Nikki Hawkins

We are back from a 3 night break by the sea feeling thoroughly refreshed. I don’t know whether it was the awful summer we had and the lack of beach days but we all had a yearning to be by the coast. We didn’t want to travel far for just a few nights so I picked an area that to be honest is driving distance for day trips from our home but we never quite get to this neck of the woods. The place we stayed in was called Welcombe and it’s along the North Devon coastline right on the border of Cornwall. We Live in Devon!! So it was only about an hour away.

The weather was on our side and we had two full days of glorious warm sunshine. We packed picnics and walked along the south west coast paths, saw many waterfalls and visited some gorgeous beaches that felt lovely and local and away from the madding crowds.

I have a dedicated travel journal that I take when we go away instead of my everyday journal. Because I am always with my husband, 3 kids and pooch I don’t really get the opportunity to sketch on location so I tend to take pics of my day whilst out and about and then snatch moments whilst back in the holiday home to compile the journal. Often I will finish it at home.

As we weren’t going abroad, I wasn’t restricted with what art supplies I could take and I have a brilliant bag that fits pretty much everything I would want to use. It’s called a delfonics utility pouch and it has loads of pockets and space.

Here are a few of my travel pages.

I’m no writer so adding in little snippets of the day works well for me. Often I will add them to my notes app on my phone during the day when I think of something or something happens because I have a terrible memory and then I can’t remember those little details when I get home.