Category: Dartmoor

#1608 theoldmortuary ponders

On By Juliet CornellIn Dartmoor, Serendipity, Words1 Comment

Another remarkably sunny day on Dartmoor, gave us peaceful forest bathing and bright river walks.

Walking in a forest that is recovering from the hottest summer it has ever experienced, it was only planted in 1931, was made all the more peaceful because the grass has only been growing properly for about a month. Soft new grass in every direction made the forest floor look freshly upholstered in fresh green velvet. The perfect acoustic muffler

.

Keep the word muffler in mind, you will need it later.

Although just to keep you interested the beautiful, beautiful day was pretty crisp. We were on Dartmoor and the air temperature was 5 degrees lower than at home. The first use of a wooly scarf, a muffler, kept the chill off our necks.

We did not experience the temperature of the crystal clear river water. Lola did, and made no comment. Muffled or otherwise. She was much more interested in snuffling out fungi than making idle chit chat about water temperatures.

She was also happy to be basking in dappled sunlit silence, next to the van, the queen of everything she surveyed.

Until she wasnt, a low rumble eased its way towards us.An invading force of more than 30 Land Rovers pulled into our idylic spot. Great big 4×4’s rolling into our space. Hefty thighed passengers jumping out to queue and somewhat overwhelm a horsebox coffee shop parked in a different clearing. In a moment we were surrounded by vehicles. Some provocatively threw up their bonnets.

Crowds of eager people looked into the inner workings. Others stood around in awe. Some even ventured to touch the still warm inner parts of another persons vehicle. We had been overwhelmed by an enthusiasts event. All over the forest car park knots of people touched, photographed or simply gazed at Land Rovers. Two hours of inexplicable motor joy. Then a secret sign, the crowds dispersed and the great conundrum of vehicle enthusiasts wherever they turn up. It seems that no matter how, pristine or beautifully restoratively engineered vehicles have been prepared and turned into festish objects, One aspect is deliberately left a little rough around the edges or even has the effect deliberately enhanced.

Exhaust Mufflers… Or Silencers, in the U.K. Car enthusiasts seem to love to make a noise with their vehicles . Deep,throaty, farty noises. Unexpected pops and bangs. Thus with a cacophony of unneccesary noises over 30 Range Rovers left the forest and we were bathed, once again in lovely silence.

Googling the words Range Rover and Bellever Forest showed us exactly what the noise was all about.

A strip off apparently! No nudity was noticed by us. I think that may have been a good thing. I am just thrilled to have used the word muffle 3 ways without ever seeing a shortened version of the word.

#1605 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By Juliet CornellIn Dartmoor1 Comment

What’s something you’ve done that your past self would be proud of?

I have never been to Foggintor Quarry before. But I have sat on the rocks of Foggintor Quarry for most of my life and there has often been photographic evidence of me doing it. As a toddler feeding pigeons and as an overnight reveller during Queen Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee. A couple of New Years Eves

Now if this sounds like nothing that my past self would be proud of . I am inclined to agree, but the part of me that really loves a quirky fact feels a little bit excited to have visited the quarry that birthed Nelsons Column. The more or less central spot of London in Trafalgar Square. So wherever you are in the world the distance between your home and London would be measured to a monument built from rock from Foggintor Quarry.

10 years ago my son, Sam and I posing posing in front of Nelsons Column at Christmas time. Both completely unaware that we were posing in front of rock from a quarry that we could see from our Cornish home. As I stood at the quarry today it was possible to see the town we used to live in. Our ruverside home would be somewhere below the arrow.

We used to look out of the east facing windows on really wintery days hoping to see snow on the higher parts of Dartmoor. Sleds and snow shoes would be hastily thrown into the car. Madness to think that we were almost certainly looking straight at Foggintor. Sometimes of course it was actually obscured by fog!

The quarry had its own school. This is all that remains.

Just imagine being educated somewhere quite so bleak.

below Foggintor Facts

https://share.google/rgX9uFZE4eRtUo8bf

#1416 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Dartmoor, Serendipity1 Comment

Yesterday was a rare sunny day, at home. Two dog walks achieved with no changing of clothes needed. When a couple of free hours revealed themselves. I decided to do a quick sketch. What did I choose? A rain soaked pasture on Dartmoor. Misty enough to create a halo around the moon.

My only excuse for a rather sombre image, is the political storm that was billowing around me from the radio.

A classic tale of who knew what, when  in the world of powerful men, disposable women and lots of money and influence.

I wanted to use the word turgid to describe the political clusterf**k, that has been emerging for some time from the fall out of the Epstein Files on Britain.

The situation is indeed turgid with both meanings of the word and my picture is a bit turgid, but over the last couple of years turgid+badger is a phrase that reminds me of a happily eccentric holiday spent in Abersoch, Wales.

For no particular reason I think it would be a fabulous name for a rock band or a trendy coffee shop. Or a graphic novel.

We were staying with some friends in a large house. In the early evening I had spotted a badger snuffling on  the edge of a quiet path in a large garden. I mentioned it to our host.

“Ah ” she said.

“I have never seen a live one,but that does explain the turgid badger I found in my water butt”

Not a sentence I would expect to hear ever.

I wonder why it has stuck with me.

Firstly it was a lovely few days with friends that we don’t see often enough.

We were all slightly discombobulated by our surroundings and a way of life that we were unfamiliar with. Champagne at 4pm on an emptyish stomach gave none of us the maturity that matched our chronological ages.

The words themselves are delicious when paired together. So I am a little protective of the word, turgid.

I am not prepared to gift it to dodgy politicians and their even dodgier friends. I might just allow it for a painting.

Difficult times.

If badgers were not such lovely creatures the term could become a massive insult.

“You, Sir are a turgid Badger”

Turgid waters. Dartmoor

#1023 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Dartmoor, Serendipity2 Comments

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.

© eBay

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.

Fabulous locally grown veg.

And country hats for country chaps.

Vinyl

I would have checked for the album if I had remembered.

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.

©theoldmortuary

Every time I visit I wonder why I don’r go more often.

#912 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Dartmoor, Devon, Serendipity1 Comment

Yesterday was one of those days when our lives exactly matched a meme on Facebook.

A day of replanting pot bound trees and plants rewarded us with aching bones and a need for sleep. While all around us something magical was happening in the sky.

Predicted to be happening again last night we headed for Dartmoor.

We were not the only ones and the phenomena was not obvious to us or the hundreds of others who took to the dark skies of West Devon.

Our Northern Lights.

The dogs got a very late walk in Yelverton and with some digital tweakery I can repurpose the image of brake lights and headlights into something we were hoping to see.

And I can cut and paste and superimpose it on a very nice tree from our journey, to give an utterly false but funky memory of the night we were stuck in a traffic jam on Dartmoor.