probably be calling Hotpoint to complain but not sure it'll do any good and I'm so busy I don't think I can be bothered.

My birthday co-incided with a long weekend here. I had work to do, a lot of work to do but I desperately wanted some days off. So I took Saturday and Sunday off and worked Monday morning while Simon & Em went sailing. It was gorgeous weather and I would have loved to cycle around the lake instead of working. Then Monday afternoon we took Em to the airport. She's now in Spain for 10 days with my parents.

On Saturday we headed to St Dennis Castle in Falmouth. I'd never been to St Dennis before and it was much better than i thought it would be. The original castle had a display of guns firing with a voice recording playing. 

The views from the castle is incredible. This is the view towards the Falmouth beach.

And across towards St Mawes.

Lots of buildings to explore. The castle was added to at various stages and there were bunkers and guns from WW2 there too.

At the end of the day we shared a piece of cake (huge piece) and had a glass of rose lemonade. Very tasty and refreshing. 

On Sunday we went to church as normal but both the girls came which was lovely. Vanessa has been going to our old church for the last 2 years and rarely agrees to come to our church. After church we went out for lunch. Then Simon, Em and I headed in to Plymouth while Vanessa went off for a friend's birthday party.

I'd decided I fancied going on the Plymouth Wheel. If you've been on the London Eye, this is a much smaller version.

We got a pod to ourselves and the wheel goes around several times. We stopped at the top for quite a while too, while the people in the pods on the bottom were getting off/on.

It was great to see Plymouth from the air. Below is the Citadel which is used by the Royal Marines now.

View over Plymouth city centre. I must admit the main shopping area around Armada Way in Plymouth is not my favourite architecture. Re-built after WW2 when much of Plymouth was blitzed, there's a lot of concrete but apparently it's the biggest concentration of commercial buildings from that period and attracts a lot of architecture students from around the world.

Unfortunately it was a bit overcast while we were on the Wheel. It brightened up again later. The view out across Plymouth Sound is still great.

Armada Way seen from inside the pod.

Views across the Hoe.

Afterwards we strolled down to the Barbican which is my favourite area of Plymouth. Unfortunately the pubs along the sea-front were very busy and were competing with each other as to who could play the loudest music. There was an outdoor music/drinking thing going on too. Lots of drunk people and police. As we walked through the area, a brawl broke out outside one of the pubs. The police and security guards sprang into action and stopped the brawl very quickly. But we decided to walk back up to the Hoe which was much more family friendly and peaceful. I had a great day.