Stormy weather

My posts about Devon usually boast photos of sandy beaches, stunning coastline and sun-drenched cottage gardens. Unfortunately, like much of the rest of southern England, we are having a tough winter and we are all wondering if things will ever be the same again.

The wet weather started in December and, apart from a few brief bright spells, it has gone on and on and on with no end in sight. As well as the never-ending rain, we are currently experiencing storms and high tides here on the coast. Our beaches are being swept away, our rail link to the rest of England has been cut off, seafront homes and businesses are being destroyed while further inland, farms and villages are suffering badly. Here is a clip from an ITV news report showing some of the damage:


I wonder if Ikea make a flatpack ark?

Away from it all, close to home#2

The previous post is still there so I am going to be ambitious and add a few photographs to this one.

The farm cottage that we stayed in last week, just 22 miles from home, is one of a small complex of converted barns.

There was a photographic display of the derelict buildings before the work started in 1988 and the progress through the next year to bring them to the current state of luxurious comfort. The grounds are lovingly tended and there are ponds and woods and many interesting walks.

Since our main purpose in choosing such a venue was some R and R, we spent a lot of time reading. We had, of course, taken our own books but it is always interesting to see what other people have on their shelves. The dedicated "quiet room" had a wide selection of fiction and non-fiction for all tastes and ages but our cottage also had a full bookcase:

I was intrigued when I saw twenty diaries, covering the years 1989 to 2009, on the bottom shelf. I assumed that they were there for us to read and settled down with a cup of tea and the first volume. The entries began in April 1989 with the first guests to stay in the cottage. There was a note from the owner, inviting guests to record their activities during their stay, to tell a little about themselves, to mention places they visited and to recommend pubs and restaurants. It made for fascinating reading.

1989 was the year that we moved from Hampshire to Devon. It was an exceptionally warm and dry year; we arrived in January and spent the first few days on the beach instead of unpacking! That summer, like this year's, was glorious and we had lots of visitors to help us explore our new surroundings. Reading the diary entries, I was reminded of that time and the fun we had with our children and their cousins and friends; we were discovering the same places as those written about in the diaries. We always kept journals and scrapbooks, sitting round the table after dinner to write and draw about what we had done during the day.  The cottage guests did the same thing - there were entries from different family members who, like us, made recording the day's adventures an adventure in itself.

The first few diaries are quite full with visitors entering wholeheartedly into the exercise of building a history of these refurbished ancient buildings. Then I noticed a gradual decline in the amount that was written and in the number of people who would write anything at all. The 2000s saw fewer and fewer entries and in 2009 the owners must have decided to give up the idea and no more diaries were left with that kindly invitation to add to the records. I was saddened to think of what has been lost to our social history by the lack of interest in writing nowadays. I suppose future generations must look to Facebook and (dare I say it?) blogs to find out about everyday life in the 21st century.

This  made me nostalgic for the holidays we recorded when the children were small. I dashed off to get some of the scrapbooks down from the shelf where thay have been undisturbed for quite a few years. I realise how few photos there are, we didn't have digital cameras in those days. We enjoyed doing our own writing and illustrating.(Click on the pictures to see them more clearly)

This is a book from a holiday in Cornwall in 1984 when Andrew was 7 and Tanith 4 (and a half!) Andrew wrote about the game we played in the evening:

and Tanith drew a picture of the game of crazy golf we'd had:

One morning, my husband found a dormouse when he was on his early morning run and woke the children to admire it before returning it to the bushes:

Do you remember those long country walks I shared with you some time ago? The scrapbook from our Easter holiday in 1986 gives my account of one, alongside  my husband's illustration:

Now I remember why my son and daughter groan whenever LCWs are suggested! It is good to have these prompts to take us back to happy times. I am grateful to those families who took the trouble to fill in the diaries at Ham Farm, their memories are now part of the history of that time and place.

The lost post

I put together a post called Away from it all, close to home, yesterday. It appeared on the blog for a few hours and Val left a comment and I responded. Then, somehow it disappeared completely. I spent an hour or so reading all the help, advice and discussions on Blogger but I could not find any way to retrieve a lost post. Sorry, Val and sorry Dewena for your fruitless efforts. I'm going to write a little post now and hope this one stays put!

It has been a very lovely but also very busy summer.  We have had many visitors:19 in all but, I'm pleased to say, not all at once. The house has been filled with fun and laughter, a welcome distraction from the anxious waiting for my husband's test results. (Thank you for the messages and enquiries, it has taken a long time but the worst case scenario has now been ruled out but spinal surgery is required.)

Family members from Lancashire, Oxford and Bristol: brother, sister, nieces, great-nephews and a dog came to stay at various times as well as our son and his family and our daughter and hers. Happy chaos has reigned and the sun shone all the time! There have been barbecues and picnics, days on the beach, days on the burrows, hide-and-seek in the garden and a great deal of family time. It has all been wonderful but now I am exhausted!

My husband's doctor suggested we have a holiday while waiting for an appointment at the spinal clinic, which could be a long wait. He couldn't manage a long journey so I looked for some peace and quiet with a touch of luxury within a 25 mile radius of home and here we are in a farm cottage on the edge of Dartmoor. Apart from a young honeymooning couple, we have the whole farm to ourselves as the owners are themselves on holiday and the summer season is almost over. Tranquility is what we needed and that is just what we have. 

I posted a lot of photographs yesterday but I won't do that now in case they disappear again. As I have been typing this, a message that an error has occurred while saving has appeared at regular intervals. I will click on the Publish button and hope for the best. If this succeeds, I will try another full post later in the week.

A wan winter landscape

As I drive around the Devon lanes at this time of year, I often think of these lines from Robert Graves: a wan winter landscape, hedges freaked with snow. There was no snow yesterday but the landscape was certainly wan. The last thing, you might think, to tempt me to visit a Royal Horticultural Society garden but that is exactly what I did. The MM and I drove to Great Torrington to  RHS Rosemoor.  The garden, for the most part, looked quite wan, waiting for spring to bring it to life but there were some early plants to enjoy: masses of snowdrops, hellebores, a few narcissi and some miniature crocuses.

Aren't these glorious? I don't have much success with snowdrops in my garden, possibly because little visitors nibble the bulbs at night. I do have lots of hellebores, which I love, but not a yellow one like this beauty

The real reason for our visit was to see the Winter Sculpture Exhibition. It was a really cold day and my gloves did nothing to stop my fingers from aching but I just had to take pictures of the wonderful pieces of stoneware, stainless steel, ceramic, bronze and glass sculpture strategically placed against the backdrop of grasses, evergreens, trees and perrenials. As the exhibition brochure says: "Each piece has been carefully placed within the garden to enlighten, amuse and inspire our visitors this winter."

There are 60 sculpures in all, from 20 West Country sculptors. I can only share a few of them here but I would encourage anyone who is in the area to go and see the exhibition for themselves. It is on until Sunday 24 February.

Small hanging dragonfly by Katie Lake

Female red kite by Ama Menec

Aerviator by Michael Kusz

I like it like that by Penny Hardy

A close-up of one of those amazing dancing figures

Pair of courting cranes by Colin Andrews

A walk in the garden by Melanie Deegan

I am troubled by a great many snails in my garden but nothing like this one!

Big Cyril by Tony Smither

All of the photos can be enlarged by clicking on them. These are just a sample of the delights in the exhibition. Visitors are asked to choose their favourite but my husband and I couldn't settle on one, we both agreed that, if we had a bigger garden and a much bigger bank balance, we would love to have them all.

Holiday at home

 I have had such problems with my internet connection for the past few weeks that I haven't managed to post anything. I have lost several attempts but managed to salvage this. The wonderful weather we had at the end of September is now a distant memory but we really did have a brief Indian summer. We have been promisd that all our broadband cables have been upgraded and that we will be having a much better service from now on - let's see if it works!

I could have called this post "My staycation" but there are certain neologisms that don't make it past my vocabulary filter. I had almost decided that "summer" was about to find a place at the other end of said filter, among the obsolete words and phrases, when the sun began to shine and a heatwave hit us for a whole week!

We had a  guest who was making her first visit to Devon and she was as welcome as the sunshine because she made us see our area through fresh eyes. We realised that we  had become blasé about the beautiful places around us and it was invigorating to explore them with such an enthusiastic companion.

Here are some of the places we went to during the glorious week at the end of September. I have to confess it was a whistle stop tour of the area but we did manage to show Ann most of the North Devon beaches. As well as a brief tour of Exmoor National Park. We covered the coast from Lynmouth to Appledore, with many walks, coffee stops, lunches and afternoon teas on the way.

Click on the map to enlarge.

Tuesday
 We spent the afternoon viewing our nearest  beaches, Saunton Sands and Croyde Bay.

Saunton Sands

Croyde Bay

 With very few holiday makers around, we had quiet roads and even quieter beaches. Bliss!


Wednesday
 We headed to the other side of the bay (called Barnstaple Bay by those of us who live on this side and Bideford Bay by those who live on the other!). We had morning coffee on Fremington Quay
before driving on through Instow to Appledore.

Appledore, looking across to Instow

 Then on to Westward Ho! to sit on the promenade eating seaside chips.

Westward Ho!

 Thursday 
A morning exploring Exmoor, getting covered in mud as  we tramped across a boggy field to climb to a viewing point. It was worth the mess because we had panoramic views of  Exmoor all around us,  Dartmoor in the distance on one side and Bodmin Moor on the other.

Exmoor

Then on to one of the most beautiful places on Exmoor. Watersmeet is the place where the East Lyn River meets Hoar Oak Water in one of the deepest river gorges in Britain. It is part of the South West Coastal Path owned and managed by the National Trust.

Watersmeet

Watersmeet

It was very difficult to tear ourselves away from this lovely, peaceful place but we had more places to show our visitor and off we went to Lynmouth and Lynton and the Valley of the Rocks.

Well, I am going to have to try to finish this account tomorrow. It is taking so long to upload photos that I have run out of time. BT assured us that the new system will stabilise in about 10 days, that was 5 days ago so perhaps .................

The red cliffs of Devon

Whenever I drive to the south of the county, I try to spot the point where the soil changes from black to red. I would love to find a farm with both types of soil but to date I haven't seen one. I love the beautiful red sandstone of South Devon and I spent last week enjoying the sunshine and spectacular views along the red cliffs near Exmouth.

We have had exceptionally warm weather for early April and returned home to find the apple blossom, magnolia and lilac filling the garden with colour and perfume. I rushed out with the camera to record them because we are told the weather is about to change. Last year the apple blossom only survived for two days before high winds arrived to demolish all hopes of a good crop of apples. I am hoping that this lot will survive a little longer.

Silver linings

My husband and I have become like the two little figures in the weather clock since my mother-in-law came to live with us eighteen months ago: we cannot both be out at the same time. We make the most of the rare days when we can get away; last month we went to Westward Ho! and on Friday last we had planned a visit to the neighbouring county of Somerset.

We set off on our perfectly planned day: a 45 minute drive to the motorway and then a further 20 minutes to our destination, a couple of hours to do some shopping, have a leisurely lunch and walk and then back home by 6pm. We had forgotten all about the holidaymakers who now go home on Friday instead of the traditional Saturday changeover day. After two hours of inching along behind camper vans and caravans we still hadn't reached the motorway. Not wanting to spend our precious day off in the car, we abandoned the shopping trip and headed for the Fisherman's Cot:

This is where I came in October 2007 to meet my now very dear friend D of 60goingon16 (can it really be so long ago?), so I had some very happy memories as I sipped my chilled orange juice.


As I had expected nothing more interesting than shops on this outing, I left my camera at home but I did have my new all-singing-and-dancing mobile phone. I have been waiting for my son to visit to teach me how to use it but finding myself in this lovely spot, I just had to have a go at sending a picture message to my daughter. I sent her the photo of the bridge and by return she sent me this picture of Millie in the garden - isn't modern technology wonderful?

Last week we had to make the difficult decision to cancel our planned trip to see my brother on his lovely Greek island.  The Fisherman's Cot offered a small compensation in the form of an excellent Greek salad:

After lunch and a very restful time by the river we returned home, not at all disappointed by our frustrated journey. We had a delicious lunch, a peaceful couple of hours by the river Dart, I learned to use my mobile phone and we had an instant picture of Millie at play. What more could we want?

What ho!

One of the first things we did when we bought our current home was to drop the name it had been given when it ceased to be a farmhouse. "I refuse to live in a house with an exclamation mark," I said. The house had been called Westward Ho!, now it glories in being plain number 20.

We went to visit the seaside village the house had been named after, which itself had been named after Charles Kingsley's book.  We didn't stay long, finding the place run down and rather tacky and we haven't been back in the 21 years since. Until yesterday, that is, and what a transformation: bright new seafront buildings, everywhere trim and sparkling clean, everyone friendly and helpful.

In case you think I am making up the exclamation mark in the name, here's a picture of the Post Office:

(click on picture for a clearer view)

There is a beautiful 2-mile long sandy beach:

plenty of rock pools to explore

and the pebble ridge, which protects the nearby golf course from the sea.

Until 2008 local people would gather on the beach twice a year for "potwalloping."

Everyone would gather the pebbles that had been washed down by the tides and pile them back onto the ridge. I hear there was much frivolity and local ale involved. The ending of this practice has endangered the oldest golf course in England and destroyed another local tradition.

 For those who find the sea too cold or too big, there is a very convenient beach pool.

Until yesterday, I thought that North Devon beaches lacked beach huts but Westward Ho! has a row of them. Behold:

I got really excited when I saw them. We used to have one on the beach at Eastney when we lived in Hampshire and we had great fun there when the children were small.

Up the hill, beyond the beach huts, we saw what we thought might be Bates' motel.

The closer we got, the more convinced we became so we turned back at this point.

Heading down to the esplanade again, we looked across to "our side of the bay." You can't make out our village because of the mist but the headland is Baggy Point.

  We couldn't see any evidence of the shabby seaside resort of twenty years ago. The ice cream van, a stall selling shell fish from Lundy Island and a couple of cafes provide the seafront refreshments.

and we didn't have to have fish and chips, we sat outside at a bistro, enjoying the sea view and a very pleasant lunch.

Having wasted twenty years, thinking Westward Ho! was a place to be avoided at all costs, we fell in love with it. Should we move to one of the seafront apartments? Or perhaps this would suit our taste and pocket more:

I would still find it difficult to live in a place with an exclamation mark, though!!

The pig that dwells with the lambs

Many farmers have been forced to diversify in order to survive the difficult financial hardships of recent years. One farm in North Devon that has managed to maintain its character as a working farm while offering hours of interest and entertainment to families is the Big Sheep. Granddaughter Charlotte took me there yesterday and we had a great day out.

 Everyone gets a chance to feed the lambs

although this one looks decidedly piggish!

But who cares at nap time?

There are lots of things to do and see, including sheep shearing demonstrations and sheep-dog trials and a ride around the farm on a tractor-drawn trailer. There is also a quirky humorist at work behind some of the attractions:

The ducks have this rather splendid house but perhaps not for much longer!

(Click on picture to enlarge and see here if you don't know the reference)

We attended the Sheep Race and I put my entire fortune on the appropriately named Alderknitty:

Unfortunately, as they came round Ewe Turn, heading for the finish, I noticed my jockey (in blue) was riding backwards! All was not lost as my son had become joint owner of the winner, Red Ram, and we took home a magnificent cup.

I think this was the highlight of the day for 8 month old Charlotte.