I arrived and cycled down the Exe to the Z home, where we chatted and ate and drank gin. In the kitchen there was a noticeboard bearing the legend "I May Roger Webster" in Carole's handwriting, Crikey what sort of "open relationship" family was I visiting? Upon enquiry it was revealed to me that this said "1 May Roger Webster", a garden designer.
The next day we set off for Haytor and Houndtor, several lumps of granite that stick out of the easily accessible bit of Dartmoor, Alex (10) had recently done Houndtor with School and was eager to demonstrate the route/give parents conniptions. We (adults) rested at Haytor, while they (children) scrambled all over it. Then we moved on, passing quarries, down the slope to the River Becca as it trilled its way down the valley. There We had lunch, while They found a rope and a branch, and demonstrated the innate ability of children not to keep their feet above water. After lunch, we ascended to Greator stopping only to catch a lizard (my first catching of lizard, managed to keep its tail on too), admire it, possibly save its life (there was a tick - we Vaselined it), and let it go again. Then Greator, and a guided tour up it by Alex, I cheated and used my height (it's not often I can say that). Then on to Houndtor for some more scrambling, on the way up we sent up a deer (roe), and at the tor were serenaded by a cuckoo, not very unusual you may think but we could actually see this one. Then we returned, stopped at the rope for more getting wet, then contoured round Haytor as it was bound to be quicker than the dogleg we had previously come down - it wasn't.
No-one fell asleep in the chicken, though it may have been close.
Bank Holiday Monday, and with much grumbling our youthful twosome arose to complain about being taken out walking again. being adults we said, "Tough!" and bundled them into the car, bribing them with the promise of a real life tank (Sherman, pulled out of the sea in 1984). The tank rapture lasted about 3 minutes after it became clear that you couldn't climb on it - a war memorial, in it - the same plus welding, or fire the gun - all of the previous plus laws against ordnance. The tank is a memorial to the US troops who died during Operation Tiger, a gross cock-up of the military kind in 1943. We left the tank behind and set off along the cliff path to head to Start Point, the view being partly obscured by professional sibling whingeing and a few bands of rain. The path is supposed to "shimmer with bluebells" at this time of year, when the sun is out it probably does, at this present moment in time it was merely smeared with bluebells. Halfway to Start Point in the shadow of the cafe-that-used-to-be (soon to be 16 apartments in a New England style - made of wood presumably) Carole and the boys were lured back to Beesands and a cup of tea. Paul and I, soldiered on through the squalls and ate our emergency spiced carrot cake in the lee of the lighthouse, then we soldiered back again.
Back to Exeter and a quick visit to Wetherspoons, now set up in the Non-Conformist Meeting House where you can hear an almost audible hum from the previous residents spinning away.
Tuesday, Carole had a clinic in Plymouth so I went along for the ride, not to the clinic but to Plymouth. I stopped and ate my lunch on the Hoe, admiring the student body burning away in the bright sunshine. It was interesting, a choice between football or revision, expect the female student body to do considerably better than their male counterparts this year. After lunch I headed down to the Barbican and discovered that this was the port rather than the big castle full of soldiers. At the Barbican there is the National Aquarium, I investigated £9.50 ($19), hmm it was a lovely day and the aquarium was indoors. I mooched off and discovered the Plymouth Gin Distillery, I investigated £6.00 ($12) hmm, it was rather hot outside and a walk in the shade could be good - I plumped. The guide was from Bangor (my alma mater) and I was the only one on the tour, so two gin tastings and two sloe gin's later I arrived at the bar for my free gin and tonic, to be fair I had to have the second gin as I'd blown my taste buds with the cardamon seed in the botanicals tastings section.
I met with Carole and returned to the Zed pad, where I spent the evening packing and repacking, seemed quite difficult, can't think why.
The next day I took the boys to school as Paul was off somewhere, I chatted on the way with Alex while Tom found a friend. Hands in pockets he trailed behind in earnest discussion, "Afghanistan? What do you think the likely outcomes are Tom?"
"Well, tricky question, I mean there's the UN line and then the US options."
"Yes but... Oh here we are, see you in IT."
I turned to Tom,
"Bye Tom"
This is a boy who has spent the weekend hanging on my arm like a puppy discovering hormones, offering his neck for a hammerlock and curling into me on the sofa.
"?...........bye."
I retreat back to the house, load the bike and head off to the station. Forty minutes later and I'm lost in Exmouth but only slightly, I find a sign and follow it up a long slow hill-from-hell at the top I check the route map, this is not marked as a steep hill - Joy! I continue along the back roads to Ottery St Mary the sounds of the live firing exercise on Woodbury Range punctuating the shimmering heat of the day until they faded into larksong. There I storm out of the village in the wrong direction, a short time later I storm back into the village, storm the ATM, and storm the bottom 50 metres of the hill out of the village, I then storm to the kerb and nonchalantly drink some water as if this is what I meant to do all along. It takes 20 minutes to get up the hill, nonchalantly drinking every time a car comes past, and pushing solidly when they don't, there are a lot of cars. By the top of the hill I have drunk a litre of water and have a belly which seems to be independently sprung to the rest of me.
We (my stomach and I) continue. Ahh, the joys of cycling, it's a great way to see wildlife, usually insectal and heading towards you at 10mph. I now have a theory about day flying insects, it is this: instead of being attracted to light like moths and other night fliers, they are attracted to patches of darkness, such as pupils and open mouths. "But" you say, "Why not grit your teeth, then they will only see pearly whiteness and not be attracted?"
"Cos I can't get enough oxygen that way!" I reply.
Other joys at this time of the year are the hedgerows, often as I came round after a minor infarct I would see, red campion, ragged robin, lords and ladies, wood anemone, cow parsley and, of course bluebells (I'd also see bluebottles hanging about to make sure, as I stirred they'd fly off with a sort of disappointed buzz).
We (the bike and I) continue, I turn round and backtracked to my last missed sign, there is a roadworks sign and the promise of long delays, I pat the crossbar, "Not for us eh, my proud beauty?" Slipping off down the road I ride across a patch of what appears to be virgin tarmac, it is, very virgin, in fact it's still wet, the bike slews across the surface, ploughing a furrow (I can supply a grid reference) and then we're back on the old surface, the tyre picking up every loose bit of gravel and vegetation it can possibly find. A bit further down the road I find the boys, I try and hide my front tyre as I slip past.
Eventually I find myself up on a ridge, at this point I must have lost my presence of mind because I blithely turn right at a T rather than a crossroads, and zoom down the slope, at the bottom I get off, curse and plod back up. When everything comes back into focus, there 50 metres further down the road is the crossroads, it even has a little signpost, "Route 52" it says, it is my route. It is at this point that I realise that one is supposed to steam (ha!) down the main road until one sees another sign, only 25 miles late. I swoop off the ridge towards Honiton and pull in, brakes smoking, outside the B&B Tracey Mill. Angie meets me and gives me some bad news, "We're off to market tomorrow, will 7.30 be ok?" "?!".
I pull up the stairs to the Miller's room, shower and snooze. In the evening I limp into town in search of food. As I pass the Church I am roundly and comprehensively abused by the local derelict. I pass on to the Vine, "Food?" "Not in the evening me Dear." So I plump for a pint of Otter and then head off towards the Indian, abuse man is slumped outside, reloading his invective. Fish and chips it is then. I return, have a chat and go to bed, the room eerily lit by the glow coming off my knees.
The next day, after my early breakfast with the other guest, a Portugese gentleman who has spent most of his life restoring gold-leaf and woodwork in churches, and is now off to Brazil to build beach buggies, I mooch till the roar of commuting and the school run fades away. This is the day I don't get lost but do do a lot of walking, every time I dismount to trudge ignominiously up a hill, cars appear from nowhere, a spate of cars wearing sneering expressions.
At Membury I am drawn by a sign that promises coffee in a 14th Century (that's a hundred years plus before Chris Colon discovered the US) longhouse. I sit on the terrace entertaining Florrie a rotund black lab. I carry on post coffee and trek along fifty metres of the road from hell, fifty metres and I get one tanker and a very large van, such is my haste to get off that the chain makes a break for freedom at the most inopportune moment, and so it is that you find me pushing oily-fingered up yet another hill. The top is bare and promises a long downhill into Axminster, a paradisaical downhill only punctuated by enormous blasts of wind removing the red Devonshire topsoil and hurling it at passing two-wheeled travellers. As I commence the long hill up from Axminster my red Devonshire fake tan is punctuated by rivulets of sweat. Just at my turn off before the main road a caravan turns down the lane and comes to a grinding halt, "That's GPS for you! It said 'bear left' and it's not the A35 {all six lanes of it}!" Ah me, here's a machine that tells me where to go so I'll abdicate all responsibility for: A. Direction. B.Common Sense. C.Eyesight (the sort of mentality that's found in people who will quite happily bag their dogs excreta, and then leave it hanging on the railings for someone else to bin. Feeling superior I mosey on down the lane up to the point where I have to cross the A35, there is a miraculous gap and I'm away over Trinity Hill and then the long haul on the brakes down to the coast. I always find downhills rather like schussing, you zoom off exhilarated your eyes start to water with the air-blast of your passage, and then a still small voice says things like, "What are you going to break if you fall over now?" "What happens if the front wheel explodes?"
I arrive at Seaton, a faded Victorian seaside town populated by the elderly and the recently parented. I sit on the Prom 'til the Land Train wheezes past with five people in it. Then I head off to Colyton where I am spending the evening. I'm slightly early so go fizzing around the town until I can find a Cream Tea, I eventually find Liddon's dairy and order some FRT (which cost me £4.50, sadly these days I don't know whether this should read "£4.50" or "£4.50!". I arrive at my accommodation the Cobblers and am shown into my room, with the en suite hidden in the wardrobe, and a slight aroma of fried food. I have a shower in the vertical coffin and punch the ceiling tiles out as I do my armpits, I also keep thrashing the walls with my genitals as I turn about, but this happens in most showers of course. As evening descends I stroll about the town looking for somewhere cheaper to eat, and end up in the Kingfisher pub next door where I have a steak and ale pudding, oh and a couple of pints. As I return next door, I notice that by not eating there I have diminished their clientele by 33%. At night it rains, the rain that i should have tomorrow, surely there is something wrong.
The next day is my final one of the tour, I chat with mein Hostess about the season, the butchers, the huge site that Tesco have acquired in town, and then I'm off up an enormous drag from Seaton. The ride continues in a similar vein, this is the sort of ride where you stop at a sign that says,"Beer Village 1/2 Mile", look at the road snaking downhill through the trees and think, "I'll bet that's lovely - next time maybe?"
After the up I did a bit of along and then down into Sidmouth a beautiful Victorian Seaside town approached via a ford (fortunately circumvented by a footbridge). A view along the front to the left reveals the wreck of the Napoli, a container ship that ran aground in April, a view along the front to the right reveals..."Jeeesuss, Mary and Joseph!" .. reveals a cliff of gargantuan proportions, with a road going up it - mine. It was a lovely walk. At the top I zoom off to Otterton mill and stop for tea and a very expensive slice of tart. I carry on - hardly burdened by my Orange and Sweet Chilli Bankbreaker, and in homage to Monty Python, stage a "falling off" outside Budleigh Salterton. It was at this point that my trusty (though previously untrusted) signs desert me for a couple of turns but I eventually find the old railway track that will take me back to Exmouth, despite it turning into unsigned Urban Blight for the last mile or so. I arrive to find the Station ostensibly closed, after a circuit I wait until the "little man" opens the doors and allows everyone to catch a train. Thus it is, I arrive back at the Z's in time to go to Cricket Practice, fortunately the bar was open for those parents eager to partake of their parental duties, plus it beats walking the dog.
Saturday was Party night, so the day was spent wandering around every cheap shop in Exeter looking for bits. When I asked if she thought the orange would take - but perhaps I should explain - the Theme - "What you were wearing in 6th Form" (i.e. School when you were 17 or 18), it was a 5oth party.
Paul was very impressed with Carole's punk outfit, so impressed that I had to take both a back and front view of it (see pictures), I am now intending to write an article about "Keeping the interest in your marriage. 34 - the Goth Shop."
Paul and I went to the bar and ordered beers, "Are you with the Party" says the barman to middle-aged bloke with ginger hair and a blue and red zigzag painted on his face (can you guess what it is yet?).
"No." I replied, I think he caught the sardonic whiff. The party continued, the next day was quite quiet apart from the fact that I cooked a hotpot, and still got castigated for not enough roast potatoes after I'd doubled my first estimate. I went home.
