winter sunshine

After all the rain and howling winds what a great little pleasure to see sunshine. One of those cold crisp winter days but even on the Hoe with no wind - if you wrapped up warm and got shelter behind a screen, the sun's rays were just enough to generate some much welcome and needed sunshine.

 

poor Tinside Pool on the Hoe always looks the worst for wear during winter when big storm waves break over the front of it and fill the pool with grimy seawater. However in Spring it gets its annual spring clean and opens just after Easter every year all pristine and clean.........amazing!

 

This morning we took the opportunity for a brisk walk around Plymouth Hoe from the Barbican and back again. It throws in a couple of hills and some stunning scenery and we always end at a nice café somewhere for a coffee and catch up with the Sunday papers. then it is back home to start the weekly Sunday afternoon school work catch up - marking, lesson preparation etc. for the forth coming week.

 

barely a breeze first thing in the morning. A few dinghies are heading out in to Jennycliffe Bay past the Mountbatten Breakwater.

looking towards the entrance to the Tamar in the far background, the little stone harbour complex in the mid-ground is West Hoe Pier. the restaurants either side of it were badly damaged in last Winter's storms and still have huge amounts of scaffolding surrounding them and propping them up as they are refurbished.

Welcome to our 'European gateway - Millbay Docks' as advertised by our city council. I'd love to meet the wag who came up with that title for what is at the moment a fairly unglamorous gateway! Still the city does have a vision for this area - which is experiencing urban regeneration. Part of the old docks has been turned into a new marina; the far side is where the RoRo ferry to Roscoff in France berths; the new apartments - will they sell? time will tell.

'Her indoors' outdoors reading the Sunday's at the Terrace Café on the hoe. it is an outdoor terrace café on the side of the hoe with stunning views.

waiting for the footbridge to close after a yacht has passed through the docks, outward bound

A lovely little gem for sale

this is the newly built Plymouth University diving centre next to Queen Anne's Battery marina where Arwen gets launched.

A huge improvement on what was there before - new ramps, new lifting gear, new workshops and classrooms and I suspect a café terrace too.