I know - I had hair in those days! And that was my little silver Volkswagen, which had taken my girlfriend at the time and myself from London to Lynmouth for a short break. Kind of strange, that, since at the time I was living in Taunton. But my girlfriend was a London lass and if I recall correctly, I had driven there for her birthday celebrations and this was my present to her - a weekend away in the wild west.
I wasn't on great form at that time. It was shortly before my second hip replacement, I recall. I was walking very badly, in a lot of pain. I'm sure the Taunton-London-Devon drive didn't help matters, mind you...
Lynmouth lies at the foot of a 700 foot cliff face. It's sister village, Lynton is at the top and a little cable railway connects the two. Lynmouth has been prone to flooding over the years, with a major flood in 1952 claiming 34 lives.
We stayed in rather lovely Rising Sun:
Well, not in the hotel itself, in Shelley's Cottage, just up the lane:
That's it with the strange-looking chimney and the thatch. Apparently, yer poet man honeymoon'd there. I remember it being very charming. It wasn't a great weekend, though and the girlfriend and I split up a couple of months later, shortly after my hip operation. In many ways it seems like a long time ago, although if I really think hard about it I can remember a lot of details. I can recall walking up from the hotel to the cottage - it was fairly steep and probably a bit of struggle for me. I remember we arrived too late for the dinner service, so they had a cold salad prepared in advance for us - and it was pretty special, too.
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| Inside Shelley's Cottage |
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