Sabbaticalette

Day 9 -- Ferry tales

Yes, that's my advice to a young person starting out in life -- more Devon, less Dorset.

Happily, there is no occasion for getting entangled in Mrs. Longford's megrims this morning -- route is very straightforward. Drive west to Exeter, then south to Plymouth. Scenery quickly becomes more interesting - more woody, darker, better defined. Gray day that breaks into smatterings of rain, without harming anyone. (Turns out that BBC3 has a movie music segment every day -- have heard music from "Sunset Boulevard" and "Peyton Place.")

Plymouth turns out to be a spectacular blend of old and new -- example A being the church of Charles Cross -- a roofless shell, transfigured into a delicate skeleton of itself by incendiary bombs in WWII, in the center of the major traffic roundabout and backed by a modern mall. Very striking. Find myself unexpectedly touched by the idea of Mayflower voyagers embarking here, leaving someplace so ordinary and familiar, so known and dependable, to a place where everything will have to be hewn out of the raw with their own hands.

Get untouched very rapidly by exceedingly bad civic signage, trying to find Cremyll ferry to Mount Edgcumbe -- the process involves the National Marine Aquarium, no change for the car park, public toilets locked, eventually fetching up at the Mayflower Museum where I learn that all I have to do to find the Cremyll ferry is follow the signs for the Torpoint ferry. Lots of time wasted, including a long wait for the ferry.

It chugs us across a little gray stretch of water in less than ten minutes. Day has gotten colder and more unsettled, and I'm wondering if this is all a mistake. At Mount Edgcumbe, I wander into the Orangery restaurant and fortify self with spinach and potato frittata (God bless egg and potato dishes! says the celiac) and usual Orangina. Struggle up considerable hill to house along beautiful quiet woodland paths -- but definitely bogged down with frittata.

Once again, I'm told that I'm one step ahead of yet another gaggle of German tourists. Edgcumbe more or less demolished by incendiaries in 1940's -- rebuilding took years. Best story about Lady Emma, late seventeenth century. A greedy sexton saw her buried with a valuable ring and came late the next night to take it off her finger. Imagine his surprise when she bounds up, sprightly as a muntjac. When he ran off howling into the night, she took his lantern and trudged back to the house, where her husband perhaps had some explanations to make.

Joshua Reynolds was a friend of the family -- there's a portrait of the then-rector done when the great painter was only twelve!

House steward, with fascinating Cornish accent -- can it really be true, or is he having me on? -- guides me out into gardens, which have a lot of exuberance to them, for formal gardens. Love the green man and sea horses. LOVE the shell seat -- apparently this is going to be a theme. (One of the characters in the STW novel The Flint Anchor I've been reading is cataloging shells for a nutty spinster. Foreshadowing A La Ronde...)

Decide to take the little electric bus down the hill -- have pleasant chat with driver, who usually does the cleaning up in the house.

Another long wait for the ferry. Many elderly ladies -- residents, one with a potted columbine -- wait with me. Chug across and hit the road for the next place I'm staying, Burnville Farm, north of Tavistock.

More entranced by landscape every mile. Woods, then scrub and moor, more assertively colored wildflowers, twisted heather. Like the look of Tavistock too -- a pleasant bustling town.

Getting to Burnville pretty rough (hope I can get back again). Eventually am forced to ask an older gentleman walking along the road. (Yes, the West Country accent is real.) "Mr. Cunningham's place?" He proceeds to give me excellent directions, which I render for naught by turning left instead of right at the Lydford road. Eventually right myself and arrive at stunning Georgian house in the midst of gorgeous country (cows and horses decorating landscape outside my window), and am bidden by pleasant lean proprietress to make myself at home in huge, marvelous room with huge, spotless bath. Am tearing off my clothes and unbinding my braid almost before she is out of the room, so eager am I to finally wash my hair!

Back to splash page

Back to day eight

Forward to day ten