Taff Up-Over part 3
Saturday continued…
We drove off from Tintagel, leaving Cornwall behind. On the way we passed a motor smash that had left a car halfway through a ten-foot high hedge, and several people looking stunned. It really must have been a belter of a crash, as not only was the car almost into a field, but the car it had hit was almost in half. The police and ambulance services were there, so we left them to it. Thank god we hadn’t left Tintagel earlier.
We got to Bickington, a small village on the road that links Barnstaple and Bideford, and to our good friends Alan and Jo’s. I remember, vividly, introducing Alan to Jo, at college some twenty odd years ago; I don’t think Jo’s ever forgiven me for it. They have two wonderful boys, bright, intelligent, creative, kids, Tom and Jack, who I’m a very proud, if forgetful, godfather to.
After the obligatory insults, we took their dog off for a walk on the beach. LeeAnne got to ride there on the back of Alan’s Triumph 900, lucky sod. He wouldn’t let me play with it for some strange reason.
So we strolled along on he beach at Instow, and stopped off for a quick beer at the Quay pub, and a very nice pint they serve there too. We then made our way back to the house, and Bethy got to ride on the motorbike. I could get offended you know…
Back at the house we got gloriously fed, played cards, put the kids to bed, and got stuck into Alan’s home made whisky.
One of the most annoying things about Alan is this.
All of my mates have talents, most of them excel in one activity or sport or whatever, I won’t embarrass them by listing them here (they’ll be glad to know), but all of them have expertise in one thing or another. But Alan is good at everything he chooses to do. No; I’ll rephrase that; Alan is great at everything he chooses to do. This would be very annoying, if I didn’t have enough dirt on him to keep him in his place. So his home made whisky was ever so drinkable, and went down a treat.
Far too well in fact.
I was given a bottle of it to bring back to Oz with me. I’m letting it mature, and I’ll only open it when Alan and the family come for a holiday in Oz with us.
Sunday:
So the next morning Alan decided there was no better hangover cure than a trip to the gym. Good thinking that man…
So we went along to the Barnstaple Leisure Centre, chucking the kids into the pool we then made our way to the weights room. “Hmm,” I thought, “my daily sessions at the gym back home should give me the chance to show Alan how a workout should be done, this’ll get the bugger.” So we did Alan’s routine.
And it damn near killed me.
It was only after I’d fallen screaming to the floor, begging to be let out, that he got around to telling me.
You see Alan had recently applied to be come an ambulance paramedic, and there was a physical test to be passed before they’d even look at him. So Alan, in his usual fashion, had “applied himself” to it. So the bugger was now as fit as a fiddle (a very old Stradivarius) and as strong as an Ox.
I however, after a fortnight of decadence, was fucked.
Just to rub it in, he went on to inform me that, not only had he outshone guys 15 years his junior at the physical, but his heart rate had actually dropped during the “step-up” test, leading the examiner to wonder if he was human. (Or maybe it was just his looks that raised this question.)
So we had a sauna to straighten me out, we headed off home for a refuel, and jolly good grub it was. The only thing that spoiled it was that my jaw was still aching after screaming so much at the gym.
Then Alan decided to add to my torture by going for a bike ride.
We rode the bikes along the “Tarka Trail”. Well when I say we, someone who shall remain nameless, wimped out and went to bed for a kip. So me, Bethy, Alan, Jo, Tom and Jack went for a cycle along the Tarka Trail. Alan cycling and holding the dog on a lead at the same time. (Oh how I longed for a cat to run across the trail!)
After stopping off at a bird watching point, a converted ex-signal box, which conveniently had a cafe there. We headed off to a large natural bowl in the woods, for the boys to do death-defying stunts on their mountain bikes, and us to watch. After trying to kill themselves for an hour or so they hadn’t succeeded, so we headed back, with me now trailing by a good mile or two.
http://www.beautiful-devon.co.uk/tarka-trail.htm
When we got back we phoned Charlie to let him know that as Alan and Jo were off doing the things they do, Alan on a Paramedics course in Plymouth, Jo treating the old and infirm at the local hospital, the next day, we’d be arriving at his place a day early. This was quite fortuitous. Or possibly not from Charlie’s point of view, as the useless twat was sloping off to London the day we were due and this change gave us a chance to catch up with him. I’m still not certain whether he’d planned to leave us a key to his house or not. He probably would have, as he knows I carry a lighter on me.
So that evening we all went down the local Chinese restaurant for a feed. I’m not normally a fan of Chinese grub, the vegetarian selection isn’t normally that good, and I’m sure they are planning to overthrow the capitalist west by feeding us up on sweet things till we burst. But the food was great, I must mention the wonderful stuffed banana fritters, and the company was wonderful, and so we had a fine evening.
We retired back to Alan and Jo’s and had another attempt at bring the number of gallons in Alan’s whisky reserve down into single figures, but failed. After biding the two of them a fond farewell, they were heading out at far too early an hour for us to say goodbye in the morning, and thanking them for their hospitality, we staggered off to bed.
That night, not only did we have the nights food and booze to cope with, but also a deflating inflatable mattress which was ever so much fun…
Monday:
The next morning we had a cuppa with Tom and Jo before they departed, and loaded our car up with the bags. Our baggage was growing exponentially.
We drove through the wonderful Devon countryside, god the place is beautiful. I quite fell back in love with Devon on this trip. We followed the Exe river through steeply wooded valleys, with old cottages, small hamlets with “Olde English” gardens, the odd castle or two, picture postcard stuff, lining the route. And made our way to Exeter.
When we reached the city we spent ages looking for a sandwich shop that had come highly recommended by Alan, and had a baked tattie there.
The two girls went off to the loos, and I stood around in the square just soaking up the atmosphere of Exeter. A guy walked by, and we sort of caught each other’s eye. “Right mate!” “Yeah right.” Then we both did a double take; “Taff?” “Jim?”
Jim was a student I’d employed when I was the deputy manager of an off-license I’d run in Exeter. I hadn’t seen him for 15 years or so. He’s a great lad, and it was good to catch up on old times. I introduced him to LeeAnne and Bethy, and we chatted for a short while. We bid each other good-bye and promised we’d try to bump into each other in Exeter in another 15 years or so.
The famous tunnels under the city were shut, a bit of a shame that as I was looking forward to seeing them again and to showing Bethy around. So we strolled down to the cathedral instead.
http://www.exeter-cathedral.org.uk/Welcome.html
Exeter cathedral is lovely, when I lived in Exeter during my training, I would often skive off for a morning and go and listen to the choir rehearsals there. The history of the place is phenomenal, and there is a lot of good restoration going on there. Some of the replacement figures on the wall carvings looked like they had just been goosed. There is graffiti on some of the old tombs that dates back to 1670.
I managed to get some good shots of the immense arched ceilings, these were deliberate and not just me pointing the camera in the wrong direction again. Honest.
After getting our fill of the cathedral, and dropping all our lose change into the donation boxes, I took the girls on a tour of Exeter’s medieval back streets. These are a maze of narrow Edwardian Lanes. I didn’t mean to take them on a tour, I just got us lost.
Luckily we got back to the car just in time to save us getting a parking ticket.
We drove down to Exeter quay. They have a funny little ferry there that is hand pulled on a wire across the quay. I wonder if the guy operating it gets tired of all the “strong right arm” jokes? The old arches, where the barges that brought the produce into the city used to unload and store their stocks, have now all been converted into chintzy shops, mainly selling antiques, but with a few offering hand made products and crafts. In one of the antique shops there we came across a bust which was a perfect image my mate bonkers Howard. I’m not saying Howard looks like a pair of tits, even if that wouldn’t be stretching the imagination too far, but it was a male head, and it looked just like Howard. I took a couple of photos of it, but they turned out really naff.
After perusing the quay, we drove up to Chas’s and it wasn’t long before the man himself returned home. Great to catch up with the great soft sod after all this time. Chas cooked us all a gorgeous spag boll, and the girls settled down in front of the TV for a night of girls things, and me and Chas took the bus into town for a night of lads stuff.
We hit our favourite boozer, a Wetherspoons, and indulged in our two favourite hobbies, drinking cheap beer and oggling young totty.
<http://www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk/pubfinder/details.php?PubNumber=253>
The old imperial hotel which has been converted into a vast drinking barn is a wonderful example what you can do with imagination, cash, and an old building. (As in; “fill it full of young ladies and sell cheap beer”.)The orangery, a massive cast iron greenhouse, for growing oranges in obviously, is an amazing setting for an evening out.
In Wetherspoons you can get a couple of pints of good “Abbot Ale” for a little over two quid, so we did, frequently. Also, as the pub is just down the road from Exeter University halls of residence, it’s where all the young students go to drink cheap beer. Most of the young ladies seemed to be under the impression that they wouldn’t be allowed in unless their breasts were available for ocular inspection. I’ve never seen so many tits outside of a conservative party conference. It certainly made for an enjoyable evening, even if a few of the ladies had confused quantity with quality.
We got back, and I seem to remember having an online conversation with a lady friend of Charlie’s, although this probably wasn’t a very good idea, and she may have got the mistaken idea that I am in love with Charlie and want to have his babies.
Tuesday:
Charlie’s place is a monument to what you can achieve if you have a great enthusiasm for crafts, hobbies and DIY, but fuck all enthusiasm for actually finishing anything, by the way.
I’ll interrupt this fascinating claptrap here to relay an, apparently true, tale I read in the loo at Charlie’s place.
There once was a “C grade” actress in the UK, a sort of “happy shopper” Marilyn Munroe, by the name of Dianna Dors. At the peak of her fame she was asked by the vicar of the village she grew up in, if she would be so kind as to open the village fete. Being of a charitable disposition she agreed to.
Now the vicar wanted to introduce her by her “local” rather than by her assumed stage name, however her original name was the unlovely “Dianna Fluck.”
Being a kindly sort of chap, he obviously didn’t want to get that name wrong, and had shall we say, rather a nervous time preparing.
On the big day, he strolled confidently up to the microphone and in a voice that was heard all over the village green stated; “Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce our star guest, who has given up her time to come and open this fete. You may know her as the glamorous Dianna Dors, but to us older residents of the village she will always be little Dianna Clunt.”
So we drove towards Totnes, a rather charming and ancient town in the area known as the South Hams.
I’d promised myself a treat, and had, by invoking images of the Hogwarts Express, managed to get Bethy onside too. So we caught the Dart Valley Steam train, something that in my 20 odd years of living in the South West of England I had always meant to, but never actually got around to do.
http://www.southdevonrailway.org/Gallery.html
It was wonderful. We got one of those old fashioned carriages with six seats in it and watched the river Dart valley passing outside the window. We of course broke the rules of not sticking our heads out of the doors and windows, so we could get photos, and also get covered in soot from the engine. The dart river meanders through some classic English countryside, and we saw herons and buzzards hunting for food, and fly-fishermen doing pretty much the same. It also passes some quaint little villages, of the sort that look pretty, but are normally the home of that mediocre middle-class which includes the accountants, estate agents and dentists.
At the end of the line there was a butterfly farm and otter sanctuary, so we spent a very happy time watching the otters being fed, and sweating like buggery in the butterfly enclosures, which are kept at tropical rainforest levels of heat and humidity.
On the train back we were lucky enough to get a first class compartment, and so we should.
We went for a stroll around Totnes when we got back, unfortunately the Castle was shut, but the parade of ancient shops were open, and so was the medieval church. So we bought things and forgot to pray.
We picked up a batch of McFarty pies on the way home, but due to Chas’s oven being more complex than usual, or me being less competent than usual, we, I mean I, burned them. “Never mind there’s a good chippy around the corner”, I enthused, trying to hide the smell of burning…
They do indeed do a goodly portion of chips at Chas’s local chippy, for which I’m sure he’s eternally grateful. Their vegetarian range is rather limited though. Bethy had fish and chips, I had a couple of pea fritters and chips, and LeeAnne had what was deviously described as “vegetable burger.” I think the trades description people would agree that a burger bun, filled with vegetable matter of unidentifiable origin, doesn’t constitute a “burger”. So let them be warned.
Wednesday.
We decided to go out onto the moors after we’d resuscitated ourselves from the chippy binge the night before, and Bethy had watched an hour of kids TV.
Kids TV in the UK seems to consist of dire cartons, and “programs” full of bright young people with shining teeth and tits, all leaping from subject to subject and whooping with delight at how inane they can be and get paid for it. I’m getting old I suppose, but these grinning oafs with their drivel are infecting the box.
“And now we’re going over to Cindy, who’s at an RSPCA rescue centre.”
“Hi I’m Cindy and these are my tits, aren’t they bouncy? I’m at an RSPCA rescue centre, where they look after sick animals. Back to the studio.”
“Hey wasn’t that great seeing Cindy at that centre, we’ll go back to Cindy after thirty seconds of the latest video of Beyonce Knowles’s latest hit “I’ve got a great ass .”
Hey that was fab, what an ass, I bet you wish you were skinny and beautiful like her eh? Now back to Cindy.”
“Hi Cindy here again with a cute little puppy and my great tits. The RSPCA look after sick animals. Back to the studio.”
“Gosh isn’t Cindy cute. I’m cute to and I’m a guy. I’m not gay, honest, I’ve just got a great ass. Now for an a stupid cartoon of mutant robot witches with great tits and ass, and ten minutes of adverts for the spin off products, sponsored by McDeathburger, the snack you can eat that makes you obese.”
And on they go…
Anyway, where was I?
Oh yes, we decided to go to the moors.
http://www.richkni.co.uk/dartmoor/tors.htm
Our first stop was Haytor, that great granite mass that is visible from all over the southern moor. Bethy romped up and down it, much to the disgust of the more elderly tourists who had made their way to the top and were finding out the way down wasn’t so much fun. I pointed out the steps cut into the tor for Queen Victoria to ascend it, and we all agreed she was a vandal and a twat.
I took the girls on a whirlwind tour of the rock-climbing routes I had totally failed on there, and we gazed in awe at the two I had managed to get up. Bethy wanted a go at soloing the routes I’d failed on, but I stopped her for safeties sake. (As in; “if she’d done one I’d have killed her.”)
We then made our way to Hound Tor, source of the legend of the “Hound of the Baskervilles.” When we got there we found that Alan’s* tea van was there, now renamed “The Hound Of The Basket-Meals”, ouch!
* A different “Alan” not my mate Alan. Alan’s are ten a penny in the UK.
Alan, surname unknown, has had a tea van there for donkeys years, it’s been a lifesaver for generations of cold, wet, rock-climbers and moor walkers, yours truly included. It’s so popular that Alan has some climbs on the Tor named after him.
So we had a brew from the van, each cup freshly made in a pot no less, and went for a walk up to the Tor. I pointed out a climb that had nearly been the death of my mate Clarkie.
Me and Clarkie were out doing a bit of climbing one day, when Clarkie took a shine to doing a route called “Suspension flake.” It was well within his ability, though the guide does mention that it’s a bit difficult to protect at the top.
Clarkie set off up the rock, and I belayed him from on top of a tall boulder, to get a better view of the climbing. He got to the top without too much problem. However his last bit of gear was someway, death distance in fact, below him. He swung out on a good hold and managed to rest a tape on top of a rounded flake, it looked about as much use as an ashtray on a motorcycle. He then grunted and groaned, and sweated and swore, as he tried to clip it. Just as he clipped it, he came off the rock and screamed. I threw myself backwards off the boulder to try and take in as much slack as possible, and as I hit the deck Clarkie swooped over my head, his feet skimming me and the ground. I lay there looking up at him. The tape had held! My taking in the extra few feet of slack by diving off the boulder had stopped him within inches of the ground. In fact I had got more bruised than he had, the tosser. We both laughed and I lowered him two feet to the deck. He was just talking about going back up, as the gear was still in place, when a gust of wind blew the tape off the hold and the karabiner hit him on the head. We decided to call it quits for the day, and he bought the teas down at the van.
Bethy decided she wanted a go at “Suspension Flake”, but we persuaded her that a cup of tea would be better.
Down at the van I had tea, and one of the best slices of homemade fruitcake I’ve ever had.
We drove on from the van, passing through Princetown, and the grim Dartmoor prison. What a horrible place to end up, a few weeks there would be enough to make anyone think of slashing their wrists, and the prison is just as bad.
We made our way into Tavistock, a lovely moor town, where I lived for several years at the school for fucked up kids. (I was a teacher there, not a student.)
Tavistock has the poshest police station in the country, its in a 17 century moat house, far too good for the buggers if you ask me. It also has a wonderful farmers market that sells all sorts of local goods and products, including some of the most wonderful farm cheeses you can buy.
Unfortunately it was shut. So we bimbled around, and I had, yet another, nostalgia trip.
We then drove up to the school I used to work and live at.
It’s in an old manor house, which is at the far end of a five-mile dead end road from the town, it sure stopped the little buggers running away. It’s now run by an organisation, Chelfham schools, rather than the bunch of old hippies who ran it when I worked there, and looks all the better for it. Bethy was quite impressed that I had lived at the manor house, but if she’d met some of the others that lived there at the same time I think she would have been far less impressed. She’d have got along with the kids well, but the so-called “adults”…
We drove home, or rather to Chas’s, and passed Sourton Tor, the first place that LeeAnne had seen me fly back in our courting days. (Or rather, back in our “banging like a shithouse door in a gale, but not yet married” days.)
At the house LeeAnne cooked Bethy the rather novel creation of; “Pork chops in a tomato sauce, soy sauce, port and thyme coating,” which Bethy swears is much more tasty than it sounds.
Thursday:
We cleaned up our mess at Charlies, and made to depart. I decided to take the girls on a coastal run, taking in the fading Victorian elegance of Dawlish, an old seaside town I’d lived in for six months.
We drove past Starcross, looked at the wonderful old Powderham Castle, with it’s now glorious converted farm buildings.
http://www.powderham.co.uk/
These have gone from being labourers cottages into some of the most expensive real estate in the area. The castle has wonderful woods, a beautiful estuary, and large fields where they raise deer commercially, and hold rock concerts for such cutting edge acts as Chris de Burgh. How the other 5% live eh?
Then we got stuck behind the slowest driver on the planet. Does anyone else think it should be legal to ram old biddies who drive at 25 mph on a 60 mph single track road? This one was the worse kind. Not only had she built up a tail of eight or so cars behind her, but she was all over the road, as she was having a conversation with her passenger, and we all know it’s rude to talk and not to look at the person your talking to, don’t we?
We eventually got to Dawlish and parked at the British Rail car park. Some kindly gent gave us an “all day” parking ticket which he no longer needed, and we passed it on to another person when we left. Fuck British Rail.
We walked along the sea front, did a route that took us up to the great red clay cliffs there, and ambled back into town. Dawlish is famous for its black swans, so I took LeeAnne and Bethy to see them. This was a bit pointless as all swans in Oz are black. But we did get to see the world’s ugliest swan so it wasn’t all time wasted.
It poured down on us then, so we got a pasty (cheese and veg) each, and a slice of pizza, which wasn’t too bad, and watched the trains roar down the track and pass through the tunnels that line the cliffs here.
We drove into Plymouth, and after a brief but heated argument, went to the world famous Barbican. I took a photo on the Mayflower steps, of the board commemorating the UK getting rid of a batch of god-botherers by sending them to colonise America. The Pilgrim fathers were actually named after the pub in the Barbican, not the other way around, did you know that? My American chums reading this have now been given a valuable lesson on their history.
I took the girls to see the gallery of the world famous portrait artist who I had once sat for, Robert Lenkiewicz. Unfortunately he passed away some years back, but his gallery still draws many visitors.
http://www.lenkiewicz.org/
We stopped off at Captn’ Jaspers, a tea stall that has been there since well before my days as a student back in the early 80’s. It used to be next to the fish market there, unfortunately the fish market is now a tourist tat shop selling overpriced glass wear from Darlington crystal.
http://www.capn-jaspers.co.uk/
Brief diversion…
Back when we were students, and on the odd occasion when we could be arsed getting up early enough, me and Alan used to take our “girlfriend de jour” down to the markets at 6.00 am to watch the catch being unloaded. How we thought this would get us laid I don’t know. Anyway one day Alan approached a fisherman and pointed to a fish in a box, the conversation went thus;
Alan: “What kind of fish is that mate?”
Him: “You a fucking student?”
Alan: “Yes”
Him: “You fucking tell me then, clever cunt!”
SWGWWAKFBSRLWSTFU*: “It’s a pollack, its latin name is pollachius pollachius, it’s a benthopelagic fish. That’s a female, and it’s under regulation size.”
We then ran away before him and his mates could kill us.
*Some Welsh Git Who Was A Keen Fisherman, But Who Should Really Learn When To Shut The Fuck Up.
In the Dartington Glass shop they had a sale of seconds on. I fell in love with a high class teapot, reduced in price by more than 90%. So we pretended we’d buy it for a present for LeeAnne’s aunt, but there’s no way I’m letting her have it.
We had a stroll round the international aquarium there, gazed in awe at how ridiculous some fish look, and how nasty sharks look, and drove on to Mark and Jenny’s.
Mark and Jenny live in a lovely house in a small twee village called Ugborough, it has two good pubs and an imposing church, but they also have a plastic bead curtain in the house. Swings and roundabouts then.
Mark and Jenny fed us, and good grub it was too. I knew it was going to be a good feed, as Mark can only cook two things, and this was the one I preferred. We laid into the vino and had a lovely night of chat. Mark had broken his collarbone a couple of months previously, and I never tire of hearing his tales of how he fucks up, and boy does he have lots, especially as this was a tale of how he piled his microlight plane in.
Friday:
After one of Marks famous “full vege English” breakfasts, we took off for a spin around the South Hams. The countryside and coast around there is fantastic, it was a joy just to be driving down those country lanes. We first stopped at Blackpool Sands, which is a far cry from the other Blackpool, and Mark introduced us to the “Venus Cafe” concept.
Some bright spark had had the idea that as the South Hams has a number of lovely beaches, if they set up a hut selling good quality food there, people would pay good money for it. Genius, why hadn’t anyone thought of it before? Instead of the occasional van selling bloody ice cream, or a hut selling inedible hot dogs, and piss poor coffee and tea, why not somewhere where you could get a good meal, and high quality coffee and tea?
<http://www.venuscompany.co.uk/aboutus.htm>
I had one of their goulash pies, and bloody lovely it was too.
We drove on to Bigbury sands, and to the world famous Burgh Island.
I’d only been to Burgh Island once before, some twenty years ago, and me and the mate I was with, mad Geoff Davies, had got cut off by the tide there, necessitating us staying in the “Pilchard” the pub on the Island, all day, or at least until the tide went out again. Ok, we could have taken one of the “tractors on stilts” that ply a trade between the island and shore when tide is in, but that’s not the point.
Funnily enough we’d watched a article on the news the night before, of how the new owner of the 1920’s hotel on the island was trying to have the right of way to the old huers hut on top of the Island blocked off to anyone but hotel guests. So we made a point of walking up it.
At the top, in the huers hut we sheltered from the wind and rains, and watched two mad buggers of archaeologists, a breed that is mad by definition, dig up with small trowels what they claimed was a pre-medieval wall, or as sane people call it, scratch around in the pissing rain with a sharp stick to find rocks.”
We carried on around the coast, only stopping for me to reminisce about events that had happened in the various places we’d passed through. After a couple of hours of this I think Mark was just about ready to walk home. So we popped into Plymouth and met up with Jenny at a supermarket.
We let the girls go off shopping in the Barbican, and I took my camera into Boots to get the photo’s off the chip and onto disk.
Mark and I spent a fruitful half hour totty watching, and went back and collected the disk.
We met up with everybody back at Mark and Jenny’s, and decided to have our evening meal down at the Anchor pub. I stuck the disk in their DVD player so we could have a look at the shots. The disk wouldn’t read. I took it out and looked at it, there was a couple of holes in the silver! The great twats at Boots had burned my photos onto a faulty disk. Of course by this point I had deleted those on the chip, and taken more shots. All my photo’s since leaving Cornwall were lost. I could have thrown a fit, I cursed, swore, and vowed to burn Boots down if they couldn’t save them for me.
So we went down to the pub, which has managed to become schizophrenic by having a traditional bar, a really “olde worlde” English boozer, but also had added a good restaurant, without losing any of its character, no mean feat.
http://www.travelpublishing.co.uk/HiddenPlacesDevon/SouthHamsandPlymouth/DEV27682.htm
The grub was great, and they serve a very good pint of “Bass” there too.
Mark gets on like a house on fire with Bethy, and she thinks he’s great. Mark would make a wonderful father, if the opportunity arose he could be as good a dad as Alan is, and I have always rated Alan as one of the best dads whose’ kids I’ve had the pleasure of spending time with. Mark decided that him and Bethy were twins (please god no, he’s so fucking ugly!) and that they should go into business together making kids stuff. With Bethy’s knowledge of what kids like, and Marks abilities at design and construction, they’d make a mint they reckon.
Saturday.
Chas turned up early at Marks, as he knows how good Mark’s breakfasts are, and the pair of them caught up with each other. They’re an odd pair Mark and Chas. They have more than enough things in common to be mates, they get along really well, or at least have a great laugh totally disagreeing with each other, and always have fun ripping the piss out of me. But unless I’m in the country, they never meet up even though they only live 40 miles apart. Pair of tossers.
We argued for a while over where to walk on the moors, we all wanted to go different places. Mark got his maps out, I’m sure that the bugger has had them since we were in college together twenty years ago, they’re more like jigsaw puzzles than maps, they’ve fallen apart in so many places. We agreed to walk from Cadover bridge back to Ugborough as its a one way walk and we wouldn’t have to retrace a route, a trek of about 14 miles.
Anyway, the girls were off horse riding for the day, so me Chas and Mark were could have a full day moors for a long stomp. First off we drove into Plymouth to go back to Boots. I went to the counter at the photo dept and complained long and loud. To be fair to the guy behind the counter, he admitted liability, and tried his damnest to rescue the photo’s, but to no avail. So I had the manager called. She fussed and fretted and blustered, and asked me what I thought would be fair compensation. “You can pay for me and my wife and kid to come back here from Australia next year and take the photographs again.” She balked at that.
So I can heartily recommend NOT taking your digital snaps to Boots to be burned to disk, the incompetent twats.
But I must mention a big “Thank You!” to my mate Scott (The Bass Monster) from Canada, who found me a program that rescues photographs from damaged disks. Thanks to him we were able to save the majority of the pictures, and therefore to inflict them on you. It’s only due to this that Boots in Plymouth still stands. (Yes I did pay for the program “Digital Photo Recovery”, a novel experience!)
So the three of us drove up to Cadover Bridge, and left the car there. I was feeling pretty good, as I walk the dog for an hour a day, and go to the gym regularly, and so I knew I was going to walk the arses off these two ponces.
You’ve heard me say something like this before haven’t you?
We made the mistake of letting Mark lead the way, as they were his maps, and he was the only one who knew how to hold them together. So Mark led us from the car, and straight into one of the moors famous bogs. Good start.
So we eventually got back onto the road that led up to the moors, and were presented with two choices, to go straight up onto the moors towards Trowslworthy tor, or to take the farm track around Trowlsworthy farm and up onto the moors that way. I was outvoted two to one, and so Mark led the route straight up onto the moors and straight into another bog.
We eventually made it to Little Trowlsworthy tor, and sat and had a cuppa and a break. It was then I noticed how similar Mark and Charlie were looking. Both were wearing similar clothes, both have gray goatees, both are “maturing” into rather distinguished and handsome old men, both were wearing red headgear that looked far to young for them, in fact they looked like an aging gay couple. So I dubbed them the “Old Gay Hikers Club”, and they took it well and threw sheep’s turds at me.
We strolled across the beautiful moors, swapping tales of getting lost on the moors, screwing women, getting caught in downpours on the moors, screwing women, getting caught in thunderstorms on the moors, screwing women, falling off rock climbs on the moors, screwing women, flying hangliders and paragliders on the moors, and screwing women on the moors.
The moors, for those of you not familiar with them, are 365 square miles of open countryside, dotted with tors, spotted with deep bogs, and split by many rivers. The part of the moor we were hiking is particularly bleak, with few tors to navigate by, and so me and Chas took great delight in ripping the piss out of Marks navigational skills, and refusing to take the maps off him and navigate ourselves. He led us smack bang into so many bogs that Chas reckoned he could get a job as a water diviner. Eventually we hit an old granite tramways, that led us to the top of Ugborough beacon, from where we could see Ugborough village down in the valley. Only another four miles to go then. Of course by now I was completely and utterly fucked, and those two wankers were taking great delight in urging me on by offering to carry my pack, and buy me beer back at the pub. I would have loved to have died at that point, just to spoil their day by making them carry my corpse home.
We eventually got back to the village and hit the pub, Bass beer has never tasted so sweet. Unfortunately my thirst got the better of me, so Chas had to rely on Mark to drive him back to where we had left the car. Or at least that’s my story.
Back at Mark and Jenny’s, Mark cooked us his other meal, hommity pie, which was very good, and so we all resisted the temptation to call it “vomity” pie. We cracked open some vino we’d bought at the supermarket, and a fine time was had by all. LeeAnne had such a fine time she was in bed by 9.30 pm. Me and Mark stayed up late into the night talking, reminiscing and bullshitting, which was very nice.
Sunday
The next morning we said our good byes to Mark and Jenny, and set off across the moors, I wasn’t leaving Devon without saying good bye to the moors! It was perfect moors weather that day, low cloud, drizzle, strong winds, the occasional heavy downpour, which made leaving even harder.
We drove across the high stretch of moors overlooking Princetown again, and saw hundreds of bedraggled looking walkers out. From the warmth and comfort of our car we looked at them and wondered what the hell brought so many people out to get cold, wet and uncomfortable. Then I realised, it was Ten Tors time. The Ten Tors event, is an annual hiking event, organised by that army, in which teams of school kids have to navigate to and between ten specified tors in one day. Kids from all over the country compete, and the training for the event really buggers up the moors. So fuck that for a game of soldiers.
We stopped off at Alan’s Van for more tea and lovely cake, and took the longest possible way back to the motorway which would to get us back to Llanelli.
As you may have gathered, this week made me fall back in love with Devon all over again, and someday I may even return to live there. (Alan, Jo, Jack, Tom, Chas, Mark, Jenny, you have been warned.)
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