Quieter Day

It has been a quieter day. The early morning rain cleared but the skies remained pretty grey and overcast until mid afternoon. After a hearty breakfast we headed down into the town. The Gorse Fox picked up some of their monopoly money (they have their own banknotes here in in Guernsey) and then we formed and orderly queue of 2 for the bus. The plan was to visit St Sampson and Vale at the north of the Island.

St Sampson is the second town of the Island and used to be the crossing point between what had once been the two islands. At high tide the north and south of Guernsey used to be two separate islands. The only proper bridge was at St Sampson and even now the town is known colloquially as "The Bridge". We got off the bus and went to explore. It was clear that there was almost nothing to see and though we had a walk we eventually ducked into Costa for a coffee and to kill 30 minutes until the next bus.

The next bus weaved across to the centre of Vale (one of the 10 Guernsey parishes) where we stopped off at The Oatlands Centre. This had once been part of the granite quarrying industry but now housed a few shops and a lot of indoor play space for children as well as a pitch and putt golf course. The information boards were probably the most interesting aspect of the Centre... as we didn't have an urge to use the playgrounds. We did wander round the the shop that sold gold jewellery at extraordinarily low prices, but resisted the temptation to emulate Midas.

We caught the bus back to SPP, stopped off at the Tourist Information Centre and then headed up the hill to the OGH. We sat out on the terrace while the Silver Vixen read her magazine and the Gorse Fox tried to construct a suitable epitaph for Beloved Aunt who completed her journey on this earth yesterday.

For dinner, we headed back to Dix Neuf, where we ate at the start of the holiday. It's quite a vibrant little place and we enjoyed a really good meal (steak for the Silver Vixen, Thai-style chicken and cashews with noodles for the Gorse Fox). We finished off the evening with a stroll along the causeway to the lighthouse.