Chuffed with a capital Ch!

Well I’ve only gone and done it!

You could have knocked me down with a feather this morning when I checked my emails and found one from the Royal Photographic Society advising me I was one of their three winners in their monthly photo competition for June.  I actually did that cartoon thing where I blinked really hard to make sure I wasn't dreaming and I almost deleted the email as it was from a name I didn't recognise!

471 entries, 20 shortlisted and three winners.  My shot received the highest number of votes.  I am delighted!  :-))

So the day got off to a good start and became more hilarious as it went on.  

We decided that as my mobility is so limited the sensible thing to do would be to hire a mobility scooter speed machine.  David contacted a mobility specialist in Barnstaple who confirmed they had one for hire and we could collect it at lunchtime.

We got the the place just before 1pm but unfortunately the scooter they had put aside for us didn't fold down to go into the car boot (one of our specifications) as the seat had been bolted to the frame.  Fortunately they had another model in their warehouse just around the corner.  A quick demo on how to dismantle it and we were away.

We decided to try it out in the shopping precinct.  A safe area with lots of space, what could possibly go wrong?

We set off at a slow pace, with David telling me to crank up the speed a bit. I pointed out to him that as I walk very slowly, the speed I was going at felt like a sprint!  My confidence quick built though and I did speed up, to the point my hair was actually blowing behind me!  :-)))

In the shopping precinct my pre-researched directions spider senses meant we stumbled upon a Pandora jewellers quite by accident.  When we were in Cornwall four years ago David bought me two charms for my bracelet (a camera and a hot air balloon) so I told him he thought it was time he bought me another charm to commemorate this holiday.

The shop was big enough for me to go into on my scooter and I enjoyed browsing the cabinets of lovely shiney things.  I scooted over to the last cabinet and as I turned the corner to get a better view I was vaguely aware of David making strange noises behind me.  It wasn't until I ground to a halt that it became apparent I had taken the corner too tightly and managed to almost lose the left hand arm rest on the scooter and had managed to gouge a chunk out of the corner of the pristine white display cabinet!!!  

Oops!

Apparently the strange noises David was making were warnings for me to stop.  I told him in future just to shout stop!  

Anyway the shop assistant was very understanding (I promised her I would go straight out and buy L plates) but I felt obliged to buy two Pandora charms.

See, all's well that ends well ;-))

We mooched around the shops for about another 15 minutes then decided to head back to the lovely pub in Croyde where we had lunch the other day (and the most amazing Devonshire Cream Tea.) 

Back to the house and we were supposed to go out this evening but decided to have a G&T instead and just chill out.

Alan's had the most amazing day.  He went on a steam train, which he loved then this evening went out to a restaurant in Ilfracombe with Jordan and Ally and had dinner watching the sunset from the restaurant balcony.  

He's apparently planning to go swimming at 9.30am tomorrow but with thunder forecast, I'm not sure that will happen.

PS So sorry I am not keeping up to date with comments.  Wifi here is shockingly bad and all I do is get annoyed when I click on a journal and it takes 10 minutes to load!