Blogs from United Kingdom, Europe - page 3084

From the hotel, we were dropped off by Mike, a part-time driver (when he’s not working for the County cutting grass). He chatted with me all the way, since I rode in the front of the van. Peter is our guide. We walked along well-defined paths and roads. Houses and beautiful gardens were seen with some frequency. These groups of houses are nominally villages, although none have any services beyond a mail box and a (red) phone box. Most of the houses have been extensively refurbished, repaired, and extended. Apparently they are expensive. Some villages are farm yards, in which all the outbuildings have been converted to houses. We saw this in Devon, too. To get to lunch we walked along a paved road to the Highwayman Inn, an old coaching house, now adjacent to the ... read more

We drove up to Exmoor, which is wide and almost flat. The ground cover is short with patches of low bracken and wild flowers, mostly heather and cowslip – purple and yellow again. There is also Cross-leaf Heath, with very small, very pink flowers. The ground is boggy from all the rain yesterday, but this is apparently unusual. We have to watch our feet, which is difficult while taking in the beauty of the scene. The hills covered with bracken surrounded the heath, showing lovely contours and shades of green. We were lucky enough to see wild Exmoor ponies. They were amongst the sheep that graze the moor. The ponies are stocky with particularly thick necks and distinctive green muzzles. Their coats are warm brown or dapple... read more

Andrew dropped us off at the ice cream shop in Mortehoe. (“Hoe” is a grassy field. “Morte” is French for death. Meaning?) This is a big holiday Sunday, and it is sunny, so lots of people are out. All along, from Woolacombe to Mortehoe, the cars shared the one and a half car-width road, pulling aside in specially widened spots in the road to allow for on-coming vehicles. We stopped a lot, because we were in a van, taking up more than our share of space. We began by walking along tarmacked, but otherwise traditional village streets – narrowed with walls and houses. The road took us into the National Trust property of Bull Point, the entrance to the Bristol Channel . The local url=https://... read more

In 1998 I took my first walking holiday. The United Kingdom is a good locale for walking holidays, because villages dot the landscape and the paths are protected from encroachments. We drove from Barnstaple, where we stayed overnight, to the beginning of our country walk. At that time I favoured video (digital tape) over still photography (35mm film). Some of the photos in these posts are captured from the video. Today was exactly what I wanted – we started in one place (Prixford) and walked to another place (Saunton Sands Beach ). This morning was in woodland and between hedgerows. This afternoon was across fields, through dunes (grass covered), to the sea. Barbara and I are the only walkers. A pair of sisters and their husbands cancelled six weeks ago because of the death of their ... read more

I went to Scotland for the Fringe Festival. Good Times were had by all.... read more