A day of ambling in a favourite market town. Inspired by using up a Christmas voucher for breakfast out. While at The Annex I had a weird, but unponderable familiarity with a picture on the wall.
Oh the magic of a good night’s sleep. This was the picture on an album I carried around when I was in the sixth form at school.
This is not the subject of today’s ponder, but how strange that my sleeping head pulled this out of the archive. Stranger still that 16 year olds went to school with a mountain of books, and in an effort to look cool, also lugged vinyl records around in the vain hope that the communal record player would be available to play their favoured album, during the precious ‘free’ periods.
Tavistock is one of my favourite towns. I worked there regularly but have never wanted to live there. Every day there is a market and no two days are the same. Tavistock is within the Dartmoor National Park, and because of its location on a moor, the weather in the town turns out a bit wetter than I can tolerate. But visiting is just fine, whatever the weather. The market today was its usual jumble of stuff.
And country hats for country chaps.
Vinyl
And as luck would have it some copper.
Copper is significant because Tavistock is an ancient Stannary Town. Mining of tin being the early source of wealth. Copper mining and the wool trade came later but copper makes a much prettier picture. But this winter picture of sheep shows just how the landscape has looked forever.
Town history below.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tavistock
It is the texture of Tavistock that I love. So much history and bustling with civic activity since 961 AD. Something is very thrilling about being in a market town that has been a market town for so very long. Knowing that apart from my clothing and possibly my lack of body odour, nothing would have stood out about our visit or purchases yesterday, and time travel permitting we could easily have been at the very first market. A loaf of bread some green vegetables and a coal skuttle. No sheep at the market yesterday but below is a Greyface Dartmoor I met some time ago.
Every time I visit I wonder why I don’r go more often.
theoldmortuary.design 
it looks like such a charming place to spend some time, and i can see how it must be ever-changing
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I always feel conflicted. I could very easily live there quite easily but my wild swimming would be in freshwater pools on the moor and they are way cooler than the sea. There is just one direct road between Plymouth and Tavistock and it is a commuting nightmare. No train service. But I really love to visit. Tavistock and the moor have a whole different shade of greige!
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