dovegreyreader scribbles

Compulsory people watching

As the Tinker and I approached the platform at Paddington last night, at a measured pace because we had reserved seats, the melee around us was hurling itself towards the 17.33 train with a vengeance. We followed a gaggle of very loud and over-excited Hooray public schoolboys, ranging from about twelve to fourteen years old at a guess and a harrassed mother with two very large lurcher dogs loping alongside.
Firstly let me clarify that I have no problem with public schoolboys.
I'm sure the majority are polite, thoughtful and considerate young men and a credit to their parents, but I had a sick feeling, call it a premonition, that we'd find Family Hooray in Coach C, possibly within spitting distance of seats 9 and 10A forward facing, because that's the sort of luck we have.
We took our time, the train was heaving, not even standing room and eventually reached our seats only to find them occupied by part of Family Hooray and no seat reservation tickets to be seen because they were in the Middle Hooray's pocket.
We soon disabused him of the notion that the seats were theirs and with this another woman seated opposite wagged her finger at him and said "I told you, it's a £200 fine if you remove those," and gave me one of those weary looks which spoke volumes. "This is going to be a very long, tedious and debilitating journey".
The Hoorays were en route from boarding school (wish I could have caught the name) with friends in tow, to a weekend at their holiday cottage on the North Cornish coast. I won't name that place but I sincerely hope Doris is OK because the plan was to head off and stone her windows at midnight because this had been huge and jolly fun last time.
Mother of the Hoorays was sat behind us, oblivious to all because she was glued to her mobile and, apart from intermittent loss of signal, when she loudly assisted  with French and Geography homework from across the aisle, she remained welded to it for the entire journey.
The Hoorays settled down at the table opposite and clearly saw it as their inherent duty to entertain the entire carriage for the whole journey.
This involved vast amounts of messy eating, climbing on seats to reach the luggage rack at five minute intervals, telling jokes, wandering up and down to play jokes on other people and make them look ridiculous and generally being obnoxious.The Geography homework done on Mother of Hooray's laptop deserves a C-, the Pyrennees were not in Scotland the last time I checked.In fact I'd be looking for a refund on the school fees there.
But what of the goss from the mobile phone behind us?
Film director, divorced from famous film production company owner and  Father of Hoorays.The whole carriage was informed of his name...no I couldn't possibly say but we all agreed, he should have known better than to offer eldest son his air miles when he's worked b****y hard to earn that money for himself for his trip to Oz.Can you believe it?
But what of the the film script? Well fortunately for all of you, part of my day job frequently involves accurately recalling lengthy conversations and then writing down the details afterwards.
Yah, well darling, it's so sad, Rachel Weiss has turned down the part. It's tragic, can't be done for the money, Uma might be interested because word is she wants to get into a part about divorce and Will Smith, really we should approach Will for the lead man in this one darling.Oh I WOULD LOVE to get Kate Winslett, she'd be perfect.Blanchett's busy I know that, she couldn't possibly fit it in.The budgets for Lorelei are a shambles, £10,000 for three weeks of digital? No way, I'm not doing it, I'm just not doing it and what on earth are they thinking of paying the cameraman £400 a day, the same as the .....tunnel, noise missed this bit but probably the tea lady. Off to New York this week, romantic weekend with boyfriend lined up but had three meetings to go to, timing all wrong.
Oblivious to the existence of, or any consideration for their fellow man, I doubt Family Hooray were even aware that the rest of us had ears, but it was priceless as a covert system of eye contact camaraderie spread around the other passengers.Spirits were raised when one teenage Hooray asked Mother of Hoorays for his cuddly muslin nappy and proceeded to suck his thumb, the silence was momentarily golden but after a quick fix he was back in the groove.
Periodically the dogs were taken for a walk up and down the train.
Have you ever tried to turn a lurcher on its axis to face the other direction in the aisle of a train? They have a very wide turning circle unlike my Ford Fiesta which turns on a sixpence.
At some point the canine's rear end is going to be right in the face of whoever is seated there (the Tinker) and when shifted any dog does an instinctive shaking from head to foot which pollinated the carriage with a dusting of dog hair each time and has us all coughing and sneezing.
It has to be said that the lurchers were the best behaved of the lot, though I fear for their street cred if seen in the fields around here wearing those brightly coloured beaded and embroidered designer collars.Calling out "Che Guevara come here," when the bigger one ran off might also raise a few eyebrows.
Had they had wind I might have been feeling less benevolent, but the dogs seemed to be on the side of the majority, looking mighty fed up with their existence and after three hours we were all feeling of like mind.
It all confirms my theory that dog and people-watching is endlessly fascinating, the Tinker sat by bemused watching the fourteen year olds of today strut their stuff, and I do wish Family Hooray well.
Today they are on a private surfing lesson because the rip tides and currents on the North Cornish coast are notoriously treacherous.
No I'm not going to say it.

Hurricane watch

Having been to the Gulf of Mexico, albeit very briefly just a few weeks ago, suddenly I've developed an interest in hurricanes when, apart from the big ones, I barely used to notice them before.They tend not to be a problem here in Devon UK.
Thanks to Susan Hill for this link to www.accuweather.com and Hurricane Dean updates.
I'm thinking about Jamaica and all those homes, just a few planks nailed together and a tarpaulin over the top, built and probably rebuilt time and again. Balanced so precariously high up in the mountains, they will implode like matchsticks and I can only begin to imagine what it must be like to know this is heading your way and your home will certainly be destroyed.
Good luck Jamaica.

'It was a splendid morning too.Like the pulse of a perfect heart'

'I love walking in London' said Mrs Dalloway.'Really it's better than walking in the country'
and I felt like Clarissa Dalloway too as I scurried around London on a beautiful day on Friday and revelled in my recent re-read of what may be my favourite Virginia Woolf book.
I also did something I've always wanted to do.
I hailed a taxi and said "The Savoy please"

Prior to this I'd had another Mrs Dalloway moment as the bells chimed midday, the leaden circles did indeed dissolve in the air, enough to make me stop and listen, check for the sign-writing aeroplane and then panic realizing I'd spent far too long in Daunt's Bookshop in Marylebone and was going to be late.
I was even later because "the world wavered and quivered and threatened to burst into flames" and then did just that. Oxford Street closed and the traffic gridlocked because the New Look store had undergone a new look to the tune of a million pounds after a fire.
I was at The Savoy for the Awards lunch for the Romantic Novelist of the Year and meeting up with the Transita authors.Dame Tanni Grey Thompson was the chairman of judges and gave a very funny and entertaining speech.The lunch was splendid and I sat and chatted to Mary Cavanagh, Stella Sykes and Danuta Kean in that sumptuous Art Deco haven that is The Savoy.I had a bit of a spot-the-art-deco prowl around afterwards but my furtive pics came out predictably furtively blurry.
Next I hoofed into Trafalgar Square and the National Portrait Gallery where I wanted to see the exhibition of Women Writers.

I never did find Room 31 and that exhibition because I got distracted by everything else and time was ticking on so I walked up to catch the tube from Covent Garden thus taking in another favourite venue.
More ambling as I listened to the quartet playing there and a young man on the flute who was ever so slightly more accomplished than me.
It was late night opening at the Victoria & Albert Museum and I was on a mission to seek out some textiles, specifically following up some I'd seen in the Penlee Museum in Penzance, hand blocked in St Ives in the 1930's by Crysede and designed by Alec Walker.Never heard of and wanted to find out more but also what a great place to test the "museum" setting on my new camera (silent, no flash...discreet, should have used in Savoy)
Invoking the ancient Law of Sod, textiles was one of the galleries not open late.
In a way closing half of the museum solved my problem because it's vast and easy to waste half a day deciding what to look at first, I had two hours and the shop and a pot of tea to do.
Somehow I ended up in Ecclesiastical.

However I'm never so happy as when I'm gazing at a pot of Earl Grey tea and I suspect the V&A takes the biscuit for nice cafe setting.

By this time I've been on the go for 14 hours so I'm even happier when I arrive here

and put my feet up (sorry, yes that is my shoes resting on the First Great Western soft furnishings) homeward bound for Exeter St Davids for the next 3 hours or so and a peruse of my purchases.
The books to carry me home, Extracts from the Red Notebooks by Matthew Engel,excellent reading.
A new book (to me anyway), The Daphne Du Maurier Companion edited by Helen Taylor and some interesting new writing about an author who is due for a revisit from me.
Finally At the Sign of the Rainbow a book about the 1930's designer Margaret Calkin James who set up The Rainbow Workshops carrying on the ideals of the Omega Workshops and who produced some memorable posters, fabrics, wallpapers and book jackets.An old Woman's Hour piece can be heard here.
On the top there a supply of Moleskine Cahiers which I've decided will be my new Commonplace books.

Yet again I remind myself I must read the instructions for my iPod Shuffle because I had a right old mix and match of Jonie, Annie, Rod, Seth, The Sixteen and a few others I didn't recognize.
But London, I do love you, if only for a day.

Blogjourney

It's a while since we've been on a blogjourney but we set off for Ashburton a couple of weeks ago.
It was a Dartmoor-in-all-its-glory day, and one of those journeys we do frequently, about 25 miles or so and at the end of the road two very good bookshops and some very quirky local shops.
Ashburton Marbles for example contains more antique fireplaces and fire surrounds than you ever knew existed.
We set off across high Dartmoor in glorious sunshine after a night of water water everywhere, but this being Dartmoor by the time we arrived across the other side it was winter with glowering skies and hailstorms.The kayakers were out on the River Dart in their multitudes, ours was in their somewhere.

This stream is normally a trickle in between the cottages at Ashburton, more of a raging torrent last week.

Suddenly the skies do this

And then this again.Here's a good shot of Merrivale Quarry where all the stone for the original London Bridge came from.Didn't that bridge end up in the US? Sadly the quarry has closed down and didn't supply the stone for recent work on The Square in Tavistock, that had to come from Portugal.
There's The Dartmoor Inn, a nice little hostelry tucked in the lee.

I've included this last picture by way of simple and probably very unmeteorological explanation.It is notoriously wet in Tavistock especially in the winter (that's the town in the distance) the moist air comes in off the sea at Plymouth, heads inland, rises when it spots Dartmoor and then it pours.That has happened a great deal lately which can only be good news for our water supply.

That hinterland feeling again

Mention of  Paris at its darkest and most sinister, and touches of that hinterland feeling that I recall so clearly during an October visit years ago with Offspringette when we spent a morning at the Pere Lachaise Cemetery. I've just discovered this fantastic virtual tour, you don't even need to leave your armchair now.
During our visit, the sky went black, the heavens opened and suddenly you could have been in 19th century Paris, no problem.
We'd actually gone there for the teenager to pay homage to Jim (Morrison) and of course the minute you walk in the gates the graffiti saying "Jim this way" leads you right there.Then we wandered around for hours and hours discovering so many well known names, Chopin, Edith Piaf, Abelard and Heloise, Oscar Wilde.I wouldn't have believed that a cemetery could be so interesting when there were all those shops beckoning.
If you can find the tomb of Victor Noir on the virtual tour you'll see he has a distinguishing feature that had us mystified until we arrived home and did some research.
We also got hopelessly lost and, if ever you go, let me advise you that it's worth the money to buy the map as we seriously thought we may just walk round in circles for ever more and never be heard of again.

Blogtrip to St Ives

Any trip to St Ives has to be invested with a bit of an artistic moment.
The Tate Modern is not really our cup of tea, well the contents aren't.When in Cornwall I like a good plein-air painting in which I can recognise something familiar and, more importantly, one that I would not be able to knock up myself given a piece of board from the shed and a few pots of paint.
I know, I've caused many a shudder with the suggestion that I could probably come up with a Mondrian if pushed and definitely a Pollock if I was really pushed whilst holding the can of paint.I understand it's all about time, place, context and art form but it still doesn't move me.
However, a gallery full of Lamorna Birch and Dame Laura Knight paintings does.Here's a favourite.

But the Tate building itself, once the old gas works, is a marvel and we always go inside to experience the light and the perfect view of Porthmeor Beach from the window and a quick look at the Bernard Leach pottery.
It's not difficult to imagine yourself back in this artist's colony when you see the original studios that back onto the beach and then the cottage that belonged to Alfred Wallis just around the corner.Here it is especially for Em at  Snowbooks!

There are so many footsteps to follow in St Ives and amongst the great literary ones must be those of Virginia Woolf.
Talland House, the Stephens family holiday residence for some years is still standing and now let out as holiday apartments.I'll be honest, I'm not sure what V&V would make of the decor now but at least it's not a crumbling ruin.
What is abundantly clear is how much the scenery must have influenced Woolf's writing (though I've quite forgotten all that as I do Woolf for Dummies) and still a subject for debate is how much artistic inspiration Vanessa Bell may have gleaned. I did however acquire the book that will give me all the answers when I'm allowed to look at it.
And how about this for a perfect Cornish beach in September?

The Birthday Trip

Buckets and spades and paintbrushes at the ready for this weekend's up-coming Blogtrip around the West Country, spent the day here...

and then went here...

A Trip to Plymouth with the Georges

I had many a George Eliot moment through last winter with my first reading of Adam Bede and a wander through many of Eliot's journals and letters.I've been a Middlemarch fan for years so it was good to do some background reading.
On 16th March 1857 George Eliot and George Henry Lewes arrived in Plymouth for an overnight stop before heading off on the Truro coach and a stay on The Isles of Scilly.
Here's what the Georges thought
"We reached Plymouth a little after five, and went to the Globe Hotel, from which the Truro coach starts...we walked to the Hoe and saw the Harbour, the breakwater and Drake's Island.Plymouth is a cheerful, clean place, with the finest site I remember to have seen for a sea-port, except Genoa"
Had Waterstone's been open (closes at 5pm down here) this is what would have been in the 3 for 2's in 1857, the journals give a precise record of their holiday reading, much of it read aloud to each other.
Cranford by Mrs Gaskell
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Life of Charlotte Bronte by Mrs Gaskell
Cromwell by Thomas Carlyle
Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Physiology by John William Draper
Plymouth is our nearest city, just 20 miles down the road and perhaps not quite the cheerful, clean place it was in 1857, but still a busy naval base, maritime port and garrison city.As you come down off the moors and approach the city the purity and brilliance of the light on a sunny day leaves you in no doubt that you are nearing the sea.
Here are some of the sights the Georges enjoyed and so did we on the most glorious of September days yesterday, plus we added in a few extras we felt sure the Georges would have appreciated.
Enjoy your trip out around the West Country this week.

Standing on The Hoe and looking out across Plymouth Sound to Drake's Island and Cornwall beyond.Far out on the horizon, visible on a clear day and of course always at night, the Eddystone Lighthouse.

In the distance to the left of Drake's Island the breakwater, started in 1812 this would only just have been completed when the Georges looked out on it.

Smeaton's Tower, the old 1750's Eddystone lighthouse was dismantled and rebuilt on The Hoe in 1882. The Georges would have been able to look out to sea and see this lighthouse in action.Smeaton modelled his design on the principle of an oak tree and its need to bend in the wind.1493 blocks all dovetailed together like the rings of a tree and this tower does bend in the wind, that's how it has survived the force of the south-westerly gales. John Smeaton also invented quick-drying cement which was probably quite useful too.

 

And would a trip to Plymouth be complete without a glimpse of dear old Sir Frankie Drake in his natty doublet and Norah Batty hose taking a break from his game of bowls to check the Armada weren't heading in to spoil the party.

Endsleigh

I'm spoiling you with all these lovely excursions but the weather's too nice to stay indoors so today we're going to walk along to here.
I've arranged for the coffee to be served when we arrive as it's now a very splendid hotel but it has always been known locally just as Endsleigh and originally Endsleigh Cottage.
The inscription on the foundation stone tells you all you need to know
"Endsleigh Cottage was built and a residence created in this sequestered valley by John, Duke of Bedford, the spot having previously been chosen from the natural and picturesque beauties which surround it by Georgiana, Duchess of Bedford.The first stone of the building was laid by her four eldest sons, Wriothesley, Edward, Charles Fox and Francis John, Sept 7, 1810"
.
Picturesque was the order of the day to the extent that the Duchess had a cottage built in these woods on the opposite Cornish banks of the Tamar. It was uninhabited but every morning a fire was lit in there so that the smoke could be seen coming out of the chimney.It's still possible to stroll along the Upper and Lower Georgies, Georgina's favoured walks.Imagine the family moving down here for the summer, the servants travelling ahead to prepare the house, one man being paid 14 shillings for the three days it took to plump up the feathers in the beds.

Just before you walk into part of the 1000 specimen arboretum you stumble across the most astonishing little shell house grotto crammed full of specimens from all over the world. Astonishing in that it would now be unthinkable to snaffle some coral and use it in this way, but this was the 19th century, specimen collecting was all the rage.

Rachel Trethewey has written an excellent account of Georgina's life, Mistress of the Arts: The Passionate Life of Georgina, Duchess of Bedford wherein you learn that her eventual fall from grace came about through her lengthy affair with the artist Edwin Landseer.
However my favourite account of Endsleigh and its environs comes from the late great author Penelope Fitzgerald who loved the area around us here.Her family lived in the village and she was a regular visitor. To think I probably stood behind her in the queue at the post office and never knew.
She gives a wonderful account in her piece entitled The Moors in one of my most treasured volumes, that of her collected writing A House of Air. She calls it "a site in a thousand" worked on by Wyatville and Humphrey Repton "who aimed at creating an earthly paradise".They didn't go far wrong.

A Croc-around the Mayflower Steps

Time for another dovegreyreader excursion and here's a generous opportunity to breath deeply of some pure sea air through a haze of Cap'n Jaspar's fish and chips as we head for Plymouth's Barbican and the pole-dancing prawn.Unusual architectural features abound now in Plymouth city centre currently being re-modelled after one blitz failed to do the job satisfactorily.Much of it at such a bizarre angle that you feel mildly distracted, very disorientated and vaguely seasick as you drive round. I suspect this may have been the intention.

The Offspringette has whizzed in from Glasgow for a few days so off we set for a Croc-around .We did our "tour" of the famous sites, Mayflowers Steps et al.Had Cap'n Jaspar's been there in 1620 the Pilgrim Fathers may just have had second thoughts about departing.

'Yer be they very self same steps

The city has made much of this litle area and in particular this long, salt-patinated bronze plaque declaring the departure of the Founding Fathers...

and about 6 ft later, their arrival.

But wander across to  this sadly neglected corner, home for many years to a deceased but increasingly famous artist, and oh dear, what to do? More on Robert Lenkiewicz on Saturday August 5th, the 4th anniversary of his death.

Buckets and Spades here too

Traditionally this is the weekend that the UK heads for the South West and  we hunker down for 6 weeks safely marooned in our little bit of it. Let me make it very clear, you are all most welcome, and for us it's always a lovely time to catch up with friends stopping by en route down or back up.Please have a wonderful time, we love it here too, this is Trebarwith Strand.
However now when when one of us suggests "let's go to the beach" the other says "let's not" and we remember that we don't see the sea again until October and the Offspringette will be home to go surfing on Boxing Day.
I am reliably informed the roads are heaving this morning and another thing, after all the fantastic weather, what is this thing called rain?

More vicarious Dartington pleasures

The Great Hall from my favourite seat up in the minstrel's gallery.A narrow stone spiral staircase to reach it, but a noise and fuss free getaway is at your behest if you feel so inclined.

The view of The Great Hall from beyond the medieval tilting yard

The Tilting Yard, impossible to convey the scale or the impact of this but see that beige looking statue up the top?

The Henry Moore sculpture overlooking the Tilting Yard

The herbaceous borders, always a delight, and around every corner the perfect image waiting to be discovered.

Flushing Meadow

Back a little early from my first stint at Ways With Words set in glorious Devon countryside and all thanks to landing the room just a wall's width away from the shared toilet facilities.Either 20 plus people kept flushing me awake all night or one poor person had a problem.
Lack of sleep is not  compatible with staying conscious in literary talks in warm, crowded rooms no matter how fascinating the speaker or the subject.
Never mind, here's a taster of my outward bound journey over high Dartmoor early on Sunday morning, in some typical, hair frizzing Dartmoor weather.

The view from Cox Tor looking down on Tavistock and across to Cornwall.

Not sure if taking photos of HMP's is legal so here's a "prison" on Dartmoor somewhere, never looks anything other than bleak and forbidding with the feeling that a Baskerville type hound may just leap out at you.You may wonder just how the Krays managed to spring the Mad Axeman, Frank Mitchell from here back in the swinging sixties and they probably wished they'd never bothered.In fact Frank was violent and uncontrollable even for the warders and it would seem he had an established right to roam around the prison farm and often used to drink in the local pub with a prison warder for company. In that case getting into the car sent to fetch him was quite straightforward.He went "missing" soon afterwards, murdered but no body ever found, and it can only be assumed he's supporting a motorway somewhere.

If you've read Helen Slavin's The Extra Large Medium this sign will make you smile, if you haven't you'll need to to get the joke.It is a lovely local beauty spot but, thanks to Helen, does give new meaning to any suggestion of "boulder holders"

Amazing how the sun can be shining on the other side of the moor.

A London Day

Today my feet and my nose are recovering from a daytrip up to London on the  hottest day of the year and with the pollen count surely way beyond the very conservative 150 grains per cubic metre that constitutes 'very high'. Really my metatarsals are begging to be wrapped up snugly in my Ugg boots but it's way too hot.The Uggs are a sort of guilty and very comforting, youthful indulgence, like having hot water bottles on your feet, but have entailed a promise to my offspring never to be worn outside the house.This for fear of mutton dressed as lamb accusations (sheepskin boots, very apt) or unfavourable comparisons with Colleen Rooney.
We travel up to London for the day a couple of times a year (it's a lot I know) just so that the bookhound and I can stand in real bookshops and sniff the air. We book cheap first class seats (you can do this if you plan and book about 22 weeks in advance) and eat and drink and doze our way to the metropolis and fall out into the broiling hubbub.We took London and all it had to offer for granted when we lived there but savour everything about it now we don't.

Yesterday we started off at The British Library. Every so often I have to drop in to see George Eliot's original manuscript for Middlemarch or Charlotte Bronte's purported writing desk (there's another purported one in Haworth) Seeing and reading Scott's last entry in his diary from the South Pole, "for God's sake look after our people" always does me up like a kipper.
From there it's a gentle stroll down through Bloomsbury and the old stamping grounds.
I was given a blissful chance to breath in enough air in The London Review Bookshop to last me several months and of course make a few purchases.Lunch at our favourite little place and then the afternoon at the London Antiquarian Bookfair at Olympia.I think the cheapest book I came across was £60 but to see a selection of  Hogarth Press Virginia Woolf first editions in their beautiful Vanessa Bell dustjackets was a real bonus.A U.S. dealer had these priced at $25,000 each. I have a few, not first editions I hasten to add, but still in their dustjackets and I can only assume there are copyright issues over republishing these. A set of her books in the original dust jackets would surely sell out in nano seconds?
The last hour of the day was spent in a very nicely stocked branch of Waterstone's in Kensington High Street which had a plump leather chair for the bookhound and tables of 3 for 2's for me.

As the sun set on London we dozed our way back to Exeter, St David's and fell in the door at about midnight after quite the most perfect day.
Today of course the World Cup and England expects. Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory are ringing out and the nation's attentions are focused on a far more important set of metatarsals than mine.

Moving House

Having dipped a cautious toe into the blogworld I am now hooked and have decided to move house to a site where I can expand some of my ideas.
Big thankyous to blogsource for getting me started for free and helping me find my blogvoice, lets see how I manage in the fully paid up, grown up blogging world of typepad.
My house contents are in a complete mess and a muddle and some links have travelled well others have gone off on a frolic of their own.Until I sort out the clock it also looks as if I have sat up all night doing this.
As usual I haven't read any instructions just waded in the deep end so lets see what happens.