Tag: Devon

Down in Devon

Crow flying across the beach

Last weekend we drove down to Devon, to visit Paul’s family.

We stopped at Paignton seafront, where we played a dancing game on the pier, took lots of photos underneath the pier, and chased a big crow who was trying to break open an enormous shellfish by dropping it on our car! I am full of admiration for the crow for having learnt how to do this, but less impressed that he decided to throw things at our windscreen. Thankfully he didn’t break it, but I do wonder how many tourists return from the beach to find their cars vandalised!

After Paignton we went to Totnes, where we found a proper vintage clothing shop called Revival that almost caused me to go into shock the moment I walked through the door. Paul managed to dissuade me from buying a beautiful red tailcoat, just because the silk lining in the sleeves was completely shattered and the lapels also needed replacing or re-covering. I wasn’t certain how old it was (there was no label), but it was beautifully made. The pad stitching under the lapels was fantastically neat, and there were pockets in the tails, and the buttonholes in the cuffs were all functional. And it still had all of its original buttons!

Damn, I wish I’d bought it.
Mind you, whilst I could have replaced the damaged parts of the jacket, and made the sleeves an inch shorter, I didn’t fancy taking it apart sufficiently to make it short enough in the waist. So I probably would have ended up never wearing it, and eventually selling it on Ebay for less than it would have cost me to buy and restore it. So it’s probably just as well I left it behind.

Probably.

Portwrinkle

Portwrinkle

While we were in Devon, we thought it would be rude to go home without paying a little visit to a beach. We were told that Portwrinkle was the closest beach that didn’t require climbing down a million steps, so that’s where we went.

As you can see, Portwrinkle beach is made from stones and shells, not sand.

I came home with quite a lot of it in my shoes.

Portwrinkle

I was using my walking stick that weekend, so I couldn’t follow Paul as he clambered about to look in the rock pools. Instead, I took a picture of him doing a pretty good impression of a rock. Only his luminous white knees and elbows give him away!

Portwrinkle

This is the last picture I was able to take before the battery in my camera gave up. You can’t really tell the enormous scale of these rocks, but I was fascinated by the layers and all the beautiful colours in the slate.

We were only at the beach for about an hour, but as soon as I’m mobile enough to scramble about, I definitely want to go somewhere with lots of rock pools.

Exeter Cathedral

Exeter Cathedral

It’s a month now since we went to Devon, and we stopped at Exeter on the way down. We arrived at Exeter Cathedral at about four o’clock on a gloriously sunny afternoon, and it turned out to be the perfect time to take photographs of the stonework and stained glass.

Exeter Cathedral

Exeter Cathedral

Exeter Cathedral

The higher up the outside of the cathedral you look, the sillier the faces become.

Exeter Cathedral

Some of the work in the cathedral is relatively modern. This window depicts the bombing of the Cathedral on May 4th 1942.

(Would it be wrong to confess that I almost expected to see a TARDIS somewhere in the stained glass?)

Exeter Cathedral

There was also some absolutely modern artwork on display in the Cathedral. This piece is by textile artist Jacqui Frost. It’s described as “a love letter from the Father”, and is made up of many hand-stitched panels relating the names of Jesus to contemporary vocations.

Exeter Cathedral

I made a donation to the Guild of Needlewomen who’d produced hundreds of these beautiful kneelers. All of them depicting the natural world, there were illustrations of birds, trees and flowers, all with the names worked around the sides.

I took plenty more photos, and was only disappointed that we couldn’t stay longer.