Lympstone

On Friday afternoon, K and I drove down to Lympstone (near Exeter) with two of her colleagues, L and M. One of the the head researchers at K's university had invited everyone down for a Friday evening barbeque followed by a Saturday morning trip down to the seaside to paddle around in kayaks and a row-boat. Fourteen of us converged on her house on Friday evening. After relaxing in her back garden, we went for a walk and then some of them went to a pub.

Being the service-minded Virgos that we are, K and I skipped the pub in favor of helping with the barbeque preparations. I took up the task of starting her two small grills, but just as I got one of them started, a disabled guy in a wheelchair was seen in the distance trying to wheel himself up a hill. I ran off to help him. It turned out to be quite a long trip up three fairly steep hills. By the time he got to where he needed to go, I was drenched in sweat and panting like a workhorse. It took a very long time to stop sweating after that and standing over two glowing grills did not really help the situation. Anyway, I grilled turkey and veggie kebabs, sausages, pork chops, and veggie burgers. When it got a bit hectic to tend both grills, one of the vegetarians took over one of them (the veggie grill). It was a tasty barbeque and everyone was filled to bursting by the time we were done. Then we all went for another walk before coming back for dessert and more merriment.

The next day we all gathered around 10am to drag the row boat and three kayaks down through the town to the estuary. Since there were more of us than there were boats, we took turns going out. Everyone pretty much tried both types of boat with varying degrees of success. Only one person flipped the kayak and got soaked. It was a beautiful day with a clear blue sky and not too hot.

After the boating excursion, we went back to the house to have a lunch of barbeque leftovers in the garden. We all drove out of Lympstone around 2 in the afternoon. K and I dropped L and M off in Bournemouth and headed up to Winchester. Home by 6pm because we had to stop at Tesco to do our weekly grocery shopping on the way.

A great little seaside excursion and even better, we had another weekend day left to enjoy!