For me Devon conjures up images of childhood caravan holidays with mum and dad and never ending summer days at the beach, fish and chips out of the paper, balmy evenings drinking coke in a local beer garden in one of the beautiful seaside fishing villages.
This year Barnstaple in North Devon was chosen as the location of the 2008 "Active with Diabetes" Walking Holiday and took place at the end of April. There were 14 of us heading west for our annual adventure.
I arrived on the Sunday evening to meet Angela Sealeaf our ever-supportive Diabetes Specialist Nurse, who travelled all the way from Halifax in West Yorkshire to be with us, and Roger Calver our walking expert and intrepid guide from Ramblers. We made sure everything was in place for our party's arrival the next morning.
On Monday everyone arrived to meet each other, relaxed a little after their long journeys and then retired to their rooms to prepare their backpacks and walking supplies for our first walk the next day.
The next morning, our bus picked us up and took us to Ilfracombe, where we began the ascent up the cliff paths and the first leg of what would become a long and rather wet and windy walk. The weather was kind to us and up until lunchtime we enjoyed some bracing air and incredible views from the cliff tops.
Just as we were wrapping up what was left of our lunch the 
sky blackened and the heavens opened and that's the way it stayed for the next two days. Thankfully I had come prepared with plenty of DRWF umbrellas. Our seasoned walkers are no fools though and out came all the waterproof trousers, jackets and hats!
On Wednesday, we began our walk at Westward Ho and headed for our halfway point at Appledore on the River Torridge. The rain lashed down and the wind blew like a devil. Some of the group decided to head back to the safety of the hotel but the rest of us battled on, bundling into a pub and rewarding ourselves with some hot bowls of soup and chips and a sneaky pint of Guinness. Then we continued on to Bideford before catching the bus back to the hotel for a nice warm shower, a lovely dinner and a welcoming bed.
I awoke on Thursday morning praying for the sun to be shining and I wasn't disappointed. This was our last day and everyone hopped excitedly on to the bus for Clovelly. We finally arrived at our destination, where we split into two groups. One group headed off for the rugged and wild cliff side route lead by Roger and the rest of us decided to take the less punishing woodland trail, which wa
s much kinder on our aching feet and provided us with some beautiful views of the bay below and woodland carpets of bluebells and primroses.
After our walk we converged on Clovelly, where we explored the steep cobbled streets of the ancient town, had a look in the museum, enjoyed a cream tea and then went to the pebble beach to investigate the waterfall, which reputedly concealed the cave that was the birth place of the Arthurian magician Merlin.
Returning to the hotel for our last supper together, we reminisced about our week and how nice it would be to come back again.
On a last note, I would like to say thank you and well done to everyone that came. Thank you to Angela our DSN, Roger our Guide and the staff at The Cedars Inn for making our stay a memorable one. Thanks also go to John Hardie at Arctic Medical for providing us with a supply of Hypo-Fit for those low blood sugar moments.