Holiday Photo Diary: Newquay 2018

After 20 annual Cornish family holidays, Newquay feels like my home away from home. It’s our favourite holiday. I know the roads better that I know the ones in Stoke. I’ve always said if I ever won the lottery, I’d move down there and open an Oatcake Shop. You can take the girl out of Stoke, but you can’t take the Stoke out of the girl.

Before now, I’ve done ‘Blogiday’, where I’ve blogged every day of my holiday. This year I wanted to use the vacation as an actual break. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve done some blogger-y bits, but I’ve definitely relaxed a lot more and not been stressing about my blog. This year, I’m bowling it all into one post and giving you all a little photo diary. I had planned on doing a little video, but I’ll be honest – I was too busy having fun. I haven’t taken anywhere near as many photos as I wanted to.

Saturday

We caught a bus into town and pottered around the high street. I like scoping out what’s changed – what new shops and bars have popped up and which have closed down. We signed up to the Holland and Barratt mailing list and got a tonne of free goodies like face cream, snacks and essential oils. Then we grabbed some diner from our favourite sandwich bar and sat on the grass by the beach. We had a relatively chilled day as some of the group hadn’t slept much or had only just arrived.

Sunday

A few years back, my friend Rosh took me to The Headland Hotel for a drink and I was blown away by the architecture and the luxe furnishings. It’s a huge, grand building overlooking Fistral Beach, and the film The Witches was filmed there. I wanted to take my fam for a look around and a drink, but we couldn’t resist a bite to eat when we arrived. It’s a little pricier than your average pub grub, but you’re paying for more than just food – the views are incredible and the food was insane. My mum and brother ordered the muscles, and one portion could have easily done two people.

Monday

As a kid, I remember cycling to Padstow with my Mum, Dad, brother and sister. We had put our old dog, Lyla, in one of those adorable little buggies that attach to the back of a bike. I’m in no physically fit state to cycle the camel trail these days, but that won’t stop me visiting the quaint little town. After a chippy dinner, we bought some nets and bait and went crabbing off the harbour. It was a slow start, but we collectively caught about 20 little crabs and some cray fish.

Once we had released them back into the water, we got an obligatory ice cream and headed back to Newquay. You may think our days have been short, or that we hadn’t fit much in. That’s because we had to be back on site for all us gals to go play Bingo. Laugh now, but Alex won £800 so it was totally worth it.

Tuesday

My brother is such a jammy sod. His birthday always falls in the middle of the holiday. We let him decide what he wanted to do, so of course, it was off to Fistral Beach so he and Jake could go surfing. Without the lads, it meant I could make a start on my book. My holiday book this year was All The Bright Places which in short, is about ‘a girl who learns to live from the boy who wants to die.’ I also managed to get some blog photos taken for my Bleach London collaboration which I am super excited about. Just in case anyone was wondering, the swimsuit is River Island.

It was also Phoebe and Frank’s first time on a beach. Both of them were so confused until they realised that they could dig in the sand. It was like a dream come true for them. We browsed the shops overlooking the beach, and I picked up some gorgeous prints for my office from Bon Bon Fistral. To finish the day, we went to Frankie and Benny’s for a birthday meal before Jake and I headed back to our Hendra Pod.

Wednesday

The on-site swimming pool is brilliant and we always try to make time to go. They’ve got waterslides and rapids and a huge pool. Whilst I can’t actually swim, it’s nice to take a dip in the pool to start the day. This swimsuit is from Topshop, and is a sort of ‘second best’. I had one incredibly similar, but nicer, but piled a bit of weight on and I can’t fit into it anymore. I can’t bring myself to throw it away though.

Next we went to Paulo’s Circus, just down the road from the site. It’s a huge daredevil show with high lines, aerial hoops and, well, absolute madheads. Jake and I decided to stay in for the evening so Jake could kick his cold to the curb. We bought School of Rock for £3 in Morrison’s, plus a tonne of snacks, and had a cosy night in our cabin.

Thursday

It’s become a sort of tradition that we have to go to Perranporth for a day. In the morning, the sky was threatening to rain, but we headed out anyway. Perranporth has a pub on the beach, called The Watering Hole, which is why it’s one of our favourite places to visit. All 11 adults, 6 kids and 2 doggos managed to find our spot on the beach and played a bit of quick cricket. Jake is incredibly competitive and pretty dramatic, so there was a lot of throwing himself on the floor to catch people out. I think the diving comes from the footballer in him.

It started to look as though it was going to rain, so we wandered into the town to look in some of the shops. I bought myself a new ring for my daith piercing, a cactus keyring for my car keys, and a cactus pencil sharpener for my lip liners.

In the evening, we typically went out for a drink at the on-site entertainment club. Each year, the entertainment is pretty similar, featuring singers, karaoke, comedians and magicians. On Thursday, there was a silent disco, which is something I’ve not seen Hendra do in previous years. Everyone got a set of headphones, and there were two settings you could listen on. Each setting was a different playlist playing different songs. For those of you who have never been to a silent disco, whenever you take your headphones off, there is no music playing, but you can see everyone dancing to their one song or singing out of key to another. It was such a laugh and most of our group listed it as the best entertainment of the week.

Friday

When I got into town on Friday I was starving. I got a hotdog from a stand by the harbour and it was the nicest think I’ve eaten all week. My mouth is salivating as I just thinking about it. We took a walk down onto the harbour and watched the boats whilst we had a drink. We walked across the beaches and to the other end of the town to a new bar called Rebellion. I had planned on doing a separate post for the bar, but I didn’t get as many photos as I’d have liked.

Rebellion is a Roast House and Moonshine bar that opened in July. For those of you that haven’t seen The Dukes of Hazzard, Moonshine is a high proof, illicitly distilled or smuggled alcohol. In this case, it’s a five times distilled, unaged white whiskey. Cornwall is famed for smugglers coves and rebel pirates, so it’s the perfect place for a moonshine bar. Their wooden, rustic interiors are met with beautiful fur throws over comfortable sofas – it’s certainly a place I where I could sit down and unwind.

Their cocktail menu is amazing, featuring fun and inventive concoctions. I went for a Zombie – their own version of the classic. It consists of dark and white rum, pineapple juice, lime juice and Flaming Devil Water Moonshine. It comes served in a pineapple glass, with pineapple leaves and half a passionfruit filled with Moonshine that gets set alight. Strongest Zombie I’ve ever had.

Saturday

Saturday was our last full day, so we went in to town to actually go into the shops and pick up some bits. At the moment, my favourite shops in Newquay are El HoBo, Lucky Go Happy and i-Candy Clothing. When you’re on holiday, it’s an absolute must to go into the arcades and play on the 2p machines. We’ve absolutely nailed the Basketball game all week, but mine and Jake’s favourite was the 10p ticket machine. It was all light-hearted fun until Jake dumped a £20 note in the machine and gave us a ridiculous amount of tokens. Mum bought be a cute cactus vase from the shop below, I can’t for the life of me remember the name, but they sold some awesome plants and plant-themed bits!