We had showers this morning and a fairly lazy start to the day. It was freezing cold and the van was cosy so no one felt particularly inclined to leave it. But we had things to do and didn’t want to just let the day drift by too much. So we listened to Popmaster and I paid for the campsite for the week and got directions to the nearest bus stop as Ady had said he didn’t want to drive into a town he didn’t know and struggle to find parking etc. Plus we want to get used to walking / planning journeys and ensuring we are being as frugal with our travelling as possible.
We seem to be fairly inbetween Newton Abbot and Bovey Tracy so we decided to go for Newton Abbot. Layla did warn us it was ‘shit’ and maybe we should have listened – certainly the kids hanging around the bus stop didn’t do a great PR job for the town :(. We set off walking and after about 2 miles hit a bus stop so waited. It was only about 10 minutes before a bus arrived so we asked for the town centre and jumped on. I always want to use public transport but bus travel is just so pricey (nearly a tenner for the four of us return) and it seems to be some sort of quest worthy of unlocking the secrets of the pyramids to get information about times and places to catch one back again. I guess for one or two of us it is probably the same price as parking and petrol in the van but for all four of us it just costs too much.
Even more annoying was that having no idea how far from the town we were it was only another mile or two before we were there, so entirely walkable, although it was scary, no pavement roads so for safety’s sake it was probably better to be on the bus. We did enjoy the walk though, swapping to walk in different combinations along the way. I really enjoyed a chat with Scarlett about bodies, weight, plastic surgery and appearance linked to happiness and feelings of self worth. Interesting to hear her take on stuff, what she has heard and picked up from other kids and, I guess, the media too.
Newton Abbot is charity-shop-tastic, there must be about 15 charity shops there so we had a very enjoyable time walking round those and picked up a couple of dvds including some of the ones you get free with newspapers and charity shops just ask for a few pence donation for. I needed to go to the post office to send an ebay package that I’ve been carting around with me as it was paid for after we left the house and we needed some bits for dinner tonight. We have still not quite perfected food in the van but have been talking about ideas for meals this evening so will hopefully improve from now on. We have discovered that the kids like pepperoni on their pizzas though so that was dinner tonight for everyone.
We were all starving by about 2pm and having promised fast food junk at some point this week we decided today was the day and headed to the nearby KFC. We all enjoyed it 😳 and it triggered a really interesting conversation about what is bad about it; health implications, non-ethical food (battery chickens, probably cheap and non-fair trade other stuff), massive amounts of packaging and what we could do to offset the occassional lapse. We came up with our walking and using the bus rather than the car and using charity shops for the few bits we’d been wanting rather than buying them new. We did talk about the fact we’d still been in a town, buying at all too. For me this year is about consuming less and having a bigger conscience about stuff but it is not an endurance test and I have no desire (yet!) to opt out of society generally and live totally without comforts or treats. It will be interesting to see how what we learn, people we meet and experiences we have change us over the course of the year.
We also picked up various things to help with travel sickness – aromatherapy roll-on stuff for pulse points, those pressure bands for wrists and the more conventional pills. Hoping to find something that works even if it is all snake oil ;).
We then waited ages for a return bus, asking two different drivers on other busses for information and gaining none, the information office was closed so we decided to wait for the same number bus as we’d come in on and do a circuitous route if needs be. As it happened it did the same route in reverse and the driver was lovely and let us off closer to the campsite than we’d got on so less walking on scary pavement-less roads, although the walking was mostly now uphill and carrying shopping so certainly still good exercise.
Back at the van we had tea / coffee / biscuits, I went off to do the washing up from earlier and Ady cooked the kids some tea which they ate watching a dvd then we went for a star gazing wander in the field next to the campsite. A really clear (if cold) night and loads of stars were out twinkling at us and making us all wish we knew more about astromony. We do have a ‘night sky’ book so if tomorrow is a clear night we’ll go out again and try and identify some of the constellations. We did spot Orion’s belt and the plough but that ended our knowledge, and there was no moon.
Back at Willow the kids watched the end of their dvd and ate loads of apples as they claimed to still be hungry. We had a loose wire or tripped switch on the lights but Ady sorted it and was most proud of himself :).
We did Bad, Good, Learnt and the kids finally went up to their bunk.
Davies
Bad – it was a bugger to get to KFC – he seems to be experimenting with bad language. Sadly we are far too slack to stop him and instead find it very amusing 😆 We tramped back and forth on the street it was on having asked for directions from two different people and got conflicting advice (bit like the busses!)
Good – Lots of time with Daddy today, really enjoyed chatting to him while out walking
Learnt – how to identify a squirrels drey
Scarlett
Bad – Felt sick on the bus
Good – feeling better generally (not been sick yesterday or today)
Learnt – about plastic surgery
Ady
Bad – we still bought stuff today
Good – Time with the kids
Learnt – public transport is pretty rubbish!
Nic
Bad – it is cold! I’m super twitchy about our planned two weeks in a tent from Monday onwards
Good – settling in to our new life, it already is starting to feel like real life rather than a holiday
Learnt – a fact about how tiny squirrel poo is from Tarly.
http://www.traveline.info/ might help. No idea how good it is in other parts of the country but I use the South Yorkshire one lots. Can so identify with costs of buses preventing us using them more. I try on a weekend when I go to work, but it still costs me nearly £5!! I don’t mind so much as probably would be similar in petrol costs and it gives me a slower day on my own and J gets his car to himself on a Saturday. But still!
Giggling at Davies’ language!
Really hoping it gets a bit milder with weather so you can have a good time at the first hosts 🙂
Comment by Kirsty — 03 March 2011 @ 8:57 am
Was also going to post Traveline suggestion, I use it all the time. It is different for different areas but worth a look.
Love those conversations that happen while walking somewhere, sounds like everyone got a lot out of that. Hope the travel-sickness goes.
I think a child of D’s age should certainly try the odd swear. When F swears we’re usually far too entertained but eventually do get round to reminding her that it’s appropriate for only a very select audience in a very select venue
Comment by Ali — 03 March 2011 @ 9:44 am
oh and did you realise that it says pubic transport not public 😉 I always have to double check when reading public, and actually this time it was what I thought it might have said!!!!
Comment by Kirsty — 03 March 2011 @ 3:59 pm