Red Earth

Another picture from my holiday in Devon, to show how bright red the cliffs by the railway are.

One of the fun things we did on holiday was to go visit one of my relatives and her husband who live near Dartmoor in a gorgeous house. They were really welcoming and lovely and served an absolutely incredible cream tea (and anyone who knows me knows I love cream teas immensely), with teeny delicious sandwiches and cute little scones with two kinds of jam, real clotted cream and an incredible slab of cake covered in strawberries. I made an absolute pig of myself.

But moving away from the food aspect of things, we also had fun discussing star signs and I resolved that on my return I would look up what I'm supposed to be like (I'm a Cancerian). Apparently Cancerians are the "least clear cut" of all the star signs. Negative traits according to this site include: untidy, sulky, devious, moody, inclined to self-pity, inferiority complex, brood on insults (very often imagined), easily flattered, tactless and difficult, often change their opinions and loyalties, lack stability, easily corrupted and (my favourite) can make successful confidence tricksters.

You have been warned.

All at Sea

Believe it or not, these fisherfolk were only metres from the train station at Dawlish. It's right on the beach. I took the photograph while standing on the platform waiting for a train to arrive.

Cyclamen

These are cyclamen, and very nice they are too. I like their little wiggly stalks, they're like pig's tails. And they grow out of a corm, which is an excellent word.

Another excellent word I discovered recently is globster: an unidentified mass of organic matter washed up on a shoreline, and the source of many a sea monster myth. Apparently decomposing basking sharks strongly resemble plesiosaurs. Who knew?

Incidentally, Wikipedia has a page entitled "exploding whales". And believe me when I say it's a blast.

Lichen

This tree was insanely bedecked with hangers-on of all shades.

Interestingly, what we think of as lichen is actually a symbiotic relationship between a fungus and a photosynthetic organism like a green alga. Who knew? It's like when I found out that a Portuguese Man o'War is not a jellyfish.* Except lichen doesn't have 50 metre long tentacles. For which I am sure we're all thankful.


* It's a siphonophore, a collection of different organisms called zooids. So. Now you know.

Grapes!

A couple of weeks ago, as I was leaving the house, I heard the sound of someone singing a song - apparently a song entitled "everyone loves grapes". I deduced that this was the title because these were the only words.

I walked my usual route and quickly noticed that a stick was protruding from the high fence around the house at the end of the road. From the stick hung a piece of string, and a small bunch of grapes was tied to the string so they dangled at about head height for anyone walking by. Two children were sitting at the top of the fence and appeared to be the grape-stewards.

"Do you want a grape?" the small girl cried jubilantly as I approached.
"Er, no thank you," I said. "But it's very kind of you to ask."
"Grapes!" she said. "Grapes!"
"Grapes!" cried her brother. And they resumed singing.

***

When I returned from work at the end of the day, the empty grapestalk was hanging forlornly at the end of its string next to a hand-written sign that said "Grapes! Help yourselves!"

Guest Photographer

I did not actually take this picture! My boyfriend did. But it's such a nice shot it had to go on the blog, and I'm sure he won't mind. Plus I did hassle him about making sure he got a picture of the cool hole in the tree, so. I totally contributed. Even if he had already taken one >.>

 This particular tree lives in Killerton House, in Devon, another stop-off on my travels there.  As well as attractively hollow treetrunks, Killerton sports the Bear's Hut, a curious little cottage in the grounds. It has a roof lined with pinecones, a stained glass window and a floor made out of the knucklebones of dead deer; one of the family kept a bear in there in Victorian times, hence the name.

Making a Splash

This picture took a few tries to get right! Fortunately my mother was very good at warning me when a big wave was coming, while I tried to hold the camera as steady as possible. The end result is surprisingly un-wonky, I feel.

You could probably guess it's another picture from my holiday in Devon. We had a couple of days of really summery weather, but I only actually made it into the sea once, and even then only for a paddle in the very late afternoon. However, I did eat copious amounts of ice cream and jam my last two-pences into a shove-penny machine, which on the scale of seaside experiences is practically equivalent to full immersion.

The thing about seaside towns is that they get eerily quiet at night. Even the funfair, which for me is a late night activity, was silent and dark by 9 o'clock, and the restaurants in the town where we stayed were... variable. On walking in to one of them we were informed that there was only one menu because all the others had been stolen (?). My dad was asked if he wanted his beer chilled or room temperature. He said room temperature. They only had chilled. When it came time to pay we waited for ages, despite being the only people in there, and the old man who ran the place kept giving my dad's credit card nervous looks as it lay on the table. He finally scuttled forwards, holding the chip & pin machine... only to scurry straight into the kitchen. His wife eventually emerged to explain that she was the only one who could work it.*

*Incidentally, the food was extremely tasty, but that's not the point.

Dappled Light

A return to my traditional "yay! flowers" approach to photography - although as I recently proved, I am trying to break the cycle of addiction. This is some kind of rose, which was boldly protruding from a stranger's garden fence. If this were the olden days, perhaps I would have picked it and stolen it away with me, leaving them with a sadly denuded floral display. Fortunately, however, the power of the digital camera means I didn't have to.

We also discovered some very cool African Geese. Sadly all the photos I took of them were rubbish, but when I tried to find a better one on Google, it seems that all the other photos out there are even worse. Consequently I may, somewhat shamefacedly, put up the rubbish pictures, just because I want to convey how awesome these geese are. They have strange knobbly heads and one of them (I'm guessing the male) had a huge dewlap which wobbled disconcertingly as he walked around.

Diversify

What an odd-looking flower. OH WAIT.

Yes ladies and gentlemen, for your viewing delectation it's... a picture of a landscape! With sunshine and everything.  Taken from the top of Langstone Rock at Dawlish Warren in Devon, on my holidays. A very nice coastal path runs along the edge of the beach, and my very intrepid mother and I* couldn't resist the chance to climb up the Rock, despite our impractical footwear.

It's only a shame that you can't see how red the cliffs are; even the sand is actually quite dark there. The route of the old South Devon Railway follows the coast very closely; it's very picturesque, gliding out by saltwater marshes and past beaches. The history of the line is interestingtoo; built in the mid-nineteenth century, it was originally conceived as an atmospheric railway with the trains powered by the use of vaccuum pumps. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was the brainchild of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who (in addition to having possibly my favourite name ever) was fond of making cool stuff. Also he wore a top hat. So I think we can concede that he was pretty much a legend and it was not his fault that rats ate his vaccuum tubing.**

*Note grammar.
**Not a euphemism. Euch.