A Mind's Eye Day Out on Dartmoor

This is to cheer me up.  It is daylight, and my breathing is still rubbish, though I have discovered my Ventolin inhaler has probably been running on 99% empty over the weekend, which does not do a lot to help control asthma . . .

So I am going to give myself the treat of a day out on Dartmoor.  OK - this is all in my mind's eye, with a little help from photographs taken on other trips, but it is better than nothing.

On a hill overlooking Widecombe-in-the-Moor,  we park the car and I sit on a boulder, warm from the sun, with a breeze streaming through my hair, and carrying the scents of the moor to me - crushed bracken and the spicey smell of Sweet Gale.  There are probably the minute scents from the small yellow flowers of Tormentil, Heath Milkwort, Heath Bedstraw (the Bedstraws smell so intense close-to - like well-made hay), Silverweed and Self-Heal and Foxgloves lingering in the valley bottoms, but these are overwhelmed by the perfumes of Heather, Ling and the intense coconut-scent of the Gorse.  I take a photograph of the view looking towards Widecombe and breath deeply.  Then we drive down into the view.

We walk past Widecombe Church, the Cathedral of the Moor.  A nearby lane is flushed with a ruby haze of Hawthorn berries.

We walk around the village.  Inside the crammed and cramped pottery is Uncle Tom Cobley's Chair  which is made from pieces of wonderfully-carved wood from a church or quite possibly a monastery which fell foul of Henry VIII.  Bits of misericords peek out from borders of ecclesiastical vernacular wooden architecture.  The fierce beasts as hand-rests are particularly fascinating . . .  We spot an old coaching horn hanging over the counter and ask about it.  Apparently it is the one which was used on the Exeter coach.  My g.g. grandfather drove the Exeter coach (though I don't know on which routes though he lived in Moretonhampstead.)  It could well be the self-same horn he used . . .

We drive on, up over the moorland hills and drop down into Postbridge, which has always been a special place for us.

It is always busy there and it is difficult to take a photograph of the ancient clapper bridge without people in it during the summer.

We dip our fingers in the Dart and head back towards Chagford.

We buy fruit from a tiny shop in the little market place and fresh bread with cheese for a moorland feast later.  For old time's sake, we indulge ourselves by looking in the Estate Agent's window and there it is . . . the house we have dreamed of, the house we have been looking for and which is just on the market, just as we have signed a contract on ours (this is a DREAM day out, by the way . . . .) 

The fawn-grey stone is soft in the photograph - the colour of a pony's muzzle.  The thatch drips down over small loft windows.  There is a huge inglenook in the kitchen with a bread oven. A deep pink rose drizzles flowers down the wall, tucking its nose under the thatch like a kitten nuzzling its mother. The garden folds around the house, protecting it from the wild moorland the other side of the bank-sided wall, which is a half-way house for garden escapees and wild flowers alike.  Harebells dance in the breeze.  We walk through the door and say, "We're interested in the cottage in the window.  Yes, that one . . .  Is it possible to view?"

The middle of the night

There is something primeval about the middle of the night.  Total blackness.  A heightened awareness of sound, with the wind tipping the leaves on their backs as it rips through the branches and the leaves protest.  The sound of  the rain slamming into the ground, unheeded.  For some strange reason I want to be out in it.  Part of it.

3 a.m. is not a good time to be creative.  My brain is somnolent but my body is still refusing to start healing as it is meant to do and my breathing not relaxed so sleep evades me.  Emotions rule your body in the middle of the night.  There is no balance of rationality.  Just a glimmer of light would bring perspective, but that prospect is hours away yet. 

I just want everything to be right again, for whatever is blocking all progress in our lives right now to be miraculously lifted and for plans to succeed, illness to recede, worries to be eased and hope to return.  I have no heart to do anything.  My routines are out of the window.  One step forward has now fallen back two steps.  This time last week I was back to walking and I can't believe that a few hot humid days have knocked me sideways so much.  I no longer have any faith in my Doctor.  It is not a good position to be in.

Perhaps tomorrow will be better.  It is, as Scarlett O'Hara once famously remarked, another day . . .

Things unsaid

There were so many things I wanted to write about in my earlier post.  As a non-driver over the weekend, due to my health, I was able to take on board the scenery about me, and we did get about quite a bit, going to two car boot sales, and the usual shop-to-shop grocery shopping.

 

I love to look at other peoples' gardens as we drive along.  Some people go to so much trouble and have pristine lawns, never a weed in sight, and beautiful hanging baskets, or with careful placings of shrubs as a backdrop for other plantings.  Yesterday, there was one cottage in a hollow with the most amazing Honeysuckle absolutely smothered in yellow blooms.  I have never seen such profusion.  It reminded me of a little whitewashed cottage we once drove past up in North Wales, which snuggled into the hillside and had one wall absolutely awash with Ceonothus, blue as Lapis Lazuli.  Then there are the abandoned farmhouse type gardens, which bloom as they will, deep pink roses drooping sleepily in a corner, cwtched up with wild visitors such as Valerian, Meadowsweet and Hemp Agrimony.

 

It had been a while since we had last been to this particular car boot sale (to sell), but it was a pleasant small one, and there were always friendly folk to chat with during the morning.  This was no exception.  We didn't do particularly well - I think everyone is feeling the pinch of this ongoing recession - but it stayed dry.  A chance conversation with one lady gave me an insight into her life.  She was quite smitten with our rocking chair, but her three dogs were currently obsessed with eating the cane chair in her bedroom, bit by bit and she feared ours would share the same fate!  This was the chair that overlooked the beautiful view down the valley, and she liked to sit there with her knitting, or a book, now and then glancing at the view.  That told me quite a bit about her as a person. 

Upon seeing the brass fender we were parting with, another family group reminisced about their old farmhouse where they had grown up.  "Duw" they said, "That is just like Mam's old fender," and they went on to talk about the old house so fondly - I think there must have been a hue clear out and all the "old" stuff had been chucked . . .  The common story a generation or so ago.

We dropped down into our favourite little seaside town afterwards, planning for a breath of sea air and some ice cream, but alas, everyone else had had the same idea and we could not park and had to turn around and drive back home again.

We have so many family memories tied up in this landscape - memories of days out, and birthday treats, and times when we could afford to go and explore rather than counting every mile's use of diesel!

We know practically every house and cottage along the route, and I noticed that the little Gothic cottage - abandoned last time we saw it - had been bought and "done up."  I preferred the peeling pale blue paint which had once adorned the window frames to the replacement white ones, but the beautiful pointed-arch shape still translated well.  I think they could have been estate cottages once as there is another - smaller - gothic-windowed cottage further along the same stretch of road. 

Fields everywhere had finally been cut and baled for haylage, or carried for silage or in some places, hay too.  One field - it is dry enough near the coast - had been growing wheat or barley and rolags of golden straw lay in stripes across the stubble.  That is a rare scene in Carmarthenshire though.

I have been going through my photographs for appropriate ones for this, but the sort I wanted were taken in other places (Haddon Hall for the roses above and the Umbellifers in the previous photo).  I hope they give a flavour of late summer here though.

Looking back on a busy weekend

Well, the past few days have been somewhat surreal.  Moments of highs and lows when really I would prefer life to be on a more even keel.  Once again, my health has taken a real battering and my asthma has been out of control - nothing I was taking was helping me breath any easier, and a trip to the Doctor's actually made things worse, but enough said about that.  My husband finally realized how much tension I have been holding on to - subliminally worried about our son going travelling across Europe on his own, but definitely worried about my asthma and what was causing the spiralling out of control.  I had 2 small glasses of wine last night, was able to relax and today I am feeling better.  Hopefully in control again and not on the one-way staircase of ill-health I was so frightened of.

Anyway, although it was an effort to get up early to check out the car boot sale on Saturday, it was well worth it and our efforts were rewarded.  I even found 3 more pieces of Devon pottery for my collection ( £2.50 the 3). 

Yesterday we had to sell at a car boot sale (there have been so few opportunities this summer, due to the weather, and our Junk Room needs to be emptied a bit more.)  It wasn't a very good day, but we did sell, amongst other things,  a lovely old Windsor chair  made from birch which we have had and used for many years now. 

Just as we got back on Saturday, we spotted these three riders who were taking part in a sponsored ride across Carmarthenshire, linked to the town's Merlin Festival.  They had been up to our local Llanfynydd Show and were now making their way back to Carmarthen via local lanes and then a Police Escort once they reached the A40.  I thought the "dragons" were brilliantly done - the two below even had colour-co-ordinated overreach boots!



Anyway, we will now all be suffering from Olympic Games Withdrawal Symptoms.  It was brilliant, from start to finish (and we still have most of last night's closing ceremony to see as we couldn't stay awake past 10 p.m.)  I feel so honoured to be British and am so proud of all the medals our sports men and women won.  It was great to see the presenters going wild when Usain Bolt, and Mo Farah won their races (we were too!!!)

P.S.  I will try and get back to the next few posts of why we came to be in Wales soon.

The 1940s Museum in Laugharne

We are back to summer today.  No kidding about, it is HOT.  And very, very humid.  High humidity does for me at the moment, and so this morning's planned cutting up of the Willow tree y menfolk dropped a week or two back, lasted approximately 3/4 hour before we both declared it was too darn hot . . .

Plan b then came into action - down to the beach after lunch.  With diesel the price it is, we couldn't go too far, so we decided to go down to Pendine again.  The route to Pendine takes us through Laugharne (pronounced LARN), where Dylan Thomas lived, and where there is now a 1940s Museum, which we had passed several times and said, we must go there . . .  Anyway, since they had bought a shelf from us at a Fleamarket back in May, we decided to go and have a look at it in situ.

Here is the "Tin Shed" which you go into first, and it is packed with original uniforms of various countries, and all sorts of artifacts which have largely been donated.  The proprietor gave us a guided tour and we could have talked until the cows came home, exchanging various bits of information from our particular families.  You can just see (above my husband who is in the white top far right) a re-enactment from Arnhem, when the soldiers were hiding out, having been given the wrong frequency crystals for their radio equipment and they were unable to make contact.  Apparently they were so short of food and water, that they were reduced to taking water from lavatories and flower vases. There was a lot more to show you but as I can't afford to buy new photograph space from Blogger, I am having to create more space on current posts by wiping out photos on much older ones . . .

Here is the Anderson Shelter, faithfully recreated - our guide told us it had taken him a week to dig the hole for it!  Over the top, was the soil which had been dug out, and this was beautifully planted up with wild flowers.

This was the little shack out the back.  I can remember little wooden "bungalows" with wriggly tin roofs, and a little bit of land (5 acres or so) to support the owners.  There were quite a few of them in the part of Hampshire where I grew up.

One view of the kitchen with its pots and pans, scales, zinc washing tub, and some advertising bottles and cans.  The wooden cupboard was called a tallboy in our house, where we had one like it (ours ended up painted battleship grey and turned into a castle by my husband for our children!)

Another view of the kitchen.  You can just see "our" shelf to the right with the coat hanging from it.  We have a few pieces at home which date from WWII so we have promised to donate them, and we look forward to another visit soon.

A corner of the sitting room, again authentic throughout.  It felt just like stepping back in time, especially as the music was Glen Miller, and my feet were tapping along with him!

If you are in our part of Wales, do visit this little Museum.  It is still evolving and being added to, and is absolutely fascinating.  We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and are looking forward to going back soon.

One quick photo of the beach at Pendine, looking across to the Gower Peninsula in the distance.

Cutting the apron strings . . .

At first glance, the above picture and my title today will seem a little confusing.  You may be thinking - what IS she going to make?

Well, our youngest child, our son, now 21, is setting off on the adventure of a lifetime, going solo backpacking in Europe, starting in Budapest in Hungary and making his way through Croatia, Italy, Spain and France.  He has done a lot of saving, much research and planning, and when he gave us a copy of his travel plans yesterday, I was delighted to see that all those formative years of dragging the children around castles, old house and archaeological sites seems to have made a favourable impression as he has castles, museums, a Fleamarket (all those years of car boot sales!), and climbing Vesuvius,  visiting Pompeii and Herculaneum on his list.

Needless to say, his adventures are also viewed with some trepidation by his mother, as I am inclined to get my knickers in a twist and imagine worst-case scenarios (something which needs to be swiftly nipped in the bud for the sake of my sanity over the next 4 or 5 weeks!), so I took myself off to the friendly little wool and sewing shop in Llandeilo yesterday.  I had ordered a zip so I could mend my middle daughter G's skirt.  Then I wanted some sand or sky coloured material to edge my seaside patchwork blocks which I hand-sewed a few weeks back when this chest infection stapled me to the sofa.  I ended up choosing this bright and cheerful yellow which echoes the colour of some of the beach huts in the material, but have made a rod for my back by deciding to do Mitred corners - the hard way.  The two skeins of pretty embroidery floss were to repair  a cushion, and I would have sworn they were the right colours, but when I got them home they are too jade and not enough deep turquoise/marine blue.  What a shame - I will have to pop in there again then!

Anyway, I have plenty to keep me busy.  He has phoned to say he'd reached London yesterday, then Stanstead last night, and this morning phoned to say he was about to board his plane.  Now I won't get to speak to him until he is on his way home next month, and will have to make do with e-mails from him.  I was NOT allowed to get a Facebook account as that would infringe his privacy!!!  It is very hard, giving them their freedom and waving them goodbye, but I am so proud of him for having the guts to do this on his own as I know he had his own reservations over travelling alone.  I am sure he will make friends for life at the youth hostels along the way, which will be full of young folk from all over the world, doing just what he is doing.  The hard part is sitting at home and letting him do it.


Edited to add a recipe for you to try.  I need to keep busy today, so I have a three seed plaited loaf rising, and this is in the slow cooker:  

RICE VERACRUZ

1 pound minced beef
2 medium sized onions, chopped
1 green pepper, halved, seeded and choppped
2 tblspns vegetable oil
1 16 oz can whole tomatoes, with liquid
1 can (14 1/2 oz) condensed beef consomme (I just used a beef stock cube and 1 pt water)
2 tspns chilli powder
1 can (3 1/2 oz) pitted black olives, sliced (I omit this)
1 cup long-grain uncooked rice
4 oz Cheddar cheese, grated

Saute beef, onions and green pepper in oil in a large pan until meat all browned - about 5 minutes.  Pour off excess fat.  Add tomatoes, consomme, chilli powder and half the olives.  Bring slowly to boiling, stir in rice and cook for 5 minutes.  Cover dish.

Bake in casserole dish (I use my Le Creuset) in a moderate oven (375 deg.) for 30 mins.  Uncover, stir, top with remaining olives and cheese.  Continue to bake for 15 mins longer.

In Limbo

A bit of a strange week this week.  I feel like I have been in limbo - still do in fact.  T went back home on Monday.  G moved flats on Wednesday (fortunately we didn't need to help as she had a friend with transport), and next week D goes solo back-packing in Europe.  I am not worried, repeat, I am not worried.  If I say it enough I may just believe the rhetoric . . .

I have finished the anti-biotics now but I'm not sure if I am "right" yet.  I'm not coughing, but still needing to clear my chest, still on double the medication (steroid inhaler), still having to take Anti-histamines to keep my chest clear/help my breathing.  I went for a short walk with my OH yesterday and KNEW I wouldn't get back up the hill, so he had to come and get the car to chariot me home.  Mind you, we both felt tired before we started, so it was probably a bad idea all round!

Anyway, I was intending to write another bit about moving to Wales (the horses this time), but the scanner isn't working and all the photos came out woolly, so I shall have to try again later.

Meanwhile, my "collection" of two pieces of Devonware pottery (Dartmouth Pottery/Torquay Pottery etc) has grown apace in the last few weeks, with various charity shop and car boot finds.  It is very cheap at present, having been very expensive until a few years ago, so I shall buy it whilst I can afford it!

Spot the oddball one . . . has a kosher backstamp of Royal Torquay Pottery but I am very dubious about the "sprayed" on green at the bottom and the "wrong" cream (more yellow) and its size . . .  D'you reckon there are fakes out there?  Looking things up on-line, Forster and Hunt at Honiton made stuff VERY similar to this, but I presume NOT with a Royal Torquay Pottery backstamp?  The little Pepper pot beside it is an early one (about 1905 I think).  My favourites are the plate behind it and the square milk jug, both bought cheaply at last week's Fleamarket.  I love the connection with my Devon roots.