Today’s entry will be brief. With a late night last night, and an early morning getting the final touches on our departure it’s been a long day. We left our hotel for Paddington Station around 8:45 so that we could take the 10;02 train to Bristol where we picked up our car.

Paddington Station was buzzing, between the regular commuter trains as well as the Heathrow Express taking up 11 boarding stations, it was indeed busy. Some tips for you rail travelers in the UK 1) buy a rail card…if you’re traveling as a couple get the “2 together” card. It costs around 40GBP, but saves you an automatic 30% on your tickets. 2. It you travel off peak you save even more and 3. Don’t buy your tickets too far in advance. I think I saved about 60-70% on our rail tickets between the Heathrow express (yes the card works for that too) and our trip to Bristol and then from there to Richmond in the Yorkshire Dales. I think for my investment I saved over 200 GBP.

When we got to Bristol, we headed out to the car rental spot and got a cute Nissan Juke. Dan was the brave soul who tackled not only left hand drive, but a standard transmission as well! And we thought we had fun hoping on and off of trains! It was particularly fun when we neared our destination and the SatNav wouldn’t connect. To say the least, we certainly learned the roads a little better after driving them 2 or 3 times! Dan deserves a medal!

When we arrived at the cottage, poor Sue was worried sick that we had been lost in one of the many backcountry roads. Once she knew we were no worse for wear, she showed us around the house and the grounds and then proceeded to tell us about Rick Stein and his many restaurants in Padstow, a short drive from here. Rick Stein is a famous chef and specializes in seafood. While he has quite a chic restaurant in Padstow, he also has a fish and chip place there as well. Who wants to cook tonight. Not I!!! Off for fish and chips we went!

After dinner we did boring stuff like a provisioning of our larder as well as begin the long task of getting through a weeks worth of laundry! Time to say good night! Looking forward to catching up tomorrow as we begin to really explore Cornwall! Until then,