Category: Travels in the South West

These blogs are mainly travels and visits in the South West, but they may take place elsewhere. They are usually about a special kind of place, but that will be different for different people. If we are lucky it will be where we live, if not we may spend time getting to where the poetry of place happens for us, it could be beaches, cafes, moor.

And we need to have to have the means to get to where a poetry of place happens to us. There’s buses, trains, bicycles, on foot…

Autumn: The Agricultural Show

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.

Orchard Diary Month 3

THE ORCHARD DIARY 3rd Month
May 9 25
Blog by Lynne Pearl

The trees are more awake in fact I think they are now just about fully awake. It’s quite exciting.
They have realised it’s time to wake up.

The Orchard Diary 2

Poetry on Spring from my ‘Devonheart’ A Collection: a tribute to my home:

DEVON MID AFTERNOON
Butterflies crowd,
Flying from the hedges,
Brown wings
Settled against green blackberry leaves
And mauve blossom.
A cow with a star on her forehead
Gazes with dreamy eyes
And the sheep munch,
Woolly faced,
Staring in unison
And the white cow on the hillside
Stands ready to climb.
Beside the lane
Lie cottages, door ajar
With armchair ready
And a sleeping gnome
Lays against the cottage wall.
A straw owl
Stares down at passers by
On new yellow thatch.
by Lynne Pearl

The Orchard Diary 1

This orchard though is part of what must surely have once been a grand farm. The trees are pollarded so that when the apples ripen they don’t have very far to fall and in fact standing under the branches one just reaches up and there you are, all the apples you could want. But does anyone eat these apples anymore?

So I am going to keep an account on these trees and their summer and winter. I’ve never had an orchard before, and although it isn’t strictly speaking mine I see it often, as I go by on the way to something else, a meeting, a piece of work a day of teaching. So this way I can keep track of growth and change over a year

Seaton Tramway

With this back drop we all boarded the Tram at Seaton Tramway. Some of the trams are original ones from the 1920s and some are a little newer. The trams run on the line that used to be served by British rail until 1960s when the line that went all the way from Axminster to the sea at Seaton was closed. In its day it had served the farmers who produced milk in the region and shipped the fresh produce in milk churns to the people in the cities far away. There was also a cottage industry producing fine leather for factories.

Spring with Hellebores

We made apple crumble for a wedding celebration when we all got together to celebrate. The best celebrations are far away and long ago. So, we remember them and dance.
Sophie’s Kitchen: Recipe 2 Apple ://shinealightonlife.wordpress.com/2020/10/12/sophie’s-kitchen-recipe-2-apple-crumble/
But today it looks like we are welcoming a new season in. So, time to dance and sing and celebrate. Write poetry about beauty.

SNOW, SUN AND SEA

When the bus climbs the hill out of town and approaches the hill through the trees, all the trees either side of the road are covered in snow, it has clung to their branches and the little forest has turned into a magical wonderland as pretty as any Christmas tree. Today the sun is shining on the white, white trees and their shape is highlighted as they no longer have their leaves whether green or bronze in autumn but the bark rather than wet and black is now shining white, with snow clinging to every curve and branch. And the sun is shining on all this beauty.

Bude Connect: Latest

Bude is a train desert, it is farther from a mainline station than practically any other place in England. So, you have to be pretty determined to get there.

Now as of the last couple of years there is now an organisation, grass roots, to connect Bude with the world. It is ‘Connect Bude’ made of local people who know a thing or two about railways and engineering.

We had a meeting in October in the Falcon Hotel next to the Canal in Bude which looks practically straight out to sea across the Atlantic Ocean where the surf rolls in day in and day out and is a favourite surfing beach with a major surfing culture. And this day was no exception, the sun was shining it was mild and people were swimming in the sea in late October. It was inspiring. And it was beautiful.

Budleigh Salterton Literary Festival 2024

BUDLEIGH SALTERTON LITERARY FESTIVAL Sept 21 24 Blog by Lynne Pearl The sun was brilliant and the gardens beside the Temple Mount Methodist church in Budleigh were resplendent, the sun was so strong. We might have been in Greece, the sea was nearby. But we were in a small seaside town in the far South…

Agatha Christie Literary Festival, Torquay

I was invited to the Agatha Christie Literary Festival in Torquay, South West, by a friend who had tickets for a range of talks. We were going to ‘Lost Lingo’ a talk by author, Kate Kingold from Chicago. I had arrived on the little branch line train from Exeter. It’s like stepping into a novel arriving in Torquay when you leave the period station which is all curly Victorian metalwork and beautiful ornamental pillars, you can immediately see the sea. This day it was the deepest of blue and above a pellucid blue sky with one or two puffy white clouds. The sea was restless in the wind, but the sun was very bright for an autumn day.