Brixham

Lattice stinkhorn, in the house's garden. Isn't it weird?
And it smells bad and is covered in bluebottles.

Brixham is quite a lively town with a good community spirit. Volunteers have kept the open air seawater swimming pool open when the council decided to close it. The fish harbour seems quite busy, and the marina is like all marinas all over the world – full of unused boats, but there are enough actually in action to give something to look at and decorate the sea views nicely.

The lighthouse at the end of the breakwater.

 There is a huge hard and slipway, which it turns out was built in 1943 for D Day preparations. Two boats from here were lost in the Slapton Sands debacle, and an American division embarked here for Utah beach.

Brixham

We visited Greenway, Agatha Christie’s house above the Dart; the gardens and the boathouse  are lovely, but the family seemed to collect all manner of objects to which I wouldn’t give house room. Meissen figures were probably the least objectionable, so that shows you. The original, demolished, house was built by Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s father. John Davis, of the Davis Strait, also came from Dartmouth.

Coleton Fishacre is gorgeous. It was built in 1928 by Rupert D’Oyley Carte, the Gilbert and Sullivan impresario, who owned the Savoy Theatre, Savoy Hotel and Simpson’s in the Strand,  in arts and crafts style, with art deco décor. It’s just wonderful. You long to live there. The gardens are full of exotic subtropical plants and have glorious views of the sea.

Coleton Fishacre

We also had an outing to Dartmouth, which is always nice.

Kingswear, from the ferry across the Dart

House in Dartmouth

 But the main occupation has been beach and swimming. The weather has been amazing, hot, sunny and settled. It’s all a bit unEnglish – we go out without making provisions for a change, so no raincoats in the car, or cardigans. We have all got  slightly burned spots where we missed the suncream – in my case it’s on my back, which burned through the sea water, because I’ve been in and out of the sea all day long. So have the others, and I am very proud of my older grandson swimming miles out of his depth to buoys – always with a grownup, of course. And younger grandson bravely tolerated waves splashing over his head, which is a huge leap forward.  In one  cove, we saw a seal, which swam up to Will and Leila and nibbled their toes gently. It seemed to want them to tickle its tummy, but they were a bit nervous of its teeth. It clearly wanted to play and held Leila with its flippers.

Friendly seal

Atlas's first experience of the sea. He envied labradors,
spaniels and retrievers, but fortunately realised
that he can't swim. 

On the way back, we stopped at another National Trust property, Killerton. The grounds are wonderful, with a mulberry tree where I pigged myself on ripe black mulberries; but the house isn’t up to much. There is a very interesting costume collection, with real clothes worn by ordinary people, not designer stuff. There are some fifties dresses, made at home from patterns, and an amazing knitted wedding dress, worn in, I think, 1972. It was a November wedding and the bride’s mother knitted this wonderful dress, with train and lacy knit sleeves. Also the story of the house was very interesting. The estate was owned by a political family, the Aclands. During the war the owner converted from liberalism to socialism, and felt private ownership of land was wrong. He decided to sell the estate, but his wife, who had been running it during the war, felt it would be wrong to break it up and possibly have owners who didn’t care for the land or the tenants. So they gave the lot – 17,000 acres – to the National Trust! Talk about putting your money where your mouth is. 

To Devon

On Saturdayday we set off for Brixham in Devon for a week’s holiday with the family. We decided to stop in Exeter for a night, to make the most of the holiday, and because neither of us have visited Exeter.

Well, I’m not sure what to say. As a city it doesn’t fit together very well at all. It was flattened by the Luftwaffe in one of the “Baedeker” raids, and although the cathedral survived, much of the old town was destroyed. Then in the sixties a ring road was built, which split the city up. However, there are lots of very interesting and beautiful buildings still standing. The city churches are very old and there’s quite a bit of the town wall left. The Roman street plan is discernible – It was Isca Dumnonium. Down by the old quays a lot of restoration has been carried out, of warehouses, the fish market and old water powered fulling mills. Work is still going on, and it’s charming. Of course, water always makes a place nicer.

The cathedral green is smashing. There was an excellent craft market going on, and various folk dancing groups were performing, and best of all, there was a proper, traditional Punch and Judy, complete with baby, policeman turned into sausages, crocodile and hangman.  The kids watching just loved it, which was very pleasing to see.

I did enjoy the cathedral. Simon Schama has been doing a history series on TV and he made the point that, thanks to the Pope putting a bounty on Elizabeth I’s life, Protestantism became synonymous with Englishness. I don’t think that’s wholly true, because the English must be about the world’s least religious people. But, after the Spanish cathedrals, walking into Exeter felt like coming home.

It’s a lovely light building with superb painted roof bosses and some wonderful monuments to unknown knights. There was one early fifteenth century tomb where the knight, with typical droopy moustache, had his feet on a lion, as usual, and his wife’s feet rested on a pair of swans with drooping crossed necks. I have never seen that before. It’s usually a lapdog. Also, the son of Flora MacDonald , of “Over The Sea to Skye”,  is buried there. Exciting, eh?

Mourning swans

Today we went to Princetown on Dartmoor, where a prison museum has recently opened. It was quite a fraught drive as there was a bike race going on, and we had to pass the bikes on the narrow Devon lanes. But the views were lovely; it’s been a very nice day. Even Princetown looked pretty attractive. The first time I saw it, I thought that Dartmoor prison was as much a punishment for the warders as for the convicts. 

The museum is interesting and atmospheric. The story of the French prisoners of war is told, and there are displays of things confiscated from the prisoners, sometimes cunning hidey-holes, but more often weapons, made from toothbrushes, bucket handles, soap set with razor blades, etc. But there are also art works made by the inmates. There’s an account of Frank Mitchell, the “mad axe” man, who was sprung from prison by the Krays and then murdered by them, which is quite upsetting, because Mitchell was clearly several sandwiches short of a picnic. For some reason, some people still seem to see the Krays as glamorous; there’s another film about them in the offing.

Dartmoor can’t be made secure enough for dangerous convicts any longer, because it’s Grade 2 listed, so the prison can concentrate on rehabilitation, and the museum is obviously part of the plan.

So then we drove to Brixham across the moor. There were lots of ponies, some heavily pregnant and lots with foals, and the sheep have been sheared and looked very skinny and strange.

The holiday house is really great, lots of room and super views, so we are highly satisfied.  Will (second son), Leila (daughter in law) and me went for a swim in the open air sea filled pool, while Dan (third son) cooked tea for us all.

It’s a beautiful evening, all very promising for tomorrow.

A less naughty dog. Good dog is going too far.

The naughtiest dog in Nottingham is making amazing progress in his training. It’s now possible to let him off the lead – with some trepidation, I admit, but it’s possible. You have to make sure that there are no other dogs in sight, because if he finds another dog you just can’t make him come back. He’s completely convinced that all other dogs are as desperate to be friends with him as he is with them, and he isn’t very good at taking the hint if they growl or otherwise appear unfriendly. Also, he hasn’t a tail. This has two disadvantages; first, strangers are likely to upbraid us, for having had it docked, and aren’t always convinced with the explanation that he never had one; and second, he doesn’t send quite the right signals to other dogs. With Atlas, it’s all in his ears, which go up, down, swivel, tremble – we understand him, but other dogs don’t.

It is actually a pleasure to see him run free – you would not believe that a short chunky little dog could run so fast. His greatest joy is chasing pigeons, crows, and squirrels, none of which he has the slightest hope of catching. The crows and squirrels seem to tease him, too, by going just a little way up a tree, or alighting just a few yards further on. So he gets much better exercise off the lead, and it isn’t worrying for me, because every few minutes he stops and looks round for me. I don’t think his eyesight is great, because when he looks around, it’s not sufficient to shout his name; I have to wave both arms wildly for him to locate me. When he’s reassured that he hasn’t lost me, off he goes again.

After a really good run, he comes back without any bother and flops down to be put back on the lead. If waving madly while shouting “Atlas!” is embarrassing, the next bit is really embarrassing. He lies on his back with his legs in the air and waits to be dragged along on the grass by his harness. This tends to bother other people almost as much as the lack of a tail. I suppose it does look cruel. After a bit he leaps up, grinning all over his face. One of the really charming things about bull terriers and their off shoots is their ability to grin, although they aren’t what anyone could call beautiful, or even handsome.

He also behaves like a small child, in that, if he sees a grassy bank, he joyfully rolls over and over down it, and this is even more embarrassing than the arm waving or dragging him by the harness. Other people inevitably assume it’s an accident and he has hurt himself.

So walking him is likely to be a bit embarrassing, but a lot of fun. I would prefer him not to try to eat anything on the pavement that doesn’t walk away from him.  Walks are likely to be punctuated with cries of “No! That’s disgusting!” and occasional pauses to force something horrible out of his mouth. He doesn’t cooperate, but he doesn’t resist too much either. He has managed to gulp down some revolting stuff, but I did find his attempts to eat a young horse chestnut seed quite funny. If he’s daft enough to try to eat something as spiky as that, I’m not going to interfere, and after giving himself a sore tongue, he gave up and has learned his lesson.

So last Saturday, I took Atlas along one of Nottingham’s green promenades, Waterloo Promenade, to the Forest, through the Arboretum, and back through the General Cemetery. I couldn’t let him off the lead, because it was a lovely day, and there were loads of dogs and people picnicking. Dogs, and food at ground level! I would never be able to recapture him. But there was no one around in the cemetery, so I let him off. All went well, until I spotted, through the tall grass, his four paws waving in the air. He was rolling on a dead rat.