Ilfracombe, Devon, on departure day

Google photos has made me this Pano, which I cannot edit on my phone as it's too small!

(Back-blip) For our last day in Devon, with half a day to spare, we decided to leave our cases at the guest house and take one of the self guided tours of Ilfracombe, starting and finishing at the Landmark theatre. But Friend J decided that she needed to visit a shop on the way, buy something, and collect it after the walk.

The walk was delightful. It wasn't even raining, unusually for this week. We stopped at St James park, high above the harbour, to take these shots. All was going very well until we started going up the last street, Fore Street, which was very steep. J started to feel ill. She has a heart condition. The long and the short of it was that I made a mistake and said I'd go on back to the theatre and meet her there. Of course as soon as I got to the theatre I realised that this was stupid, I shouldn't have left her, that she'd never get to the theatre, nor drink the tea I had ordered for her. I'd been too focused on getting the bus back home up the big hill after our cuppa.

I drank my own tea, but could not leave, because I knew that J had a phone, but no credit on it, and that she was expecting to meet me there. (Stupidly I never realised that I could have rung her! She tends just to use the borrowed phone for playing Solitaire, and jumps three feet in the air if it rings). Eventually a woman from the tourist information office next to the theatre came looking for me and relayed a message that I would have to meet my friend back at the guest house. I trudged back up the hill, because the bus had already left, and got soaked in the rain, but at least J was waiting hack at the B and B, having been able to walk back, after some hilarious adventures in the shop with a bunch of old ladies, none of whom knew how to call a mobile. I think they even looked up my name on the phone, found another person with the same name, and rang her. She may have been in another country. She definitely was not me. She was definitely confused to hear from a woman in Ilfracombe...

The upshot is we, succeeded in catching the bus to Barnstaple, the trains to Exeter and Cheltenham, and got as far as Gloucester before it was announced that our train had no driver. He was apparently in a taxi, stuck in traffic, somewhere between Swansea and Gloucester. Our journey had taken about six and a half hours by then.
We cracked open the last of the snack foods.

Eventually we returned to Stroud, the driver having turned up, and Steve met us at the station. I remember little else. Thank goodness J is ok and didn't have to have a trip in an ambulance. And now the country is gearing up for a national lockdown. We got away, and back, just in time.