Oddly Dry

This afternoon we were expecting another visitor in the person of Jan, the the other half of the now dissolved cafe Cinnamon Girl partnership. Our first order of business was to plan and purchase our evening meal so we shot back into Tavistock to favour Morrisons with some business. Tavistock was chosen largely because we were experiencing the occasional odd blue patch of sky – I seem to have vague recollections of such things in previous summers – and we were keen to take a look at a stunningly located church at Brentor. There is even a well placed car park provided. Crikey! The extremely exposed nature of the church’s location meant that standing up in the ferocious wind to take a picture was precarious but somehow we managed it without mishap.

Jan arrived from Falmouth soon after 3:00 PM. Since the day had remained oddly dry we used the remaining afternoon to complete the walk up to Widgery Cross (460m) which we had failed to reach courtesy of drizzle yesterday. No one seemed in the mood to lug backpacks loaded with camera gear up the tor so we set off unencumbered. Naturally, this was a poor decision. As we rested at the top of the tor to enjoy the view (now that there was one), a military helicopter flew along the valley below us. I’ve never looked down upon a flying helicopter before. No camera – drat! As we were returning we were treated to another intriguing site as a modern shepherd drove his herd of sheep towards the tor with three very hard-working sheep dogs … and a quad bike equipped with a horn which clearly worked very well. No problem getting that through the MOT test (safety inspection, for Amerispeakers). A shepherd’s crook would have looked much more traditional but, with the lack of cameras, a crook really would have added insult to injury.

We rounded off our walk with a refreshing pint of Cornish Rattler at our local hostelry before repairing to Billy Bailey for an evening meal of grilled asparagus with shaved Gran Padano, seafood pasta (scallops, prawns and crayfish tails) and, lastly, mango and pomegranate with Greek yogurt.