Devon and Cornwall, 2006

Dwight Peck's personal website

Winter 2005-2006

Short breaks from poring over the newspapers as the Bushies implode

Devon and Cornwall in the springtime

Whenever things start to pile up and get on top of you, it's time to take some time off and go to Cornwall.

But Devon first . . .

You may not find this terribly rewarding unless you're included here, so this is a good time for casual and random browsers to turn back before they get too caught up in the sweep and majesty of the proceedings and can't let go.

Coast Path -- Ilfracombe and Berrynarbor (18 April 2006)

We've been up over the Thayne path from the Sterridge Valley to the next one westward, had a leisurely lunch in Hele Bay near Ilfracombe, and now we're trotting contentedly along the Southwest Coast Path eastward towards Berrynarbor again.

With a fond glance back towards Hele Bay and Lunches Past

Here's where the path has to take a big dip and detour around the fence-addicts of the Widmouth cottages management. But the views in every direction are so spectacular that the mu-opioid receptors in the ventral occipitotemporal cortexes, or cortexi, are gushing with natural endomorphins, thus saving on expenses.

Wistful Kristin with unsubtle fencing

Another Merlin's Cave, probably

Watermouth at low tide on a squally day, the haven of Berrynarbor -- this may have been what first put Berrynarbor on the map, in the old days.

Abandoned boats at Watermouth at low tide, some temporarily, some for good and all

A sailboat waddling race across the intertidal mudflats

Poor ex-trawler. Looks like somebody looted the engine out of it and left it there to flop about on the sand gasping for gas.

Stranded in Watermouth -- should have asked for directions

Bustling downtown Berrynarbor (brilliant Web site). The Norman manorial families Berry and De Nerbert got together just about a thousand years ago and saw the place off to a good start, and it's been all improvements since . . .

Except for the ubiquitous Flower Pot Men, which caught on bigtime and evidently all houses (but one) in the district have got bunches of them out front, cleverly posed (watering the garden, serving tea, mucking out stables, etc.). According to signs at the entrance to the town, Berrynarbor was voted first or second Best Managed Village in Britain every year until 1996 and not after that, and we were wondering if the craze for Flower Pot Men took hold of the citizens at about that time. (More likely the plaque at the roadside just hasn't been updated.)

That's the back door of Ye Olde Globe Inn (by which must be meant The Olde Globe Inn, if the medieval thorn character þ for (th) has been misread as a Y). Many are the nights (2) that we've assisted our favorite local team in the Berrynarbor Sunday Night Pub Quiz, sometimes to victory, but alas not this year.

St Peter's church in Berrynarbor, with lots of Norman stuff and a 17th century gate, and lots of very dignified-looking dead folks brightening up the precincts, or dignifying them anyway. (Not the one in orange, that's Kristin.)

We're leaving Berrynarbor now and proceeding at a full gallop up the Sterridge Valley for lamb chops and other things to go with them. All made in a Swiss fondue pot.