Return of the blog!

What happened to the Sparkhayes blog I hear you ask?  It is ridiculously out of date..!  The answer is that the author’s smallest child reached six months of age and was no longer content to sleep for the majority of the day.  In fact she decided not to sleep for the majority of the night as well.  I entered a phase of life that could easily have been mistaken for tough SAS training; I could now give any recruit a run for their money in the sleep-deprivation test.  For some while, I became a zombie-slave parent to my little brood.  I emerge from my personal apocalypse to discover a world-wide one; the news seems to be filled with nothing but the Coronavirus..!  Thankfully Porlock still feels a long way from the epidemic and the only challenge here at present is the weather.

Believe it or not, we have still had a few hardy souls camping in tents, despite the rain, wind and even snow.  We are taking more and more bookings for the coming season and I too am dreaming of all the things we can do when the weather finally cheers up.  I have already booked a few things, so sympathise with campers who contact us now to book for a visit in mid-summer.  We just ask that if you book in advance, you make a note in your diary to contact us again a month before you arrive, just to confirm that you are indeed still coming. Most customers reply with ‘I’ll definitely be there!’ but a surprising amount can change in a few weeks or months and we don’t want to turn customers away who arrive on spec to a ‘full’ campsite, only to discover that some of those who pre-booked don’t turn up.  This is part of the reason why we resist taking any bookings at all unless for a very large group or if customers require an electric hook-up, but due to their limited number it is even more important to let us know if your plans change.

In other news, those of you who know the local hamlet of Bossington will recognise the bridge over Horner Water, which gives foot access to Hurlstone Point and the beach.  There is a ford here too, but it is used infrequently by farmers and not many others.  Have a look at these pictures, which show how a driver tried to ford the swollen river and had his car washed away, to get stuck under the bridge..!  Thankfully the driver escaped unharmed and the bridge hasn’t suffered any structural issues, but it did make quite a spectacular sight.  These Exmoor streams and rivers are a force to be reckoned with..!

​Seeing the height of the Hawkcombe Water though suggests that our duck race would be over in seconds..!