Last day

It’s the last day of the holiday. The day started very grey and threatening. By the time the Gorse Fox had had his breakfast, a fine rain had started. He had to pop round to fill the car with petrol but it didn’t relent.

Urban-Cub started to pack and clear her stuff and Ellie’s. Her plan is to leave early in the morning but she knew there would be no chance to clear things this evening.

The rain relented and the forecast for the rest of the day was dry. We decided to walk down to the beach and stroll along the Esplanade for as far as we could. Apparently, nobody had told the weather that it wasn’t meant to rain any more. By the time we approached the town, a fine drizzle had restarted. By the time we got to the seafront it had intensified. We stuck with it as far as the Ocean Centre. There Urban-Cub and Ellie peeled off with a view to going to the soft play again. The Silver Vixen and Gorse Fox continued to the new water sports centre which included a nice cafe and a restaurant run by Michael Caine (the chef, not the actor). We stopped for a coffee. The rain took this as a hint. It too, stopped.

The phone rang. It was Urban-Cub. There were no slots for the soft play session at 1 o’clock, so she had booked for three-thirty. She was hungry and decided she wanted lunch. We said we would join them. The first choice was Prezzo (one of Urban-Cub’s favourites) but they didn’t have any availability. Then we tried a Mediterranean restaurant called “Spoken” which is essentially tapas. We sat down, we checked the menu. We decided there was nothing that Ellie would eat. We gave our apologies and left. We walked up the hill and went back to The Heavitree. Ellie had a burger with chips, Urban-Cub had about two metric tonnes of mussels, and the Silver Vixen and Gorse Fox both had fish and chips. The portions were huge and certainly saved us from preparing dinner this evening.

Urban-Cub and Ellie headed back to the Ocean Centre. Meanwhile the Silver Vixen and Gorse Fox headed back into town to hit the Library. Were there any books or maps that would shed more light on the Silver Vixen’s old home? Well, we found the odd snippet of commentary but struck gold with the map cabinet. (We had to request that this was opened for us). We finally found a map from 1972 showing the locations of the individual chalets at the old docks. Her number was there and exactly in the place she had described on Wednesday. The only outstanding issue is to find a photo of the old chalets. We looked through various archives, but didn’t really find anything of the right era. This will take some more thought and more research.

Back at the house this evening we have all been trundling around packing and generally tidying up ready to leave in the morning.