By the sea in Bude
By the sea in Bude

Another holiday in Bude, sunbathing, swimming and even surfing with Daniel and the hotel service improves as Reagan is diagnosed with cancer and the Lords pass The Local Government Bill which will mark their demise in my view

Awake as Diana goes out to the toilet and then I lay for an hour waiting for our morning drinks. I had ordered them for 7.00, but had to phone again at 7.15 and then 7.30 when they did not arrive. Eventually I received my tea at 7.40, the chocolate at 7.50 and coffee at 8.10am! By this time I had made a formal complaint and asked for a meeting with the manager for when he arrived. A pity these problems should plague The Grenville, with its well-appointed rooms, good facilities, and excellent position overlooking the bay and harbour. Down to a breakfast, which is by now routine, and then ready to leave for a coastal drive. First to chat to the manager, who apologises for our problems and undertakes to avoid it happening again. Off we go along the steep and bendy Cornish roads and we stop for our 11’ses at a farmhouse who serve us coffee, scones, jam and clotted cream; and the children fruit juices and crisps, which we all enjoy. On to Tintagel and, after walking through the town and seeing all of the shops, we ascend the cliffs to Arthur’s Castle and rest in the sun and fresh air of the inner ward of the mainland port.

As the family wait at the café, I walk up to the Island and see the ruins of the monastery, the chapel, well, and other buildings. The views are breath taking and the deterioration of the centuries quite sad. Home via the coastal route and back to the hotel. I take Daniel down to the beach as Diana looked after the girls by the hotel swimming pool. The wind and waves are onshore and good for surfing as Daniel ventures in with his new small polystyrene surf board. I scale the cliffs and watch his progress closely and also watch the waves breaking over the side of the cliff swimming pool. Later, I go in to join him and we both try surfing the waves, but the board is too small. However, it was enjoyable bobbing about in the large waves anyway. Back to the wind break and deck chair just in time before the advancing tide swamped our things and quickly home so that Daniel could eat his high tea with the rest of the children at 5.30pm. Only six kids were there tonight. I had a bath to remove my sand and also watched the end of the cricket. The match had ended in a draw with both sides’ batsmen well on top and bad light periodically interrupting play. As Di put the children to bed, I went out to buy a paper and then entered the bar for a pre-dinner drink. The manager was there and bought me a drink to make up for this morning. It seems that bookings were so low and the trend of recent years so adverse, that they felt they had to underpin the hotels business with the coach trade. Apart from the August peak, the trend of recent years was downwards and, with the high overheads, something had to be done this season to lengthen the bookings. Also he felt that the rates had probably been set too high, which had put off many families from coming. A nice dinner and then out for a walk with Di and then a look in the gift shops. Back to the hotel and to read my paper and update my journal at the end of another exhausting day. The weather, warm, sunny, but windy and forecast worse. News today of Reagan’s illness being cancer, which justifies my scepticism of yesterday’s ‘miraculous’ recovery. The Local Government Bill passes the Lords, but the GLC win a High Court case to ban lorries from central London.