A failure

Back in the autumn of 2020, we saw and enjoyed a odd-ball film (on television) called 'Night train to Lisbon' and on the strength of this I bought a copy of the book from Abebooks. With the cover of this book proclaiming that two million of them had been sold. At - and this is a complete guess - 25p a copy, this makes quite a nice supplement to one's pension - the author being just about of retiring age at the time of the book's publication.

I don't know what the other two million readers made of it, but I could not get on with it at all, never progressing beyond the first two or three chapters. Is it significant that my cheaply produced paperback did not appear to have been read by anyone else?

Checking the biography of the philosophically flavoured author at reference 3, I find that he has had an interesting career, taking an interest in some of the things that I take an interest in. He has, it seems, published a popular book about free will - reference 4 -  but I will never be tested on that one as it does not seem to have been translated into English, or even French, the French perhaps being keener on this sort of thing than we are.

The book will now enter the tub in the garage, the tub which will, in due course, provide fodder for the upcoming Methodists' book fair. For which see reference 6.

PS 1: I might add that while I hold plenty or unread or part read non-fiction, I generally manage to read the fiction that I buy. So this book is an oddity in that regard.

PS 2: question of the day: where exactly does the quote that follows come from?

'We are an organization dedicated to increasing warfighter lethality by training Sailors to be ready and resilient'.

References

Reference 1: Night train to Lisbon - Paul Mercier - 2004.

Reference 2: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1654523/. The film.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Bieri_(author). The author.

Reference 4: Das Handwerk der Freiheit: Über die Entdeckung des eigenen Willens - Bieri, Peter - 2001.

Reference 5: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/08/free-will-3.html. Some of my own musings on the subject of free will. Which I now hold to be a non-problem. At the very least, a problem which has been solved.

Reference 6: https://www.epsommethodistchurch.org.uk/Groups/354349/Book_Fair.aspx.

Town and country

As an antidote to those who worry about where countries such as China, India, Russia and Iran are headed, to name just four, the FT gives air time this morning (at reference 1) to a clutch of books about how the US is in trouble, one of which is to be found at reference 2. The author of this last, one Barbara Walter, was born in Brooklyn but I have yet to track down her present home and affiliation. 

Part of the trouble is an even split between town and country, where town and country have very different views on how things should be done and when one is in power the other is able to block more or less anything the one wants to do. Strictly partisan, without much regard to the rights and wrongs of the issues in question.

From where I associate to the electoral map of this country (in the sense of nation) where the split between Labour and Conservative used to be very much a matter of town and country (in the sense of fields and farms), although that has been a bit blurred, hopefully temporarily, by Conservative inroads into the town.

I have also read that Iran and Afghanistan are also in the grip of something of the sort, with the reactionary religious being country bred. Although unlike in the US, these reactionary religious have the people of the towns firmly under their control.

In any event, all very depressing. Let's hope that those who are chomping away at the foundations of our own democracy, here in the UK, pay heed: it might be the oldest democracy in the world, but that is no guarantee of the life to come.

References

Reference 1: Is America heading for civil war: a clutch of books makes an alarmingly persuasive case that the warning lights are flashing redder than at any point since 1861 - Edward Luce, Financial Times - 2022.

Reference 2: How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them - Barbara F Walter - 2022.

Reference 3: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/. With thanks to Bing and Pinterest for the image above.

Teffi

[Private Collection/Alamy. Teffi on a trip through the South of France, 1929]

Teffi, otherwise Nadezhda Alexandrovna Lokhvitskaya, was very successful Russian writer, mainly of short stories but also of plays, who lived from 1972 to 1952. She died in France, where she had lived since fleeing the Russian Revolution in 1920 or so. From the golden age of popular fiction, when successful writers had the status and life style that successful musicians and actors have now. Think of the earlier Leo Tolstoy and the later Agatha Christie and Georges Simenon. 

She came to my notice through an article (reference 3) in the NYRB, from the beginning of which we get: ‘Teffi was so adored in pre-revolutionary Russia that a chocolate candy was named after her, with her pretty face on its brightly coloured wrapper. She was a well-regarded poet and a successful dramatist, but it was the feuilletons and funny stories that Teffi wrote for newspapers and magazines that made her a star. In 1910 a Teffi perfume was released to celebrate the publication in St. Petersburg of her first collection, Humorous Stories. Both Tsar Nicholas II and Vladimir Lenin were devotees of her comic prose…’.

She came to me in the form of two nicely produced paperbacks from the Pushkin Press, references 1 and 2. About 30 stories in 250 pages of text in the first, 300 pages of memories in the second. Suitably wrapped with introductions, end notes and so forth. With the stories mostly having a supernatural flavour and the memories covering her escape, along with lots of other luvvies, from Moscow to Istanbul.

Enough for Teffi to come across as a very talented writer, but oddly disappointing at the same time. A lifelong atheist, I found all the supernatural a little irritating, even as a garnish, rather than the main business. Even allowing for a lot of the Russians - including her - of the beginning of the 20th century being a god fearing, pious and superstitious lot. Much kissing of small icons. While the memories tell of the well trodden path of the Russian emigration of the early 1920s. I associated to Dr. Zhivago, where Pasternak covered some of the same ground, for which see reference 5. That said, Teffi has a splendidly light touch. On her telling anyway, she put up with the mess, the deprivations and the dangers with great spirit.

Both books were largely set in the borderlands in and around what is now the Ukraine. Fairly much from the point of view of the educated middle class milieu from which Teffi came. Not much about the workers.

Interestingly, the translation, which I find – without knowing any Russian – entirely satisfactory, is a team effort. And the lead translators of the first volume were, it seems, supported by a panel. And their use of northern dialect in the first volume for the peasants works very well.

I wonder this morning why she has not been translated as much as Simenon, with her evoking the Russia and Russians of her time as successfully as he evokes the Paris and Parisians of his. Not to mention Belgians. Is that Russia is so different? Is that Simenon was the better publicist? Or that she writes in the short story, rather than short novel format? Does the public at large share my prejudice against short stories? In my case despite occasional forays into the short stories of both Lawrence (DH) and Chekhov.

I dare say I shall try some more Teffi in due course. Maybe read these two books again. Or maybe I will jump across to her biography at reference 6.

PS: I might add that it has taken about a year to get this far. For such a talented writer, whatever took me so long?

References

Reference 1: Other worlds – Teffi – 2021. A new translation from the Pushkin Press. A collection of short stories, originally published 1916-1952.

Reference 2: Memories from Moscow to the Black Sea – Teffi – 1928/1930, 2016.

Reference 3: Russian Metamorphoses: Teffi’s supernatural tales ask what we can understand about the nature of events, and about the transformative moments that thread events together into stories - Rachel Polonsky/NYRB - 2021. May 27, 2021 issue.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teffi. 

Reference 5: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/search?q=zhivago. 

Reference 6: Teffi: A Life of Letters and Laughter – Haber, Edythe – 2018. 

Oleaster down

About a month after the pruner action noticed at reference 1, my attention was drawn to the fact the the side of the oleaster that I had left, that is to say the side visible from the south, from the garden next door, appeared to be moribund if not dead. Rather unsightly in fact.

Within a few hours the oleaster was condemned. More pruner action was needed: action involving the heavy duty twig cutter which looks more like a bolt cutter than anything else (from FIL), pruning saw (bought), the bush saw (from my own father) and the trusty saw bench (made with timber lifted from the margins of an undergraduate job with Trollope & Colls). The pruning saw to take lumps out of the oleaster, the twig cutter to cut the lumps down to a couple of centimetres or so in diameter and the bush saw to finish off the bigger pieces that were left. 

Three shifts of two or three hours each and the job was done, as snapped first above, with a lot of the stuff coming out being long dead. Plus, there was quite a lot of the red, powdery mould as snapped second above: not clear if this was cause or effect.

In any event, the plan is to leave nature to do its work on the stumps remaining and for the various shrubs which had been lurking underneath being allowed to have their day in the sun. No need to visit a garden centre at all. While the young fig tree on the other side of the fence will provide a summer screen in no time at all.

The informal compost heap is now rather larger than it was. And a bit tricky to walk on, but I dare say it will all settle down fast enough. Anyway, in the autumn there will be the dead leaf harvest to smooth things over.

From which enlargement, I associated to loading carts with bales, back in the 1960s, well before today's large bales were invented. The idea then was to build from the outside in, using the inner bales to lock the outer bales in place. Which might seem a bit odd until you try doing it the other way around and finding yourself in a bit of a mess. With a certain amount of this outside in having contributed to the present enlargement.

In the margins, we decided that we needed to identify a shrub (or perhaps a small tree) growing on the other side of the northern fence. My first guess is some relative of the plum, but we will see what Google images has to say.

Answer: cinnamomum, a genus of evergreen aromatic trees and shrubs belonging to the laurel family. That is to say, a collection of interesting trees growing in hot countries. So wrong.

Next up, Bing on various search keys. Plenty of leaves of the right shape but with jagged edges. Nothing promising. Didn't make any progress with small green fruit, which I had thought distinctive.

Maybe I shall have to consult one of BH's expert gardener books from the Hessayon stable.

And while this was going on, the Microsoft advertising server decided that I really needed to buy a replacement oleaster and started feeding me advertisements from people who could sell me one. That is to say, advertisements in Edge, the browser which I use on my laptop. Chrome, which I use on my desktop, rather cleaner as far as that goes.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/04/oleastered.html.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._G._Hessayon. The stable.

Trolley 514

The first trolley after the break, from Waitrose, was captured outside Leightons, the people I used to photograph and otherwise test my eyes. Complete with various items of dry litter, easy enough to dispose of on my way across to Waitrose.

Where I was only able to buy cherries in very small quantities, so I stocked up on brick dates from Grape Tree instead.

On to M&S, where they did not seem to sell cherries at all, so I ended up buying them from the fruit and veg. stall in the market nearest the Spread Eagle. The sort of stall where they had bright and shiny cherries out front, rather more dingy cherries in the box they were serving from. After buying my two pounds for £7, I was a bit cross. My mother would probably have insisted on being served from the cherries on display, while I did nothing of the sort. But when I got home, I found that the cherries were actually fine: ripe, sweet and with no wastage so far.

Out past the now completed Street Art under the bridge at the top of Hook Road, by the strip club, previously noticed at reference 2. Not very inspiring. I wonder how long it will be before it is defaced by some moron with a spray can? And I wonder this morning how the frames were done? They look to involve a skill of a different order from that of the art so framed. Some kind of transfer? A piece of printed paper, given shape by the paint outside and the art inside? Need to take a closer look.

One of at least two works, with there being another, much the same, in the Wetherspoon's entrance to the Ashley Centre. Probably all part of Epsom's upcoming festival of horses and monarch, aka The Cazoo Derby. Concerning which last, we are considering our options. With the obvious question being will the monarch be putting in her usual appearance? Is the royal box step free? Wheeler friendly?

Two washers on the way home. One steel, large and bent - but regular. One aluminium and irregular in that the hole did not go all the way through.

While this morning I spotted a third washer in Manor Green Road. After a few seconds I thought to go back for it, to find that it was not there. Trick of the brain of some sort.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/05/trolley-513.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/05/epsom-art.html.

Reference 3: https://www.cazoo.co.uk/.

Group search key: trolleysk.

Wellingtonia 78

Captured on our way into the Sainsbury's at Ottery St. Mary, behind a firmly locked gate, with a sign saying the Chanters House. The tree more or less in the middle of the snap. 

The view from somewhere near Sainsbury's, around the corner. Now there are two of them, not necessarily including the first, rather sickly looking one. All very confusing.

I think Chanters House is what you can see if you peer over the wall of the church yard, as snapped towards the end of the post at reference 3. The rather grand place featured at the estate agent at reference 2. Once owned by the Coleridge family responsible for the poet of that name.

For once, Ordnance Survey not terribly helpful and I do better with gmaps Satellite View, with the house bottom right in the park, just to the left of the church, being the only one on offer. With the opening snap above being taken from the entrance in Fairmile Lane centre left. Handy, I suppose, if one wants to avoid the riff-raff in the town.

The label 'college' over the house may be a relic of the time that the church was made collegiate, at the time that it was bought from an outfit in Rouen in 1335.

As far as I can tell, the house comes with the large park. At least, it does not look like farm to me. And according to Wikipedia at reference 4, the current owner is one Max Norris, but the only Norris Bing can find at that address is Charles Edward Norris, described as a cook. Presumably of the television variety. Do they really make that sort of money? All very puzzling.

While the Wellingtonias, probably more than one of them, are in among the band of trees running across the middle of the snap, above the Sainsbury's site.

PS: maybe next time I should knock and explain that I am a Wellingtonia collector and ask if I could visit their park. Do I have the brass to pull it off?

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/05/wellingtonia-77.html.

Reference 2: https://pilkingtonestates.co.uk/property/the-chanters-house-ottery-st-mary/. Guide price, £6m. Very grand photos, inside and out.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/10/ottery-st-mary.html.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottery_St_Mary.

Group search key: wgc.

Ecclesiastical oddments

The interior of the rather grand church of St. Paul de Leon at Staverton, with what I take to be a Victorian screen. A number of churches in the south west have this dedication, possibly something to do with the place in Brittany called Saint-Pol-de-Léon which has a cathedral founded by Saint Paul Aurélien. Perhaps the Conqueror summoned some of their monks to get things onto a proper footing in the wilds of Devon and Cornwall.

The joints between the blocks are clearly visible and there is no question of the columns being monoliths here.

They were no taking no chances with their copy of Foxe's Book of Martyrs, with one key being needed to open the book and another to take it away. Luckily Bing turned up a freebie.

A church which was still being used, as I came across a programme for a wedding there earlier in the month. A programme which included a reading from the Ballad of the Hobbit and music from the Beach Boys, Ennio Morricone and Randy Newman,. Perhaps I am too old to have heard of the latter two of these. The service was led by the Reverend Professor Gina Radford, an unexpectedly senior person in the world of health before taking the cloth. See reference 2.

Presently based in South Brent, a place which I have long been curious about and which we managed to pass through in the course of this stay in Devon. An old town, with an old church, but nothing to do with Brent Tor, on the western fringe of Dartmoor.

The relationship between South Brent and Brent Tor had to be gone over again, to get it straight once again, despite have gone over it on a previous visit to the area. Maybe a visit to both places will get me on the straight and narrow.

The interior of the rather grand church at Ottery St. Mary, last visited in 2019 and noticed at reference 4. A large church with an interesting history and a very old clock. See references 5 and 6.

The exterior.

A third class pew in the church of St. George at Portland, last visited in 2018 and noticed at reference 7. The box pews are almost a Grade I listed building in their own right, being held freehold by parishioners who contributed at the time of installation. A freehold which it seems is infinitely divisible, making for all kinds of legal complications when the church authorities wanted to make changes.

Another curious feature is that the pew between the two pulpits in the middle of the church and the altar at the east end, face the pulpits rather than the altar, making for all kinds of ecclesiastical complications when the ruling faction is less sermon orientated than that at the time the pews were installed.

The view from the gallery. There is a third place for authority, below and to the right of the right hand pulpit. A sort of sub-pulpit. Perhaps for the sexton or a church warden, rather than for an officiant proper.

PS 1: home from home. We found a photo booth in Ottery St. Mary, operated by the people who operated out of Blenheim Road in Epsom. We have a booth in the station and I pass the HQ on a regular basis.

PS 2: a coincidence. On Friday 13th May, we both woke up to read Lady Glenconner's famous royalty flavoured memoir. Each unknown, at least at first, to the other. BH in the paperback version I had bought her at some point, me on the Kindle. A book which appears to have come to my notice on or about New Year's Day, so making it to the first post of the year, at reference 9. I think BH really was reading her book, while I was wondering what it was doing on my Kindle, it having popped up during the course of recharging. The Kindle not being something I am making a great deal of use of at the moment, the odd bit of research using its text search facility aside.

PS 3: at some point, probably turning around in some narrow lane up a hill, there was some serious handbrake action. And then, a few days previously, there had been an incident involving my forgetting the hand brake when parking at Oaklands Farm Shop & Tea Room outside Honiton. I stopped the rolling car, at some danger to life and limb, by reaching inside and jamming on the hand brake. All this prompted a rather unpleasant dream involving the rather worn handbrake reaching vertical before it did any good.

References

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxe%27s_Book_of_Martyrs.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gina_Radford.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/05/piano-58.html. Ottery St. Mary.

Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/10/ottery-st-mary.html. Sadly, the fine off-licensee noticed here is now working from home. Shop shut. But we did manage some cheesy crumpets.

Reference 5: https://www.otterystmary.org.uk/.

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Mary's_Church,_Ottery_St_Mary.

Reference 7: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/10/portland.html.

Reference 8: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/10/brents-hair-shirt.html. The last discussion about the various Brents.

Reference 9: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/01/public-bar.html.

Technical difficulties

For once in a while, I am having technical problems, seemingly to do with Teignmouth, in Devon. This to test that I can still post and to give notice of possible delays.

References

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teignmouth.

Half blasted

BH's secondary school was Teignmouth Grammar, a consequence of her living at the time a little to the south of the Exeter city boundary, which meant, following the rules of the day, that she had to travel a good deal further south to go to school, rather than nipping into the much nearer Exeter. A school which has now disappeared inside Teignmouth Community School run by an outfit called the Osprey Learning Trust. While BH remembers when the core of the school was a large old house on the edge of town, up the hill from the railway station, in which the female teachers had a genteel lounge on the first floor, where tea and biscuits were served, and the male teachers, often in dowdy tweed jackets, had a smoke filled den on the ground floor. Female teachers were known, occasionally, to get into a strop if someone else had presumed to use their cup. Male teachers, if someone had presumed to use their armchair, ever so tatty it might have been.

So we decided that, while we were in Devon, we should pay a visit. But what I had not realised was that old Teignmouth had been built on the sand bar across the mouth of the Teign, rather in the way of Dawlish Warren, a little to the north, barring the mouth of the Exe. So we spent our day exploring that end of town and never made it up the hill at all. Which will have to wait for another occasion.

The expedition started with out noticing large numbers of bees and such being attracted to the Weigela outside our cottage, but for some reason not visible in the snap above.

Onto the sea front, where we discovered the remains, rather the results, of a big local controversary about flood prevention. Where a new front had been grafted onto the west facing front walls of this row of a dozen or so houses - facing not the sea but the Teign. Presumably the risk arose from rain in the hills to the west creating a surge down the Teign, possibly unpleasant if coinciding with a high tide from the sea to the east. New fronts including identical, heavy duty double glazing units, presumably good for so many feet of flood water. While we were peering, an older lady marched by muttering audibly about dreadful waste of money. We learned later that the whole business had made it big-time to the local television news.

Not only new fronts, but also sturdy new gates, which must have been good business for the local engineering shops which could cope with stainless steel. Not that stainless I might say, as seawater seems to stain it brown. Is stainless steel, being an alloy, subject to electrical action in the way of marine brass, for which see reference 3.

Boot art and other garden ornaments tastefully arranged on top of one of the gates. The shop proper being in a old dock side building, possibly dating from the time of fishing. With the docks having once done a serious coastal trade, including, for example, shipping out the Dartmoor granite used in the construction of London Bridge. Altogether a much bigger place than Dawlish with, like most towns of the kind, rather more shops than it now has use for.

Chimney looked to come from the same shop as that for the coke stove we ran when we first came to Epsom. An expensive but entertaining item for a few years. In our case, the coke fumes rotted the bracket which supported it, but the one here looks fine. Perhaps it is new.

Lunch in the chipper already noticed at reference 4. Followed by an outdoor ice cream - with BH's first cone being stolen by a seagull. That is to say the ice cream part of her cone was knocked off the cone then gathered up from the pavement. She was rather put out. While I associated to the throbbing ball of seagulls we once saw at Portree (in Skye), demolishing some fish and chips which somebody had dumped over the side of the dock there.

The bases of the concrete cladding the steel columns is taking a battering from the sea.

While I closed the main proceedings by using a handy weighing machine, charges up to 20p from the 1d that I remember. A bit heavier than last time, when the warfarin people had done it, but this time I had had lunch, was wearing both duffel coat and shoes.

Not sure of the role of this nest of wheelie bins, mostly upside down. With the terrace behind suggesting a once grand bit of Teignmouth. The block with the circular window, for example, is the Lynton House Hotel. I learn from their reference 5 that the terrace was an 1860's speculation by the Courtney Family, then led by the 11th Earl of Devon, who was also into railways. An ancient earldom, revived in the 19th century by some aristocratic chicanery, no doubt involving the Court of Chancery and the College of Heralds. Maybe with some new money brought in by marriage into trade?

We left by way of the fine new bridge over the Teign, which took us to Shaldon, where we were greeted by the rather large church snapped from Street View above: ‘The church of St. Peter the Apostle is one of five churches within the Benefice and Mission Community of Shaldon. Our sister Benefice churches are St Nicholas Ringmore, St Andrew's Stokeinteignhead, All Saints Combeinteignhead and St Blaise Haccombe’.

Returning to Newton Abbot by the road which starts by running west along the Teign. Narrow but picturesque. A village and a road to be explored more thoroughly on another occasion. Maybe there were Wellingtonias, but we missed them first time around.

References

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teignmouth_Community_School.

Reference 2: https://www.ospreylearningtrust.co.uk/. A respectable showing of executive headteachers to be found here.

Reference 3: https://rotaxmetals.net/why-naval-brass-is-capable-of-resisting-corrosion-caused-by-salt/.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/05/fine-dining-in-devon.html.

Reference 5: https://www.lyntonhouseteignmouth.com/.

Blast from the past

I was prompted to dig up the advertisement above, from the 1940's, by the story about Benzedrine to be found in reference 1, in the chapter about Prozac. From page 171 in my copy.

A drug, the development of which had originally been prompted by a Chinese traditional medicine involving a plant called ephedra, was originally intended to be used as a nasal decongestant. Then widely used in the Second World War to keep soldiers awake and alert. An improvement on the brandy and rum which had been used before that to get soldiers over the top, on the move? It went on to be the wonder drug of the day. And if this advertisement is anything to go by, a good earner.

For a more up-to-date take on it, its uses, its relatives and its risks, see reference 3.

References

Reference 1: A cure for darkness: the story of depression and how we treat it – Alex Riley – 2021.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephedra_(plant).

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphetamine.

A house and garden

The Garden House being a place that BH knew about and which we have finally got around to visiting. A garden created after the second world war by Lionel Fortescue and his wife Katherine after he retired early from teaching languages at Eton. A keen gardener, particularly keen on rhododendrons. Probably with family money as there is talk of several gardeners.

The house was built in 1826 as a vicarage for Buckland Monachorum, subsequently sold in favour of something more convenient. About 10 acres of garden which includes some ruins from an earlier vicarage and a great many plants, many of which were in flower on the day we visited. Part of the ground floor of the substantial house is now the shop and cafeteria. Originally just the bit right middle in the snap above, now extended to left and right.

Starting off with tea and cake in the cafeteria. This despite having taken hog's pudding for breakfast, along with granary bread from the Honey bakery at Horrabridge and a fine orange from the Co-op at Yelverton. Pudding from Bidder, also of Yelverton: a place we visit twice a year and which still features a cashier in a booth at the back of the shop.

A cake, in my case involving apple and some rather damp sponge. With the large windows looking out over the veranda and the garden beyond being the sort that come with built in-internal shutters, shutters which might well still shut. A type of window that must cost of care and attention to keep in working order. A type of window that I first came across in Somerset House when I started work there in the mid 1970's. I am fairly sure there that the shutters did not shut.

Did the gardens, which were interesting with lots of interesting plants, but which I found a bit fussy. A fussiness made worse by all the bits of wall and ruin. And not helped by the lie of the land.

One of the features of the garden had once been a line of ten lime trees. Sadly, now down to two or three, having lost two or three more in the recent storms.

Back to the cafeteria for lunch, which in my case took the form of a ham sandwich. Ham plentiful, if a little salty. Decorated with a dab of pink coleslaw, pink which I think was from beetroot rather than from red cabbage. Rather good. View from the veranda where we took lunch snapped above.

One of the plants I liked were the camassias, a kind of lily which was growing all over the place and which came in three colours - white (snapped above), pink and blue. And as one of the gardeners was taking some out, I was able to acquire some - and now taken in hand by BH. We will see how they fare in Epsom - in ground which is a lot drier than that from which they were taken.

A kind of lily which used to grow in large numbers in what is now the US and the bulbs were widely used as food by the First Peoples (if that is the presently correct term). See reference 2.

From the garden we moved onto the associated church, which until then we had only seen from the outside. Entrance at the bottom of the tower from the street which can't be seen at the back of the snap above.

A rather grand interior. The columns may be granite  monoliths, but if not, they have been very neatly jointed. Must take a closer look next time.

A rather flamboyant memorial to Lord Heathfield of Gibraltar, an eminent soldier of the second half of the eighteenth century, married to Ann Polex[f]en Drake, daughter of the fourth version of Sir Francis. Of Scottish gentry stock and who went to university at Leyden, now to be found at reference 4. Possibly took on the nearby Drake family home, Buckland Abbey, after the death of his sister's brother, the fifth version, without issue. 

Fairly sure that the font is a monolith. Rather ugly too.

To my mind, a failure of detailing. The arch springing to the left off the head of the column has not been properly thought through.

The moat around the church. Presumably, with all the people and coffins being dug into the ground around, that ground gradually rises, leaving the church behind. You can't really see in this snap, but a lot of the gravestones are surprisingly thin, well under the more usual couple of inches. Presumably some special sort of stone.

On the way back to Holne, we stopped by the bridge at Hexworthy, where we made the acquaintance of a grandmother from Houston, her daughter who lives over here, and her daughter. She was able to confirm my story about frying turkeys in oil drums, a yarn which I thought I got from reference 5, although I cannot presently track it down. Very good, she said, if done properly.

References

Reference 1: https://www.thegardenhouse.org.uk/.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camassia.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/05/piano-55.html.

Reference 4: https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en.

Reference 5: https://texasmesquitegrill.com/.

Back to the woods

While in Devon we paid a visit to Hembury Woods, seemingly the first visit since 2017, noticed at reference 1. With the first ever visit having been made from Ashburton in 2015, noticed at reference 2.

Mostly tall thin oaks, but also some big old pines, rather moribund. Plenty of chain saw action. Some military action overhead.

The first item of interest on this occasion was this country cousin of our own carex pendula. Same sort of thing, but the flower stems don't seem to carry the catkins that ours carry.

The second was this yellow archangel, again not quite the same as the version to be found in our garden and noticed at reference 3.

Dart all present and correct. Plenty of midges over the water but neither fish nor ducks to be seen. In fact, we don't seem to see fish in this sort of water very often at all. Not like the very reliable fish by the police station at Kingston.

The third was this wood ants' nest, the first time we have seen such a thing for ages. The top of it was crawling with ants although you wouldn't know from this snap, even enlarged. There were also plenty out on foraging expeditions.

I think the last occasion was many years ago, when we visited Stoke Woods, just outside Exeter. As I recall it, there were lots of them there, much bigger than this one. We visit plenty of woods, but reference 4 gives no clue as to why we don't see these nests more often.

The fourth was some talk about a plant called alexander, on account of it having featured as food in that morning's Telegraph, and BH thought she had spotted one. While I took a picture of the euphorbia, possibly wood spurge, above. No connection with the alexanders of reference 9.

Passed the curious concrete pillar we had noticed on our last visit on our way up from the river to the top of the hill fort. No further ahead with what the pillar might have been for.

Took our picnic in the grave yard of the burnt out church above Buckfastleigh, where we found both a place to park and a suitably sunny bench to sit on. No sign of the ghosts of reference 5.

The front of a curious grave stone.

And the back. One Fiona von Heider from Blaubeuren. A lady who was involved in something called anthroposophy and whose death was noticed at reference 6. Possibly mixed up with the Camphill organisation, the Buckfastleigh branch of which we know well. With one link being one Rudolf Steiner, as explained at references 7 and 8.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/10/hembury-woods.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/2015/04/tree-visits.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/03/archangels.html.

Reference 4: https://www.woodants.org.uk/species/biology.

Reference 5: https://www.haunted-britain.com/buckfastleigh_church.htm.

Reference 6: https://gatf.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/GATF-Annual-Report-2020.pdf.

Reference 7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthroposophy.

Reference 8: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camphill_Movement.

Reference 9: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smyrnium_olusatrum.