Blogs from Widecombe-in-the-Moor, Devon, England, United Kingdom, Europe

From Widecombe in the Moor (really back home in Scoriton) but walked to Widecombe in the Moor today. The translation is ‘wide stand of trees on the Moor’, does it get any better? The village is described as a honeypot village, that is it draws tourists from all around and with their big show on tomorrow that is particularly so today. It’s quaint, old and lovely. It has the highest steeple on Dartmoor (very religious) but it was struck by lightning (very un-religous), scientists say as the result of an earthquake and ball lightning (very scientific), the locals said it was the devil (very pragmatic but probably wrong). Widecombe in the Moor‘s pub and the town itself and the primary school have as their symbol 7 similarly dressed men on a horse. We have seen the ... read more

Tom Pearce, Tom Pearce, Lend me your grey mare. All along, down along, out along lea. For I want to go down to Widecombe Fair wi' Bill Brewer, Jan Stewer, Peter Gurney, Peter Davy, Dan'l Whiddon, Harry Hawk, Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all, Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all.To be sung in a fake Devon yokel's accent, preferably after a few pints of strong local ale. So goes the first verse of a folk tune called 'Widecombe Fair'. It does go on quite a bit longer - possibly a bit too much longer, unless someone else is buying the next round of drinks. It tells a tale of Tom Pearce's old grey mare being borrowed, getting lost, falling ill, dying, and haunting the moor ever after. I won't bore you with it all here but, ... read more

Well, it was off to Devon for the weekend with my girlfriends, Hannah (friend who got married in Feb), Emma, Bethany and Julie. I was the only non-family member that came along so it was special. On Friday, we drove about 5 hours north to North Devon to a small village called Berrynabour, voted the best kept village for several years now. It's an award for the whole of England which is pretty darn good! We stayed in the Ducky Pool Cottage (Hannah's parents own it). Saturday morning we got up rather late and didn't have much morning left, ate some breakfast and got ready for sea-bracing! We went to the seaside in Woolacombe for some bodyboarding, luckily we had wetsuits to keep us relatively warm. The weather was pretty crazy and ended up pouring but ... read more

After managing to get Grant added to the driver’s list moments before the car hire place closed, we headed back to the 'Grand Shey Bu Hostel' and waited for Matt to arrive at Helen and Beth’s. We chucked everything in the car and headed towards the M3 motorway with the help of Grant’s fancy GPS navigational device, which proved to be very useful throughout the trip, even though it rendered me jobless. We stopped to get more petrol plus food from the service station (where are the Bombay Hills or Mercer when you need them!). We had to stop later on so Matt could get some food as well. After a bit of a mission, we finally found a services area that was open and he was stuck with a rather early cooked breakfast for dinner, ... read more