This sign set the tone for todays blog.
Dunes gently resting is such a comforting thought , I sought out some gentle images so as not to disturb the dunes. Just a bit of a long exposure to make them a little more ethereal and sleepy.
And some gentle lapping of waves as a soundtrack.
Shell and stone yin and yang for harmony.
Time to reflect on a weekend well spent.
A really late blog today. Floods and powercuts are the reason. Finally the exhibition in Tavistock is set up and the doors are open. After 18 months of being affected by plague it is somewhat irritating to be affected by a flood for this exhibition. Tavistock issued its first flood warnings for 11 years overnight.
Fortunately we have some Scallywags as good omens for the rest of the exhibition.
Thankfully we are awash with colour and amazing creativity.
And personally I am currently in a sun beam.
Sparkly new concrete and hand rails turned out not to be the main event this morning.
When we arrived on the beach early Friday morning we were not the only occupants, and certainly not the most important beach dwellers. Spearmint, a young female seal had hauled herself onto the beach to digest a big meal.
Here she is happily sleeping off a huge meal and dreaming of infinite fish and,somewhat unusually for a seal, swimming with humans. Here she is this morning at Devils Point..
She stayed most of the day and the beach was soon cordoned off to keep her safe, with the constant watchful eyes of a Marine Animal Medic who were all happy to engage with the public and talk about seal behaviour.
Here she is just waking up after many hours of snoozing with a full tummy.
Two days of torrential storms and the path to the beach is flooded. But today the sun is out and that makes everything feel pretty. Despite the weather the contractors have managed to finish the refurbishments to our swimming area.
We have handrails now on the new steps that will safely guide us in and out of the water at high tide swims, in all but the worst of weathers.
This mornings swim is set to be a calm one with a bit of giddy excitement at having new concrete and handrails!
This week is set to see the sea temperature drop almost 5 degrees . Yesterday and today it will be around 15/16 degrees, by the end of the week it could have dropped to 10/11. The sea as seen above was choppy and difficult to get into last night but,once in, it really was a good evening swim. The bags we carry with us are getting heavier though. Flasks of hot drinks, layers of clothes and wetsuits are making a return. Strangely most of us are enjoying the return to ‘proper’ cold water swimming. The late Spring and early summer were lovely as the sea temperatures started to rise and we could swim as long as we liked early in the morning or late into the evening without too much concern for anything beyond, perhaps, the tide.
Swimming in cold water has an extra frisson to it that we (the Bobbers) have missed in the warmer months. I write this now from the comfort of a warm house, by the end of the week proper cold water swimming will be a reality. We will have all the frisson we could wish for.
Yesterday was a strange one, Autumn has certainly arrived. The sea temperature and air temperature were equal, both at 14 degrees. The evening bob felt completely fine but we may have stayed in the water too long as we felt the effects of afterdrop for the first time in about 5 months. Afterdrop is the effect of body temperature continuing to drop after leaving the water. Hot drinks, brisk changing and lots of layers help to minimise the effects but we’ve got used to leisurely chats after swimming and not being too fussed about layers or bringing hot drinks. Time to take sensible precautions again. The word Christmas was mentioned!
A Christmas day morning bob is looking likely for this year.
On our walk to the beach we passed this glorious Virginia Creeper and Hop combination on a wall. A sure sign Autumn has arrived and is settling in for a few months.
Another crochet painting emerged from my new painting space in the garage. The paintings are stacking up in the studio ready to have their fine details and finishing done in the warmth of the indoor studio. Such luxury!
You might think that a day spent pondering the interior decoration of two rooms would be a day without incident.
The new house is a few minutes walk from a street filled with repair garages, workshops and Trade Counters for various essential items to the marine and building trades.
Armed with a fair idea of what we needed we went to one of the Trade shops for decorators needs. There was an instant, underlying hum of manliness as we walked in. There were few other customers in the store, all men. Their fleeces told the stories of their masculinity. ‘Babcock’ only needs a small wrinkle of fabric before it looks like Bob cock. Some men wore t-shirts bearing the name Princess Yachts. The word Princess stretched across impossibly toned trapezius, deltoid and pectoral muscles. A sure warning that calling the owner ‘Princess’ might be ill advised.
We were left to our own devices and without too much trouble made our decisions and gathered up our purchases. We waited some time at the counter. Tea was being made for all the customers, not quite all of course. Tea was made for the fleece and t-shirt wearing men! We did not register on anyone’s tea radar. Tea arrived in bright mugs bearing the names of English football clubs. The talk was of standing at football matches and the exact opposite of standing, clearing slime off slipways.
The conversations ranged around and over me. Then one of the men asked my opinion on a product I was buying.
Did I think it was any good, and could he use it to paint body parts. What was I planning to use it for?
Horror flooded my mind, the idea of painting any body part with noxious paint seemed like madness. I suggested that it would be a bad idea. He looked at me as if I was a little crazy, a look that only intensified when I told him I was painting crochet. His mind fixed firmly on the industrial and mine on the creative.
We returned home, made our own tea and started using our various purchases. Then a text message came through for a last minute ‘ bob’ in the sea. A birthday bob for a visiting bobber. Even this simple activity took a turn!
How to make a birthday bob memorable?
For the moment access to our beach is blocked by essential works. The only access is via the grounds of a rest home and convent. Unknown to us there is a curfew on using this route. Our birthday bob was ended by us being seen off the premises. Being thrown out of a convent is a pretty unusual way to mark a birthday.
A day of unexpected outcomes!
This was yesterday morning as we left the coàst. Today has started in much the same sunny way.
In between we have been drenched by monster showers in both the home and away locations. The sun is particularly welcome today as we wrestle with wallpaper and paint decisions and generally plan on doing fairly dull stuff. Who needs sun for camping and coastal adventures! We starved ourselves yesterday ready for an afternoon outing with some friends. It is a reflection of our hunger and not the quality of the comestibles that brings the blog to the sorry state of having no pictures. A shocking state of affairs when offered such a pretty range of sweet and savoury treats. Afternoon tea will be represented on this blog only by the left overs that we brought home. How slack is that!
As luck would have it we have a dog whose ears act as a windsock. Thus allowing me to share other pictures that feature wind and you will have an understanding of sense and direction. Lola is staring out to sea looking northward towards Wales.
Yesterdays swim was extraordinary. Exhilarating and epic, the thrill and managed risk of an unknown beach made our morning swim just delicious. The previous day we had met some fellow coast path amblers. The woman expressed an urge to swim in the sea, her male partner was somewhat dismissive of her diligence or ability to do such a thing. We told her we would be at the beach at 11:30 and at 11:30 she strode into the sea to join us with no sign of her doubting man.
There were furry lifeguards on duty at all times.
The rest of the day was spent ambling and exploring the coastal path.
Somewhat disappointingly the stretch of coastal path did not live up to its designation of scenic. We knew the sea and cliffs were to our left but what we mostly saw were brambles. I observed that the walk was “About as scenic as my arse’ which pretty much describes everyone’s view. A rotating display of four human bums and three dog bums depending on which order we were walking.
Book reading conversations were the high point of our rest stops. Raynor Winn and Simon Armitage have both written books about walking the South West Coast path. Both books were given rigorous reviews in the bramble caves where we found benches to stop. Blackberries were available for refreshment which was a reasonable compensation for not seeing the Bristol Channel.
Thankfully walking the coastal path had not been the plan so there was no huge disappointment with the lack of views. The reward for doing a challenging and unexpectedly long amble was pints of Doom Bar shandy and smaller measures of Gin and Tonic served with tasty fish and chips at a beachside pub.
Just a final, uphill mile to our beds.
Yesterday was a proper English holiday day. It rained all day but we still managed a ‘bob’ on a grey beach. After a hot shower and breakfast we set off on foot to explore the cold wet beauty of the North Devon coast.
I will spare you the monotony of grey seascapes but we did manage to find some local and not so local colour.
Sometimes holidays in England definately need the right clothes because the right weather does not always blow our way. We have the right clothes!
We brought colour and interest to people walking the coastal path by bobbing in the sea when no-one else bothered. I also thoughtfully used my fluorescent bouy so they didnt incorrectly assume I was a seal at play. My natural grace in the water is easily confused with the movements of a marine mammal and it would be cruel to trick people,on the 630 mile hike of the South West Coastal Path, into believing that they had seen Martine the Coombe Martin Seal frolicking with a mackerel.
Although I do sometimes tinker with them.
We located rain forest plants. Although locating a good coffee after 4pm takes an intrepidness we do not possess.
Perhaps most significantly in these Covid times of restricted travel we found a cute Japanese Tea Set in a charity shop. Which helps me to spice up this blog with quite a lot of foreign influence.
And at least an illustration of foreign travel.
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