A trip to Tavistock

On Thursday, we decided to take a run out to Tavistock, which is on Dartmoor, as we havent been for a while. Its a nice drive over the moor, and although it wasnt bathed in sunshine, it was lovely to see it the grey wintry trees, and the ginger coloured bracken.

Tavistock is a lovely old market town, set beside the river Tavy, which has salmon steps for the fish to travel upstream. Its nice and peaceful, to walk beside the river, which roars and bubbles over the grey smooth granite boulders on the river bed, and listen to the quacks of the ducks

When we arrived, they had just finished putting the christmas trees on the Town hall, behind this is the pannier market, which has some fabulous arts and crafts stalls. I bought a nice winter cherry (solanum) there, which I set in a blue china pot when I got home

Across from the town hall is St Eustachius church, which we had a look round

It is a lovely airy church, with really beautiful carved pew ends, and a spectacular oak screen

It was a nice day out, and on our way home we stopped to look at Bennetts Cross, one of the ancient granite wayside markers, which are dotted all over the moor, this one is a boundary

marker for the Headland Warren, and the parishes of Chagford, and North Bovey. In August it looks beautiful, surrounded by a sea of purple heather.

November musings

The stripped and shapely
Maple grieves
The ghosts of her
Departed leaves.

The ground is hard,
As hard as stone,
The year is old,
The birds are flown.

And yet the world,
In its distress,
Displays a certain loveliness.
John Updike.
Dark grey mornings,
Misty and mellow,
Cold days turning
To frost at night,
Wrap up warm,
Sit in the twilight
of the fire,
Burning in the hearth
Warming my toes
The earth has a surreal
Feel to it
Thoughts of Christmas
Maybe snow
Family and friends
A glass of cheer
Tucked up warm
In cosy beds
Hard to wake and
Face the grey
Of November mornings.
Lynda Robson.
"Splitting dry kindling
on a damp November day -
wind chimes tinkling.
Michael P. Garofalo.

Lest we forget...

If I should die, think only this of me;
That theres some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped made aware
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England`s breathing English air
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace under an English heaven.
Rupert Brooke.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe;
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow.
Major John McCrae.

"A tingling, misty marvel
Blew hither in the night,
And now the little peach trees
Are clasped in frozen light.

Upon the apple branches
An icy film is caught,
With trailing threads of gossamer
In pearly patterns wrought.

The autumn sun, in wonder,
Is gayly peering through
This silver-tissued network
Across the frosty blue.

The weather-vane is fire tipped,
The honeysuckle shows,
A dazzling icy splendour,
And crystal is the rose".
"November comes
And November goes
With the last red berries
And the first white snows.

With night coming early,
And dawn coming late,
And ice in the bucket
And frost by the gate.

The fires burn
And the kettles sing
And earth sinks to rest
Until next Spring.
Clyde Watson.