Balanced score card

[The gorse on Holne moor. One of Samsung’s lesser efforts: on the day the moor looked a much brighter yellow]

A collection of odds and ends from our recent expedition to the west country. 

Usually on these expeditions, we do not make it to the seaside to the east. Torbay and all that lot. Just a bit too far for it to be a good day out for us, given the much nearer attractions of Dartmoor. But, on this occasion, quite by chance, we made it to Charmouth on the way home. A fine beach and a fine sunny day. There was even a car park where one could pay in coin of the realm, rather than having to interact with some app and some computer or other. Someone has told BH that these apps are rather a pain, there being a lot of different car park management companies, all with their own app. Not just a question of getting to know one of them. Of trusting just one of them with one’s banking details.

We failed to make it to the Honey Bakery with its antique, once coke fired oven, at Horrabridge. We decided we did not need more sugary cakes, the speciality of the house. Last noticed at reference 1.

We did make it to Ella the Baker at Ashburton, to find that after thirteen years of running a bakery out of the front room of a shop, she had hung up her apron. But she had been replaced by Briar, who apart from changing the exterior paintwork from blue to brown, was or were carrying on the business along much the same lines. We took four small white tin loaves. Very satisfactory, with each loaf, taken with either butter or cheese, doing me about a meal. See references 2 and 3.

I had thought to pass on white puddings at the Bidder the butcher at Yelverton. But when it came to the point, I fell for four groat puddings, sliced, fried and taken with white bread for breakfast over the days following. Very good they were too. 

In the margins, I noticed some large beef bones on his block, on which subject the butcher was very firm that one never took entire sides of beef, they were far too big and heavy. Quarters were the thing and they were quite heavy enough, say about 200lbs. He was only a fairly young chap so perhaps he did not know about the olden days - while I feel sure that I have either seen sides of beef in butchers or seen pictures of same – and a few minutes with Google did turn one up, included above, although to be fair to the present butcher, quarters did seem to be a lot more common. While a Godfrey is still to be found at reference 4.

Food supplies were further bolstered by a very satisfactory Savoy cabbage obtained from the Tesco’s at Axminster. Not something that has been much in evidence in Epsom this year, reference 7 notwithstanding.

No progress with car registration plates, with No.37 continuing to evade capture. In fact, it was a very lean week altogether with nothing between, say, 31 and 55, both endpoints inclusive. And not much after 55. Some consolation in the form of this foreign duplicate, a Fiat, in the car park of Buckland Abbey, the house bought with the plunder of that well known pirate, Sir Francis Drake.

Further consolation in the form of a fine display of buttercups at the same place. But not sufficiently tempted to venture inside, National Trust membership card notwithstanding.

No Wellingtonias scored, but some, some sickly, were seen in the distance. And one dead one was noticed at reference 5.

A small number of church pianos have yet to be scored.

A small number of fakes have yet to be scored, mostly from Faketown, aka Poundbury. With one such to be found at reference 8. With fakes being turned up here long before the series was formally constituted in 2017. For which see reference 9.

We did not make it onto Holne Moor to hear the cuckoos, but we did hear some from nearby Venford Reservoir. We also saw various kites, a buzzard and sundry unidentified raptors. The most recent kite was tweeted flying over the Bronze Command Unit, this last visible left in the snap above, taken at the Moto service area near Reading. Leaving one wondering whether National Highways are only allowed to attend Bronze incidents or whether they do Silver and Gold too. Plus a work of natural art in the foreground and an array of charging points back right.

This brick was captured in the margins of Venford Reservoir and has now been added to the collection back at Epsom. Quite heavy as bricks go.

Two hornets captured in our cottage, a shed conversion outside Holne, on the road to Hexworthy. Something over an inch long. The upturned glass over and sheet of thick paper under technique worked well. The first (left) was pretty moribund until the sun warmed her up on the table outside. Helped along with a little sugared water. The second (middle and right) was much more active and shot straight off when released. As a result of a chance encounter from a couple of people from the Animal and Plant Health Agency – having a day out to meet the bee keeper at Buckfast Abbey – we learned that these were fertile queens emerging from hibernation, intent on building a new nest.

We did not make it to the Church House Inn at Holne, now open, or to the Forest Inn at Hexworthy. The first establishment being of interest because of complications arising from the church having some interest, the second because we once ate liver and bacon there, not something to be found in much pub grub. While I did not find the Wetherspoon’s in Chippenham and I did not make it inside the Three Crowns in the same town, on the grounds of noise inside and the number of smokers outside. But perhaps I was right not to intrude on Steve & Linda’s last day. Or perhaps I was just a bit old for this class of establishment. For which see reference 6.

Last but not least, we came across two items of social media garbage. The first concerned various brands of fake butter – stuff like ‘Utterly Butterly’ – and how some of them contained a great deal of plastic. Garbage which thrived on the knowledge that the chemical formula of one of the ingredients was superficially similar to that of a plastic. The second concerned management and quality control of the soft boiled eggs supplied each morning for the Royal breakfast. I suppose this one thrived on an amusing plausibility.

For much earlier examples of this sort of thing, see the famous book noticed at reference 12.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/10/dining-out-west-part-one.html. 

Reference 2: https://briarbakery.com/. 

Reference 3: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/2014/04/ashburton-highlights.html. Possibly my first visit to Ella.

Reference 4: https://www.godfreys.co/. 

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/05/system-failure.html. 

Reference 6: http://threecrownschippenham.co.uk/index.php/diary. 

Reference 7: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/05/shoulder.html.  

Reference 8: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/05/fake-71.html. 

Reference 9: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/08/fake-1.html. It took me a little while to turn this one up, ‘fake 1’ being a poor search key. In the end, I thought to search the archive for ‘fake-1.html’, which did work. The group search key, ‘fakesk’, which would otherwise have helped a bit, only having been invented quite recently.

Reference 10: https://www.pestlock.com/what-happens-to-wasps-and-hornets-in-the-winter/. 

Reference 11: http://apha.defra.gov.uk/apha-scientific/index.htm. 

Reference 12: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2018/11/a-last-outing.html.