Cornwall and canines and rain

To help with the post shoulder operation recovery, we did the obvious thing - drive to Wadebridge in Cornwall. Yes, not your normal approach but ages ago we had committed to go and look after the lovely Indie and Stan who belong to the equally lovely Norman and Julie. (We felt that we should say that, just in case they read our ramblings).

After the owners headed off to enjoy their holiday, Indie had that "under new management" look:

whilst Stan just continued with his ball obsession:

The weather was far from kind to us. Plenty of rain to enjoy or avoid (the dogs much prefer the latter) so our walks were arranged around the little deluges. Oh, also around places that sold coffee and were dog friendly. In between showers we hid in Dollies, a basic cafe in the town centre which Indie loved. Why? Well, the owner delivered two gravy bones as treats for the hounds, Stan didn't want his so Indie had two:

Not high on the coffee satisfaction stakes but off the scale in the Labrador happiness index and frankly, their happiness is all that matters. Things got evened up when we discovered Stir, a tiny shop with some outside seating under a huge sail for the nice wet times. Awesome coffee though and brownies that are amongst the best ever. Only drawback is the limit of two different "cake things" available each day but when they are all very good.....

And you can see, it is dog friendly too (inside and out):

.

and they make rather nice patterns on the flat white!

Life became way more sociable when John and Irene popped over to Wadebridge - they were staying in Polzeath nearby. Then an invasion, the refugee from the Isle of Wight known as Tina arrived by train and was collected by the captain from Bodmin Parkway station. This was very exciting - not because Tina was coming to join us but because it was the first time post op that the captain drove the car any distance. Sorry Tina (or maybe not).

As all of those renegades had met before, we had a reunion in Padstow. The dogs were so happy, five people fussing over them and offering cuddles. We've offered several pictures of old lifeboats in here before and Padstow harbour allowed us the share another:

Indie decided to bark at the little dog on board. The little dog duly ignored her - we guess that happens many many times a day. Lunchtime was a real treat. St Petrocs is, like lots of Padstow, owned by Rick Stein. A kind of dog friendly bistro with rooms housed in old buildings so plenty of individual dining areas. We had our own room, great food and great fun.

Stir became a go to place, between showers and Camel Trail walks. Stan seemed to have adopted Tina quite well:

although she was less impressed with the diligent licks that he was delivering to her hand. 

The social time continued when Robert and Deborah, the Malo yotties popped over to Wadebridge to say hi. Deborah had great fun amusing / winding up the hounds and they showed suitable appreciation too. Believe it or not, finding a spot in Wadebridge that served lunch on a Tuesday out of the holiday season and that is dog-friendly is very hard! Our choice was simple, a Hobson's choice really, but it worked out so well. The Molesworth Arms did us proud. Good food, friendly staff. 

On the basis that all good things must come to an end, Tina needed to leave ready for a slightly warmer holiday trip coming up. In case you think that Bodmin Parkway station is near Bodmin, prepare to be corrected. It is actually around 4 miles out of Bodmin centre:

Someone forgot to build a decent access road (or fill in the potholes on the tiny one!) and a Parkway station with no car pick-up/ drop off area is rather unusual. However, we managed to dump Tina there, in the rain of course. 

Somehow Indie the labrador seemed to know that we were leaving, she gave us her best lugubrious look: 

Despite this blackmail, we duly headed off into the "end of half term" traffic with folks departing the West Country and heading home. All was well until we found that the nice Welsh roads folks had decided that it was a good weekend to close an M4 bridge over a junction near Newport. The information about it seemed innocuous enough with a simple diversion quoted:

However, the resulting carnage stuffed all the roads in the area as folks tried every approach to and around Newport to avoid the huge queues. We looked at the car satnav, an old TomTom and Google maps on the phone. They all offered different ways to try and get through it as fast as possible.As it was such a mess, we opted for a big loop round, going up into the valleys, across to the delights of Merthyr Tydfil and then down to Cardiff again. Wonderful. The one good thing was just beating the rain as we got back onto the boat.