Many of my blog posts are published on Shine A Light On Life, including the series in my Sampler. I also regularly blog on Tumblr, Facebook, and Twitter, mainly about events local to me.
WISTERIA
The West Country
Blog by Lynne Pearl
It is a sign of Spring, and it is on the front of the Castle. It hangs like a mauve mist. All winter the castle stands folorn and wet and shrouded in mist or fine drizzle sometimes buffeted by high winds, but now the blush of mauve creeps over the port cullis and the flagstones. It curls and frames all the windows and reaches to the sky and the crenelated roof tops.
I felt dedicated to taking photos of magnolias because they are so splendid and brave in the wind and the rain, so extravagantly glorious in the face of human folly. I would wander the morning streets of Devon fascinated by the steadfastness of the magnolia trees. They were obviously old and venerable but somehow knew how to with stand the storms a the sea, lashed by rain, more and glorious.
A few days later, we have had snow every day for three days straight but it melts by the afternoon most of it. But the light is magnificent and the moon in the clear night sky is full and very bright.
It is the end of the year and instead of a forest of Christmas trees as I had expected to write about, the sun has that winter brilliance like crystal and the sea is brittle, hard and bright.
In winter the sea has a soft quality that is not there in summer, it is as if it is resting until the next storm that is. Sometimes we have huge waves and there is roller upon roller chasing in to shore, but most folk will not go in it. We stand, watch and feel its magnificence. And today it is calm and beautiful like a sapphire that you would wear as adornment.
We went to see Bickleigh castle a whole coach load of us, in a small coach that was full with twenty adults out for the day. Our kind driver drove us first of all to Bickleigh Mill, where there was a long stop for a leisurely lunch. It was a cloudy day with puddles everywhere but it was crowded and warm inside.
When everyone had eaten their fill, we set off again, this time to cross the river by that wonderful old stone bridge that inspired Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Bridge over Troubled waters’ so evocative of faithfulness and loyalty. We weren’t going to explore the inside of the castle but roam the grounds.
From Powell River we drove to the ferry in Saltery Bay, this one is the smaller ferry, maybe half the size of the ferry that serves Vancover so I reckon there was maybe two hundred cars on board and we all fitted. We waited in the car park above the dock. Everything is mountainous here. It was hot so we got out of our cars and started to walk towards the little park with trees nearby for kids to play on. From there we could look down on the dock and watch for the ferry drawing in, from above. It drew in quietly from between two arms of the mountains falling into the sea.
Savary is unutterably gorgeous and I swim in a blue sea with pink star fish and mountains in the distance, dark under a blue blue sky. The beach is pale sand and the land is covered in deep green fir trees. Its still June so the water is cold but good.
We had the local agricultural show. There’s a showground on the edge of town, several big fields that are very nearly flat and we had nearly everything. There were the ancient tractors, a whole class in their own right. In fact, just yesterday I saw a notice for a tractor race of sorts hanging on a hedge in Somerset there was going to be a competition on a nice big flat field. It was all for charity and was this coming Sunday. All the old tractors can come out for that. In fact ,in some of the big agricultural shows they a have ploughing competitions and there are still chaps who hitch up a team of heavy horses to demonstrate how it’s done, with a team and very fine the horses look too and what a skill to be able to guide those horses and plough straight in a field. Wonderful to watch.
We also had brass bands and dancers and majorettes. There were the classes of prize bulls of the different breeds, wonderful animals, highland, small and sturdy, dark and with huge horns and the elegant white bull, a beautiful specimen. Then in the stalls outdoors waiting were the sheep, every kind of sheep you can imagine. Curly haired, smooth, black, highland, Dorset they go on and on, the breeds of sheep all specialists in their class.
Then in the afternoon we went to a street in East Vancouver that had independent shops, organic food and little restaurants. We sat in a café and health food shop called something like ‘Ambrosia Cherub’ and I sat there looking at a showcase of desserts and am inspired to go home and make them myself. There was date square, oatmeal raisin cookies, mango dessert and a raw bar. My companion had a lovely mango lassi. I had golden turmeric tea. Everything was lovely.
The mountains are clouded right from the top down but they are still there watching and for a little while on the subway journey home I could see the feet peeping out from the whiteness of the low cloud.