Resuming Contact ! Grey Skies, Drizzle and Poor Surf...

 

On the basis that there’s nothing more boring than other peoples’ holidays, this is going to be a short transmission.  There’s another couple of reasons for brevity too. At Clovelly connectivity is very weak and so one builds up a massive avalanche of e-mails and the like which have to dealt with on one’s return, just when, after a fortnight of relaxing holiday,  one is feeling quite exhausted.

                On top of that, the keyboard on my main laptop has misfunctioned. Every time  I tried to log on, my password was rejected. It took me some time to realise that the I and k keys on the keyboard weren’t working so the letters weren’t registering in the password – hence the rejection and the delayed transmission. Such is my fear of modern technology that this realisation was something of a relief in that I had managed to deduce what the problem was. Next stage – on a Sunday – arranging to get it fixed. This took some time, but Trevor,  my marvellous IT guru reckons he can do so in a few days. In the meantime, I had to fall back on my steam-driven little portable, where everything takes much longer and which isn’t set up for blogging  and other such ambitious projects. Nothing like a bit of disobliging technology to get one off to a good start in post-holiday recovery !  

Anyhow, back to the fortnight in Clovelly, with Team Powell. The weather was the worst I have ever known on a summer holiday –with endless grey skies, cold winds, drizzle and every now and again enough of a cruel gleam of hazy sunshine to remind us all of what we were missing, plus the second fact that the surf at Sandymouth, Duckpool and Northcott mouth was the weakest I have every encountered. These two undisputed facts sound as though they should combine to suggest that the holiday was a total disaster, but of course it wasn’t. There were numbers of exhilarating coastal walks with fantastic views, including a complicated arrangement by which we left one car at Northcott and the other at Duckpool, and walked from the first to the second, with a tea stop en route and a beach-day and barbecue at the end. It all worked just fine.  

During our various beach visits (there were some - Team Powell are very determined !)  I sneaked off for a bit of beach combing - there are few things I enjoy more. Driftwood, useful pieces of string, rope, a plastic hook ideal for hanging spades on, a rather good quality broom, and a large blue water-carrier for the tree saplings at the end of the paddock. The RNLI lady at the top of Sandymouth beach was intrigued by the broom but understood that we thought we should tidy up the part of the beach we used when we left. I would like to say that this is all about recycling and saving the planet, but I have to say I would do it anyway !  

 There were also cream teas to be had at Morwenstowe, pasties and many other such delights. Intellectually this proved to be interesting : it confirms the fact that you put on weight no matter how much exercise you take if you eat too much !  High levels of activity, including days when the step-counting is up to twice the amount recommended -and that doesn’t include frolicking about in the sea of course -  really doesn’t do much to compensate. Hence the even grimmer post-holiday recovery period ! 

An evening treat of the outdoor ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’ at Hartland Abbey  was another highlight. Arriving early we able to set up camp in the front row so certainly had a good view, Within spitting distance, but fortunately the five young and active role-shifting players, didn’t. It also chose not to rain that evening which was nice. It won’t be long, I predict, before that play comes into question about its political correctness ! When the kids (not that they are that anymore) were taken  off to do more energetic things like assault courses t water-parks I went off on various solo nostalgic visits such as Shipload Bay where Christopher was originally conceived (as a project, not literally). The following year we (including Grandma) went down the steep now collapsed path down to the beach when the result was quite imminent to show the bay that the project was nearing completion.

 Another individual treat was  two days on Exmoor on arrival and departure. Six books from my favourite book shop, in Dulverton, on the way and  a very long walk to the Doone valley on my return journey home. This is a picture of my favourite thorn tree in all the world - in Lankcombe, miles from anywhere. I like to find the places that inspired R.D. Blackmore with the story -especially the waterslide. So much so that I inadvertently left an old pair of binoculars there. I discovered this only when I got back late to the car but just couldn't face going back 5 miles or so for them. Perhaps they will be waiting for me next time....Anyway I have a better set waiting for me in my car in Newport !  

Of course it was the variety from my normal life and the prolonged exposure to Team Powell, which really made the holiday something to look back on with pleasure, despite the drizzle, cold wind and poor surf.             

Unexpected Visitors

 

It's been for me quite a fortnight, with a variety of surprises. The first was discovering a frog inside the house about to hop up the stairs to the bedroom. For the life of me I couldn't work out how or why it had got there as the journey there from the back door in about 30 feet and mostly over carpet. Moreover I go the distinct impression it was on its way upstairs. I spoke kindly to it but since it didn't turn into a beautiful princess, I gathered it up and returned it to the vicinity of the pond whence I presume it came. Mind you, I am not at all sure what my course of action would have been had it been transformed into a princess, so was rather relieved that it didn't.

The second unexpected visitor was more prosaic but extremely welcome for all that. Pat who I haven't seen for long before the Covid outbreak  was on a ramble in the hills behind the house and having forgotten her phone decided to drop in on the off-chance. It all worked very well, and it was good that I was, for once, looking fairly respectable ! Over tea and biscuits we caught up on what has been an action packed lockdown period for them and me.

The third set of visitors were much less interesting but a real surprise for all that.  I have always tried to avoid Amazon as I don't approve of big outfits that make life so difficult for small ones - and who don't seem to pay their fair share of taxes. But having got the last chapter of my book (on the Chinese Navy) vetted by an authority back in the US, there were a couple of old books I needed to get in a hurry, I succumbed and went into the Amazon website.  They were flagged up immediately and I ordered both. It took seconds. Also they showed some purchases I had made maybe two years ago several of which needed renewing (slippers, secateurs, diary books) so of course I ticked them too. Another ten seconds. And that was it. No card details needed, just an address confirmed for the first of the package. This was about 1600 on a Friday afternoon and I was frankly disbelieving when they said  the extras would arrive the following day and the books on Sunday. But so it was. I tell this story not as an advert, though it sounds like it, but more in concern about the relentless efficiency of the outfit which must set an extremely high bar for everyone else to get over, and for the uneasy feelings about how much information about me they must have. One has to make a positive and time-consuming effort not to be sucked into it all.

The last was news of an imminent and totally unexpected arrival rather than a visitor. For the first stage of a family gathering in Cross-in-Hand I was at Burgess Hill, when a phone call came through to Philippa asking us all to take a test for the following morning. Not unnaturally she asked why and her face was an absolute picture when she heard the reason.  I had seen that expression before and I guessed the reason seconds before she burst out with it. Grandchild no 4 was on the way ! Absolutely brilliant news. Just tinged with sadness that Cherry wasn't still around to enjoy it too.

The gathering - all of us in the same place for the first time in a long time and virtuously outside was splendid. As was the weather which was totally cooperative.   

Other than that a really busy couple of weeks. I finished a chapter for someone in the US about maritime security in the Gulf and the Iranians attacked an Israeli ship with a drone a few hours after I sent it off. That's the trouble with writing about things in real time, they keep changing. Another time issue is dealing with Singapore. I had two workshops/conferences in a row and since they are currently 7 hours ahead of us, that effectively meant working through the night. After a normal day's activity I fund it quite taxing to start logging in for the next day at 0030, two days in a row. I like to think that was the reason why I forgot to silence the old chiming clock that Aunt Ethel used to have. It started going off as I was in full flight to my audience of several hundred. And in my haste to quieten it I knocked it  over and it sadly doesn't work any more. An expensive hostage to time !   

Otherwise the time that was left over was devoted to walks to the village shop and trying to get control of the garden. Nathan stepped in for Chris and did the hedges but otherwise it's a close battle. Excellent onions though and a row of carrots on the right, plus freebie potatoes dotted around. Little chance of starving to death at any rate. 

 

Off on holiday soon, so there will be a short hiatus before normal service is resumed on 23rd August, all being well.