Monday 31 December 2012

Chas. N. Pedlars North Devon's premier multi-department store

I have just been on a trip down Coombe to see if I could pick anything up in Chas N Pedlars seasonal sale as year on year it never fails and sure enough this year I was over the moon to come away with a pine Exmoor National Park mug tree complete with half a dozen mugs with scenes of the moor on them   which include Pinkworthy Pond, Dunkerry Beacon Valley and Tarr Steps. Half price it was from their china department probably worth a darn site more now that Tarr Steps has been washed away (shocking news). I also picked up a selection of small hardware pieces hooks, curtain rings, galvanized nails and such like, plus a finely crafted pair of British made wool boot socks just the job when worn with a pair of Grafters or waders. These weren't in the sale but you don't see such things very much these days so I just had to have them.
Of course, it goes without saying, that when I was in there I made a point of congratulating them on there recent anniversary, 90 years of trading on Ilfracombe High Street. I told them how I always think of their emporium as an Aladdins' cave full of practical essential items at reasonable and competitive prices. Where else can you buy a pair of slacks and a tin of paint in one place? To my mind, it really is a department store in the true sense of the word. If by chance you have half a mind to go up to the new John Lewis in Exeter I gather you would have no problem buying some swanky electrical stuff, fancy coloured plugs, softfurnishings galore and overpriced wallpaper made by George Osbournes dad but you try asking them for a wrench, some eyelets for a groundsheet or an Dunlop airtex tennis shirt I reckon they wouldn't know what you were belddy on about.
Nope to my mind Pedlars really does have all your shopping needs under one roof and here's to wishing them another 90 years of profitable trading!
90 years trading that is quite a milestone to reach and I don't see many of the businesses recently arrived here in Barum High Street lasting a fraction of that time. As we were sat in the Thursday lunch club which was moved to Friday this week and I was telling all  about my bargains and expounding upon the virtues of Ilfracome High Street as a much maligned retail zone Annie Cawood pointed out that another family owned store of equal renown had just celebrated it's 75th year of trading. Govers,
Although their range of stock range is not as wide  and all encompassing as Pedlars they do manage to give you a run for your money on the gentleman's clothing and workwear front. Hats! that's what they are good at
and remains a local institution. I remember going in there with mother to get my school uniform of course all the Grammer School and public school we likely to get theirs fitted out at Samuel Daws us secondary modern kids had Govers and over the years I have stuck by the place and I tell you you can't fault them for good value work wear, Grafters toe-tectors £20 cotton shirts £15







Monday 26 November 2012

National Laver Day


I was passing Passmores fish shop the other morning when I saw a poster advertising Laver Day down at Appledore this coming Tuesday. This not only pricked my attention but also my appetite so I stopped by and purchased a couple of dollops of the green stuff. I bleddy love the stuff and probably don't eat as much of it as I should. Glass of Guinness and a slather of fatty bacon and a gloop of fried laver on brown bread truly proven to take the edge of everything and set you up for the day. Adds real iron to the girdering of your loins.
Laver to North Devonians what caviar is to Russians
They all have these things nowadays, these events celebrating some sort of piscatorial commemoration. Locally, Clovelly has two! They've got Herring Day and Lobster Day. Funny thing is, the only port with a couple of deep water trawlers, Ilfracombe, doesn't feel the need to pander to such diversions. However I was tickled by the idea of Laver Day.


Over in the Marhsals at the Thursday Lunch Club I told 'em about the plans they've got laid out for laver day. They're going to have an all day laver breakfast, laver cookery classes and of course the obligatory seaweed foraging lecture. Bleddy foraging. Cor, there was a time when we all foraged to supplement our meagre diets and some of us still do. It now it appears to be a quasi religious life affirming activity complete with it's own gurus, TV programmes and articles in the Guardian.
(I do have to add here that this sniping is a bit hypocritical as just the other week some mates of Jonty from Tarka Taw Film and Video Services came down for a stag weekend and I for a small fee took them cockling down at Crow and digging bait for a spot of "artisan fishing", rod and line to you and me, off of Baggy. Turns out one of them's wife is the executive producer of Great British Larder and he suggested we pitch an idea at them about estuarine foraging since it's all the rage at the present time and what better place on earth to film it than the Taw and Torridge Estuary. He seemed very enthusiastic, mind you this was after a few pints in The Reform, Barum Brewery being the final stop off on our stag weekend adventure)
The nation's chief forager complete with ceremonial M&S panama hat

Anyway, Wes Twardo whose family lives out Appie way and has done for generations reckons he knows the bloke who holds these sort of masterclasses and devotes his life to all things seaweed. Apparently, so Wes was saying, he has a garage by the council houses where he concocts all sorts of potions and has caused quite a stir in the village, only the other day John Craven and Countryfile came down and interviewed him. He calls himself Commander but he isn't really one as it turns out. Upon scant investigation, someone asked his wife as she propped up the bar in the Royal George,  his previous connection with the sea lay in the fact that he had been a marine lawyer negotiating yacht sales to Russian oligarchs, Saudi arms dealers and Colombian businessmen all around the Med. However, he didn't quite manage to dot the I's and cross the T's as was supposed to and was hauled in front of the authorities in Malta having been implicated in a global money laundering operation. He was able to plead ignorance, just, and having been once bitten he decided to give it all up for a quieter life and come down to Appledore where he has reinvented himself as a boat builder and seaweed healer. All sorts of odd sods end up down that part of the world.  Wes went on to say that he also builds coracles or at least he has built one which he drags out into the shallows off the lifeboat station and bobs about grappling kelp from the rocks with a couple of foraging students or hapless lifestyle journalists aboard. I take my hat off to him as I know all too well from experience that this can be bleddy hard work and hand numbingly cold at this time of year. Well, I suppose it beats getting on the wrong side of the Russian Mafia.
Annie Cawood pointed out that Appledore folk have be doing this without need of instruction or coracles for generations and recipes for the best preparation of laver are treasured secrets, passed down within local families since time immemorial. It's all in the vinegar, rinsing and boiling times. A critical combination. as an outsider you can only really guess at the correct procedures used in this alchemical preparation to make the green gold. Myself I've tried gathering it once or twice but I soon learnt to leave it to the experts and to be honest unless you have the sense of vocation to the calling it's a not particularly cost-effective enterprise as it's dirt cheap to buy.
Welshmen setting out for the North Devon coast
Of course, it goes almost without saying a lengthy debate ensued, ezactly like the time worn Pasty Debate, as to how we all preferred our laver.  I recall a time when I was working down at Richmond Dock breaking up an old motor torpedo boat, that was so knackered even the Ecuadorian Navy had turned it down, with my thermic lance and every morning we'd send one of the lads out to go along to Heards and get laver, bacon scrag ends and hogs pudding and we'd fry the whole lot up on a stove fashioned from an old torpedo tube. Now that Heards has become an antique shop and I doubt very much that Johns sells it, that toady purveyor of fine goods to the weekend crowd, Sylvesters is probably the only place to buy it these days. John's customers, much like the Squire, wouldn't call it laver as in Rod the tennis player but larva as in stuff that spews from volcanoes. This is the Welsh way of saying it,  I believe it comes from Laarfa, and I do admit it is the more common pronunciation but it's not how we say it in these parts. Mind you Appledore and the wider Taw and Torridge area does have a bit in common with the Welsh and as we used to say they are all a bit Welsh down there anyway. Recently, The Welsh link comes from workers in the shipyards but it goes back longer, way into the mists of time to the ancient two way trade in minerals like lime and copper which was taken over to Swansea for smelting and lime over here for burning in the kilns dotted along our shore. This trade can be traced back to the Phoenecians giving North Devon a link to the Med and the known word 3000 years ago! Little known fact the Barnstaple and Swansea shared a name Abertaw. Mouth of the Taw I recently discovered this in my research into the Celtic saints who, of course, migrated up and down the West of Briton in coracles! What goes round comes around.
Later in the day I went up to Mothers for me tea and me and Father got to burbling on about all things laver, I know he likes to add his to a cod steak poached in milk. Delicious. Mother pointed out that we have a family connection with the seaweed industry as back in the twenties a few years or so before she got married granny Furse would be down at Lee Bay come hell or highwater loading up seaweed onto a donkey cart which she would take up top to the side of the road and sell as ferilizer. She'd sit there with a mound of seaweed on one side and dung on the other. Due to her looks, charms and nature of her wares she became quite a fixture. They'd come from miles around to get a bag or two for their gardens and this was when Granfer caught her eye as he came by to pick up some seaweed for Colonel Trefussis's garden. After that he'd always be the first to offer to make the back breaking trip throgh the lanes with his little barrow and dog cart minus the dog and in due course he was rewarded for his herculean efforts as after many months Granny allowed herself to swept her off her feet and carted back to West Down.
After, a few jars  of the Lidl-scrumpy cider blend me and father swore that we'd have a trip out down to Appie to join in with the Laver day celebrations, he's going to take along his recipe and we'll soon tell 'em what's what.




Thursday 15 November 2012

Verity - Maybe The Last Word


She's up and standing proud. Smashing photo taken from a Kiwi backpacker's magazine. Does her fame know no bounds?

But still some folk complain.

This was my response, published in the Guardian Comment feed, to this rather sweeping, damning and catty critique by Jonathan Jones

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2012/oct/11/damien-hirst-statue-monstrosity?fb=native&CMP=FBCNETTXT9038

I think Mr Jones could have reserved judgement on this piece until it was actually standing in it's location rather than lying in pieces in a car park. As a cretinous, culturally illiterate, deluded Yokel I think Mr Hirst's statue is already, even at this supine stage, doing wonders for Ilfracombe. I spent £10.20 in the town on Wednesday, money which would have stayed in Barnstaple if it weren't for the statue. Incidentally, £4.40 of that went to Mr Hirst as my lady friend and I had a cappucicno in his fancy cafe. Once it is erected, standing on the pier dwarfed by the surrounding ocean, cliffs and tors my mates and I are very much looking forward every new moon to getting juiced up on Old Rat cider, dancing around the statue a hooping and a hollering, while brandishing flaming torches, and scattering burnt offerings over it's plinth before jumping naked into the sea. That's how we roll in these parts

Wednesday 24 October 2012

The Great British Bog Off

 The Great British Bugger Off!
Add caption
A national chains selection of Cornish 'pasty like" pastry folds. Guaranteed to scorch your palate.

Friday 14 September 2012

Barum Wheeler - A life in the Cycle Lane

The other morning I went for a coffee with Ken Tisbury who I bumped into in the Library. He'd been in there looking through old Kelly's directory's for 1941. He gems up on the businesses listed and then later sits in the pub going "do you remember Furse's Seed Merchants? Used to be in Cross Street" Of course no one did,  but it was always a good icebreaker at the start of a session and inevitably led into a heated converstaion about the location, staff and purveyances of long defunct Barum businesses. He was just about to get going by asking if I recalled Godden's china shop, apparently it used to be in the High Street  when I noticed out the corner of my eye a poster in the cafe window advertising the Barnstaple Criterium cycle race. After Kenny had left to trundle off  down to the Marshals, not before instigating a debate upon the location of the Young Men's Christian Association hostel, I took a closer look. It turns out that on the eve of the Tour of Britain stage start in Barum there is going to be a race around the town. A crit is what they are called. They go whizzing about a small street circuit for an hour or so. I have come across this before on the continent a couple of times. I remember one in San Sebastian when we were working over there dredging in the harbour, mind you that was a few years ago now and it was very excitng stuff. I suppose it'll be the same sort of thing. Fabulous. What a way to celebrate this golden summer of cycling glory.
Of course here in Barum and Devon as a whole we are no strangers to competitive road cycling. No Johnny come lately, glory seekers are we in these parts. Infact, Devon was the first place in Britain to host a stage of the Tour de France in 1974 I think it was. When the whole shebang piled onto a ferry at Roscoff sailed over to Plymouth and raced  around a roundabout for the day before returning to France on the evening crossing. I remember seeing it on Westward news and on World of Sport the following Saturday. Latterly the County hosts, nearly every year, at least one stage of the Tour of Britain and every weekend the lanes are peppered with folk doing Elite time trials . Further back the annual Milk Race would usually wind it's way through North Devon.

I remember seeing the Commer van with the big milk bottle mounted on top crossing Bideford bridge and trundle along the old A39 followed by a couple of hundred of riders from all over the place. They even had a few Russians in the race. Now, I tell you that was a strange think to witness back then in the Cold War days, seeing these blond, lean, athletic Soviets with CCCP emblazoned on their shirts peddling past the Wrey Arms. I do remember one year the race went through Fremington just after farmer Grigg had moved his cows across the road by what is now the Han Court Chinese restaurant and was then Marsh's garage subsequently the road was a bit slippy and the cyclists were sliding all over the place before tumbling into a mass pile up just outside the New Inn.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDckOAjtcOc

When I was a youngster we didn't have computers or video games or even any year around covered sports facilities, and having grown out of dressing up as cowboys with cap guns, your bike was always your most treasured possession. Mother would always kick us out anyway first thing come rain or shine if we weren't at school. So left to your own devices and if you were crap at football your bike was all you had. Plus, that's all we had to get us about the place, no mum or dad to ferry us here there and everywhere. Not back then. I'd never dream of asking Father to give is a lift anywhere, even to A&E if me leg was half off. Later on as a young man you kept on cycling right up to the day you were married and had a family as it was only then did you get a car and then only if you could afford it. We could all drive but back then but you got paid less if you were under 21 and not married so you'd be hard pressed financially to change your mode of transportation. Meself, even though I can just about drive and like me cars, but never really having a fixed income I've always had to stick to alternative modes of transportation, my canoe and of course my bike.
In my twenties, inspired by watching the Milk Race, seeing the Tour de France on ITV and the Eddy Mercx and Tom Simpson and having the good fortune to come across the professional cycling in the Basque Country I souped up my bike. I already had a Reynolds frame but I bought a Campagnolo chainset and brakes from the Exchange & Mart and after a few visits down to Gordy's and up to Mr Pewley's shop up at Newport I was able to select some of the best components and build a mean machine. I recall Gordy charged me 75p for an alloy front wheel.  I started off tentatively by doing time trials along the Old Bideford Road to the dump and back before extending my range. I'd stick my bike on the train and get off at Umberleigh, then further down the line to Bishops Nympton coming back via Chittehamolt, Cobbaton, and Codden Hill lovely ride. Eventually, I'd take the first train on a Sunday morning up to Newton St. Cyres and wheel my way back through the Taw Valley. You had to get out on the road early in order to avoid the Exeter Road Rats biker gang who were in the habit of running cyclists into the nearest ditch and hedge as I found out rather painfully at first hand when I ended up in a pond outside of Morchard Bishop in a cloud of motorcycle fumes and with a buckled front wheel. A few times a whole gang of us would stage an alternative team time trial racing along the back roads from Lapford to Bishops Nympton to Chittles 'hamolt, 'hampton and Chulmleigh trying to get in as many pints as you could during a Sunday lunchtime before closing time. You always had to make the Bell by two. Then we'd have a wobbly leisurely ride back into Barum for a cup of frothy coffee in Divitos thus avoiding the Road Rats. Happy days.
Unfortunately, they don't have a veterans category for the Crit as I'd think about having a go. You never lose it. I still have the bike. It's a museum piece now but it always attracts a lot of interest from fellow cyclists when I'm out and about on the Tarka trail. So. I'm going to give it a good clean up put on me Devon cycling jersey, leggings and wheel along to the Strand on Friday evening and of course Saturday morning to see the start and have a good old nose about. I hope to get a photo with some of the Basque cyclists whose predecessors were so inspirational in my life in the cycle lane.

A remarkable contribution to cycling in North Devon



I've just had a thought. Wouldn't it be a bleddy marvelous idea to see if Gordy Webber would like to cut the ribbon at the start of the race or lead out the riders with a few of his mates over the Long Bridge as a gesture of appreciation for his contribution to cycling in North Devon. Well here's big thanks from me anyway.

Wednesday 5 September 2012

Verity Is On Her Way!

From the North Devon Journal today:

ARTIST Damien Hirst’s controversial statue Verity has been granted planning permission.
Councillors today agreed by 10 votes to two that the 60ft bronze figure of a pregnant woman could be positioned on Ilfracombe pier.
  1. Damien Hirst's proposed statue for Ilfracombe
    An artist's impression of Damien Hirst's proposed Verity statue for Ilfracombe
The decision was made by North Devon Council’s planning committee.
It follows two months of public discussion about the statue, which has divided opinion locally.
The proposal is that statue will be loaned to the council for a 20 year period with a view for this to be extended.
Councillors will meet tomorrow to decide whether to accept the offer now that planning consent has been granted.
North Devon Council received almost 300 letters about the planning application.
The statue is of a pregnant, naked woman wielding a sword with half of her belly exposed to show the foetus inside.
The most recent concern raised surrounds security issues that may come with the statue as police have fears that Verity will attract vandalism and publicity seekers.
However one of two pre-meeting reports stated there has been considerable liaison with local police to ensure that security concerns have been covered and there is also a proposal for CCTV to be permanently installed nearby.
It was recommended in one of the pre-meeting reports that the council give approval to the statue, stating it presents a ‘strong individual character that reaches out to the public.’
It is hoped that the statue, designed by one of the world’s most talked about artists, will bring benefits for the area’s economy in terms of increased visitor numbers leading to a boost in tourism.
Plans currently stand for the statue to be transported into Ilfracombe overnight on October 3/4 and raised into position by October 17/18.

Monday 3 September 2012

Thank You 'A' Flight Squadron 22: 6000 Missions and Counting.

Three cheers and many heartfelt thanks go out to the Search and Rescue helicopter crews at RAF Chivenor on flying their 6000 mission. It turns out that they have been particularly busy this year and from my Twitter feed I see that the other day they were called out on three jobs. Surely this is a further justification,  if any were needed which unfortunately it may be if policy makers have their way,  of the essential role that this outfit plays in our community. To my mind their role should be safeguarded, ring-fenced I believe is the term politicians like to use, at all costs and any attempts to meddle with it in the terms of unfathomable management gobbledygook should be ardently resisted.
One of the old crates.
The canary yellow whirly gigs of 22 Squadron stand for so much more than just a diversion in the skies while you are enjoying an afternoon on the beach or having a tramp out to Baggy. If they were to be outsourced, privatised or redeployed elsewhere I would miss them immensely and I think the people of North Devon would be to put it mildly, bleddy sorry to see them go. I say this even as a neighbour whose sleep has been disturbed on many occasions by their rather alarming mechanical racket, like a barrel of spanners thrown down some steps, as they hover overhead at all times of the day and night. Over the years I have got to know many of the crew personally and just this morning I got a great big wave from the winch person, lovely maid she is, as she flew low up the river and back to base.
These days as I'm getting on a bit I find it a great comfort to know that should I get into any scrapes out on the estuary, be whisked out by freakish tides over the bar never to be seen again, get dazed and confused on Braunton burrows or have all fall off of the rocks while prawning down at Rockham they will always be at hand to literally pull me out of trouble. I stress that I am not a reckless person but as any local can tell you these things do happen from time to time and I do realise especially in these straightened times that their services are costly and resources are scarce. And I don't like to cause a fuss.
To be honest and surprising as it may seem I have only had cause to avail myself of their services just the once. It was a few years ago now when I was sailing back from Cork in an old tug boat that the Old Boy's mate Dicky Diamond had bought and was intending to restore at a berth in Appledore. Due to my experience on the dredgers and having worked both in Cork Bay and Barnstaple Bay I was signed on for the trip as first mate and pilot. Dicky was the skipper and his boy Nathan was the engineer seeing as he worked down at Central Garages. We were just getting into the Lundy roads when Nathan was seized by agonizing stomach pains. So, suspecting appendicitis and with the tide against us and realsing that it would be several hours before we would be able to make it over the bar and upriver to safe harbour on the Torridge we set off a flare which I gather was seen by the Lundy boat the Polar Bear who radioed for assistance. Within the hour the chopper boys had hove into view and we were able to get Nathan winched off up, up and away to the NDI where the vestigial appendage was whipped out in the nick of time. Saved his life they did.
Kamikaze mission?
       In this markedly significant year for the Squadron a couple of cases have been highlighted in the local press where the deployment of the whirlygig has been questioned. The most infamous episode to date concerned a model aircraft enthusiast who had to be winched out of a gorse bush after tumbling into it while flying his model plane off Morte Point. This poor blokes plight was rather simplified n the local press and subsequently a right old hullabaloo kicked off people were outraged that the SAR crew had been called out to what they were led to believe was a relatively minor incident. There were calls for him to pay the money back and the unfortunate chap received some rather forthright comments on the web forums calling him in no uncertain terms a silly sod. However, my Step-nephew Denzil who you may recall is himself a model plane enthusiast was able to expand upon the matter and there was a bit more to the story than folk were originally led to believe. It turns out that the remote aviator had indeed fallen down the cliff into a gorse bush but he tumbled headfirst some fifteen foot into the furse and was discovered hanging upside down, trapped. It was a particularly warm day and even though his mates had tried in vain to retrieve him eventually and in desperation, fearing dehydration was setting they called out the helicopter. To be fair initially the chap had shown some social responsibility as he had been trying to salvage his plane which was a £300 1/32 scale Mitsubishi Zero (maybe it took on a life of it's own and went on a kamikaze mission. Who knows?) with an apparently inflammable battery and with the aviation fuel thrown into the mix fearing a potential gorse fire he had acted somewhat impulsively and ended up in such a hazardous predicament. Besides, what else were they supposed to do? Leave him there like hanging prone like one of those deceased sheep, just fleece and bones, you come across whose remains lie entangled in the branches to become dessicated by the windy salty sea air. He would have caused a bit of a stink after a while. Good job too we don't have vultures in this country as they'd have had him. Not forgetting the fact that the bush could burst into flames at any moment immolating him and turning the whole of Morte Point into an inferno. That would caused a lot more fuss.
I admit that this rescue was not one of the most heroic thrilling and historic ever performed by the Squadron as there was no burning oil tanker, lone yachtsman or celebrity chef in distress involved
Still I suspect it was good practice and a potential danger was averted. However, to my mind this incident, as benign as it seems reminds us of the emblematic and essential service that RAF Chivenor provides for our community and for the Nation as a whole. However from time to time we all need to remind ourselves that although our coastline is indeed an area of outstanding natural beauty it can also be deadly. So for everyone's sake be aware and try not to be too daft when you are out on about.

Ted after his cliff fall
Curiously,  a few weeks later Ted a twelve stone dog fell off the cliff down at Hartland and although he was rescued without requiring the services of 22 squadron but instead by several cliff rescue teams, some from as far away as Port Isaac, the story passed with no comment.  There were no claims of a waste of resources or calls for Ben or his owners to repay the money nor any suggestion that they had been foolish to allow the hound to stray near to the cliff edge. It was all portrayed in rather heroic terms. To my mind at the very least someone should have at least asked what the hell was the dog, especially one that size, doing off the lead on the Coast-path in the first place. Funny old world

Monday 20 August 2012

Black Swan Causes a Flap

One morning last week I decided to take advantage of the fine weather and get the old dugout out and row up to Lidl on Seven Bretheren bank to do some shopping. I'd heard that it was Spanish week up there so I thought I'd take a look and see if they had any Basque cheese, some authentic chorizo, not the looky likey German stuff they normally sell and maybe a tin or two of canned seafood. I also needed to get some rubber adhesive from Jewson to repair my wetsuit.
I was carrying the canoe down to the Strand shoreline when my attention was drawn to several small craft bobbing about in the water slightly downriver from the Taw Bridge. I thought this a bit odd as it wasn't quite the tide for setting out night-lines, neither the right time of year for trawling up some mullet or netting a couple of salmon. Plus, it was broad daylight. Intrigued, I launched myself into the Ashford Channel and paddled my way upstream. As I approached the craft I became aware of quite a crowd of people gathered on the Pottington bank and judging by the amount of ocular equipment that they had set up alongside the path and were aiming in my general direction and beyond I was able to deduce that they were an advance party of twitchers obviously reccying the river before putting out a call to their fellow ornithological enthusiasts who would soon be flocking down here in their scores to glimpse and record a unique avian visitation. I had no idea what that could be but you do get them from time to time in these parts just popping up like one of those flash mobs. First off, there'll be one or two of them shlepping about in the muddy mire of the wetland beneath Anchorwood bank about and then before you know it dozens of them will turn up laden with bins and cameras and notebooks before disappearing as the evening light begins to fade.
I eased alongside the closest of the craft which turned out to be a lovely old clinker built wooden skiff with an expensive looking camera and impressively long lens rigged up astern on some kind of tripod contraption. I greeted the boatman. a bloke bedecked head to toe in camouflage garb, he even had his face daubed in green and black warpaint. Choosing to ignore this strange visage I asked him what was what? He told me, in hushed tones, keeping low in the boat and beckoning me to do the same,  that there had been a rare sighting of a black swan and he had taken these extraordinary measures in order to get some prized snaps of this alien specimen. He explained that the bird was Australian and so was some way away from his usual habitat. I told him I hadn't seen one and to be honest, taking a look about with my inherent nautical eye I couldn't see a single swan, black or white. Lacking the patience of these birdy folk I decided to take my leave and wished him good luck in his endeavours  before paddling on upstream eager to get on as it's true time and tide wait for no man and I had some Iberian provisions and Evo Stik to buy and I also hoped to squeeze in a couple of pints in the Marshals before floating back home on the ebb tide.
Glad to say that the trip to Lidl proved to bountiful as I manged to purhase several tins of octopus and some mussels in salsa picante, smashing. I had to get the glue at B&Q as Jewsons were out off rubber adhesive.
In the pub I found old Charlie Street at the bar wetting his whistle after spending a tiring morning pushing his mother Ada around the shops. Apparently, her mobility scooter has conked out and they can't get the parts for it so in the meantime Charlie has to push it if mother want's to go to the shops. He looked rather forlorn  and bleddy knackered. So to jolly him up I bought him another pint and told him about the goings on downriver with regards to the black swan. However, this did not seem to do the trick, as he turned to me with rather alarming look on his face. "Black swan" he says, "Don't talk to me about bleddy black swans. I've had my fill of those buggers" Obviously Charlie wasn't much of a twitcher by this dismissive show of disdain. Evidently, we seemed to have got our wires crossed here as after his continued muttering and spluttering  I was able to ascertain that Charlie was referring to some film about ballet, not a blck swan of the feathered variety. It turns out that Ada, Charlie's mother had got this film called Black Swan on DVD out of the library thinking that her great granddaughter Dolly who is eight and very keen on dancing would like to see it. However,  she hadn't taken the time to take a close look at the cover as upon viewing the film it was less about sugar plum fairies and more about sex and violence and not really the kind of thing you should let artistically natured eight year olds watch. So annoyed was Ada that she summoned Charlie to push her fuming back down to the library where she made a forthright complaint about the inadequate labelling of their DVD stock. The Librarian gave her a customer complaint form to fill in but Ada wasn't happy with this and on Saturday she's determined to get Charlie to push her down to the Castle Centre to take up the matter with Nick Harvey in person. "If he's back from his holidays that is", I added cynically. She wants some answers. Why does Devon County Council Library Services feel the need to stock such mucky and violent stuff? In these hard times they should be spending what little money they've got adding more improving materials to their catalogue. It's a library not bleddy Blockbusters. To my mind you cant fail her on that one.
Black Swan - the ballet thriller

In getting all this off his chest Charlie appeared to cheer up and grudgingly he admitted that there was a smidgen of a funny side to the tale. Little Dolly however remains traumatised and has not put on her tutu since.
With the tide turning I bade Charlie farewell assuring him that Dolly would get over it sooner rather than later. Poor mite. Once, I got the canoe back in the river I was glad to be able to make it back down to the twitcher in the skiff in no time. Walking back over to Seven Brethren I had a thought concerning little Molly's plight and was keen to have a word with him. There had still been no sighting of the bird I suggested he take a row up to the Yeo at least there he may be able to get a sighting of some ducks or a shag or two. He thanked me for this but continued scanning the delta. I waited for a moment before asking him a little question. If he did get any footage of the Black Swan did he reckon he could make me a copy as I knew someone who may like to see it if he could drop it into my place next time he is out on the river bird spotting.
That very evening, beautiful it was,  as I was appreciating a glass of Thatchers and doing a bit of cyclist spotting I heard the tell-tale beating of swans' wings and out over Spider Island there came into view a wedge of swans. Low and behold, there before my own eyes, following up the rear was a black swan, cygnus atratus as this antipodian native of the species is known. It was a truly magnificent sight and as I followed their flight up river I hoped that the twitcher mariner would be able to get some fabulous footage that I intended to share with Ada and Dolly so that they could marvel at the grace and beauty of the real thing and so inspire the youngster to take to  tie up her ballet shoes and take to the boards once more. Clever eh? 
Cygnus atratus




Thursday 28 June 2012

Where's Captain Kirk?

At some point he must have been beamed down to Ilfracombe as he seems to be rather well acquainted with the North Devon's premier holiday resort's seedy seething underbelly of malignant vice and rampant moral lubricity.

I don't know why William Shatner felt the need to apologise to the people of Ilfracombe as he may not have been too far away from the truth all along!

http://www.thisisdevon.co.uk/Saucy-scenes-welcome-seaside-holidaymakers/story-16238373-detail/story.html

http://www.thisisdevon.co.uk/naughty-bunch-Playboy-TV-tells-North-Devon/story-16301575-detail/story.html

Monday 25 June 2012

There's Something in the BTAA Community Shed.

    A few Sundays back I took a trip out with my step nephew Denzil up to Codden Hill He happened to be passing by Ashord Strand and popped in to ask if I wanted to come along. He was on his way up there to fly his new prototype model plane. It's a Stealth Bomber whose stability he wanted to test in the thermals up there. I had to take his word for it as aerodynamics is not exactly my specialty. So with the tempting offer of a pint in the Three Pidgeons thrown in I decided to tag along.  It was beautiful up there, the skies were clear blue and the view was at it's best. North Devon in all it's glory on a fine May day stretched out before me. Dartmoor loomed on the South Westerly horizon and in a westerly direction Brown Willy could be seen majestically poking up over the valleys of the Tamar. In the East, Exmoor, strewn with blossoming heather, rose up like a great purple bruise and out to sea Lundy basked in a salty haze. Ah Devon. The only thing that spoilt this was the drone of Denzil's bleddy plane. I told him I thought Stealth Bombers were supposed to be silent and rather irritated he explained that such technology had not trickled down as yet to the model enthusiasts level.
Fortunately, it wasn't long before his fuel ran out and as a squall could be spied out over Hartland we decided to get back down to the pub.
I always have fond memories of the Three Pidgeons as back int the days of the CB club we held a few charity functions out there. We'd all drash out there in convoy, I remember I had a lovely Ford Zephyr Zodiac at the time, eyeball in the car park and then head on inside for skittles and a chip supper. The place has been spruced up a bit in recent years but it was good to see that they were doing a fair old trade. Usual Sunday roast crowd and desultory hungry locals propped up at the bar gawping at the passing plates of meat and two veg. I was glad to see that Davey Kelly was one of these and I tapped him on the back as he was about to snaffle a few teddies and a piece of meat of one of the plates that the waitree was  removing from a vacated table. Bleddy gannet that bloke. Davey as always seemed gald to see a friendly face and he was even happier to see us after Denzil got him in a Guinesss and black. Davey's from a familly of Irish Travellers from way back way back when, way before the term even existed. Back then they were plain old diddcoys or diddies in a more familiar term of address for those that weren't strictly gypsy gypsies. In Daveys case his clan never travelled too far away from Pearcy's scrap metal yard on Seven Brethren Bank. I don't think Daveys been any further abroad than Minehaed. Still he's a bleddy case that's for certain. Back in the seventies he used trade on his dark looks and long curly black hair by walking around town dressed as a cavalier from the English Civil War he wasn't part of the Torrington sealed knot lot, he just liked the look, thigh lenghh boots, fancy buttoned jerkin, ruff and wide brimmed hat all topped off with a bright pink plume. Later due to an accident when someone had his eye out with a pool queue in the Gaydons he became a pirate, same old garb but now with added eye patch  and he lost the plume but gained a parrot. He then moved to Combe Martin where he posed for visitors on the front for a few seasons that is until the pop singer Adam Ant popularised the look and then no one wanted to have their photo take with a seedy looking Ant Person with a mite riddled parrot. Still it was good to see him, he still has the parrot and the eye patch but the has lost some hair but with the remaining locks tied back in a bony tail covered by a headscarf and the leather waders  you could say he still had a piratical air about him.
We had a natter for a bit catching up on things.He told me how he'd moved to Bishops Tawton a few hers back and he filled me in with a few goings on in the village and he was eager to tell me about his new allotment. I pressed him on this as I have had me name down for one for years now and I wanted to know how he'd managed to get one so quick. Turns out that the newly reformed Bishop Tawton Allotment Association (BTAA)  had taken on the task of reclaiming the old alotment field between the river and the church which had been left to rack and ruin after the demand for allotments had tailed off sometime around the end of the last series of the Good Life. However, as we all know allotments have once again come into great demand. It's a fashion statement so I've heard. A bit like it was back in the 70's a lifestyle choice but no bugger's ever in it for the long term save a few old boys. Still in order to meet burgeoning local demand the BTAA decided to get to grips with the old field and put it into some sort of order. Davey always one to sniff out an opportunity lent a hand clearing it out. I akled him if he used his Pirate's cutlass and it turns out he did. No joke. As they hacked into the overgrowth they came across the old allotment shed which everyone forgot was there. It turned out to be remarkably intact inspite having been abandoned for thirty years. Inside everything had been left just as it had been when it was last in use. It must have been like finding Scott's hut in Antartica, old tins of slug repellant, a bag of compost, some seeds in original packets, there was even a tin of Huntley and Plamers biscuits and a thermos flask next to an original glass milk bottle and a Daily Mirror from 1981 with Sam Fox on the front. Along with this treasure trove there was a fine collection of old tools which must have dated all from that era and rather odly an artificial leg. Of course some of the members of the BTAA were rather excited by this discovery which provided a link to the history of the village all of thity years ago. Which, as Davey pointed out was something for these folk as they were all blow ins and had a warped sense of history and felt the need to stamp some sort of mark in the annals of village life. Anyway, bys the by, live and let live, they gathered up the tools and other artefacts and transferred them to the new community shed,  where they exhibited them on the wall so people would be able to see how people in the village lived thirty years ago.
Davey then went onto tell a rather peculiar tale. He was in the pub a while ago when the chairman of the BTAA came tearing in, blathering inchoherently about someone singing  down at the shed. After settling him down wtih a brandy he was able to tell them how on approaching the shed that evening he'd heard a man singing from inside. Initially,  he'd got in a huff as he thought some homeless people had moved up from their tents by the railway line and moved into the shed. Indignant at this trespass he flung open the door to find no one there. A little beside himself and flummoxed he locked up the shed and thought he'd come back later just to take a look and keep an eye on things. Later that evening in the twilight as he approached the shed he could here a maniac cackling sound, some loud crashing followed by a belicose rendition of the Song of the Western Men. "And shall Trelawney live and shall Trelawney die. There's twenty thousand Cornishmen will know the reason why." This time fearing for his own safety he turned tail and skeddadled back to the pub, running mazed all the way along the main road. He was still a trembling and his eyes wild with fear and as he recounted his tale. Davey his interest getting the better of him swallowed down a large brandy for Dutch courage and full of bravado swaggered off down there to have look for himself. He found the community shed all locked up as usual, he took a look around and could find nothing untoward but just as he was about to leave he heard a voice coming from the old shed. "Get on you bugger. Bleddy thing. Get on" He catiously approached it all was quiet but as the eery silence shattered by a train rattling passed Davey threw caution to the wind and entered the old shed and was astonished by what he discovered. All the old tools, the artefacts were all put back just as they had been found a fewdays before. Everything was in exactly the same place just as they had been left all those years before. However, even more oddly there was one thing missing, the artificial leg. The shed was cursed, evidently someone not of this life had become very upset about having their things moved.
Davey later reported his findings back to an extraordinary meeting of the BTAA He said that he didn't think the ghost was particularly malevolent just a bit pissed off. However being better safe than sorry he thought it best to leave the old shed as it was and stay clear of it for the time being. He then told them that he'd gladly take on the allotment with the shed on it as he was now a familiar of the spirit. At this point he gave me a rather exaggerated wink. So intrigued was I that at the time I thought nothing of it.
  As it happens I did recall some rather tragic occurrence some thirty years ago at Bishops Tawton allotmnets which had led to the  discovery of a decapitated bod. It was the date and more specifically the singing and the false leg that had triggered something but try as I may I couldn't quite recall  the full facts of the matter. Fortunately, I knew someone who would be bound to shed a bit more light on things, Anne Cawood. So I called her up and managed to get hold of her before she took the dog out. I gave her the incidental facts that I had to hand and quick as a flash she was able to draw upon the encyclopaedic knowledge that she has of strange and mysterious happenings, solved and unsolved in the North Devon area. "That'll be Ernest Lovering" she said. "You remember Mr Lovering from school, the music master". That was when it all fell into place. Funny thing the mind. I only need a few pointers and I turn into Mr Memory. I'd got it. So I interrupted Davey and Denzils conversation on the next weeks Demolition Derby up at Mullacott Cross and asserted my belief that the spectral goings on down in the shed was bound to be the restless spirit of Mr Lovering, the music master. Davey remembered him and all. Adding enthusiastically how he'd tell us lads the tale of how he managed to loose his leg while fighting with the Chindits in Malaysia. At the end of this tale he'd always allow for a few minutes reflection and he appeared he got lost in the mists of time before, snapping out of it, walking over to the piano and thumping out The British Grenadiers or perhaps more pertinently in this case, The Song of the Western Men. Stirring stuff no doubt,but also the ghostly chorus which had been heard coming from the allotment shed.
Upon his retirement Mr Lovering, a confirmed bachelor, had devoted most of his time to his allotment which had become his pride and joy. He'd spend all his spare time down there and consequently his produce was of the highest quality and won prizes year in year out at shows as far a field as West Down and Woolfardisworthy. As I now recall, it seemed there was hardly  a week that went by when there wasn't a photo of old Ernest in the Journal smiling proudly festooned in his prize winning veg. Such was the fame that he brought Bishops Tawton Allotment Association they decided to cede him a vacant plot next his original one and to mark this unprecedented and magnaminous step Ernest decided to build himself a bigger and better shed. However, it wasn't long before tragedy struck, when one day not long after the Royal Wedding, as it happens, the decapitated and monoped corpse of Ernest Lovering was discovered lying prone, you couldn't exactly say face down at least, amid his potato patch. Initially, the Police were mystified. Foul play couldn't be so easily dismissed, as he'd hardly gone and chopped off his own head. But who could be responsible for such a ghastly act perpetrated upon such a well regarded pillar of the local horticultural community? So this line of enquiry had to be pursued. But it led nowhere, no escaped lunatics, no wild beasts and it had all gone quiet on the local axe murderer front. It was thought that he'd gone off to pastures new. They simply had no leads. That was until a few hours into the enquiry a blood smeared sheet of rusty old corrugated iron was found embedded in the neighbouring railway embankment. This discovery,  combined with the recent summer gales, some of the worst in recent memory, led the D&C Police to establish the facts behind such a dreadful occurrence.
Evidently, during the storm one of the sheets of corrugated had come loose and aware of this and the potential damage to his seedlings Ernest had gone down to the shed during the storm in order to secure and make good the roof. While in the middle of making good the damage it was assumed that a further sheet of metal became completely loose and took off in the wind high up into the sky before planing down upon Mr Lovering and despatching his head from his body. Denzil with his aeronautical knowledge was able to give us an illustration using a beer mat of how this may happen. Apparently, it all a question of windspeed and lift. The corrugated combined with metereological conditions could easily have set off this unfortunate chain of events. With the corrugations acting like ailerons, the sheet would have soared off very much like his model stealth bomber upon a gust high up into the sky and once the wind dropped gravity would have come back into play and the sheet would descend rapidly, on the wing so to speak, back down to earth cutting like a bacon slicer through anyone or anything within it's trajectory. A further gust would then once again launch it away up into the air before winging it's way back to earth at a great velocity and plunging into the embankment.
At the subsequent inquest although Ernest Lovering's horticultural skills were never called into question his construction skills were and a few people described him as a bit of a bodger and ultimately this fact led to his unfortunate demise.
Davey and Denzil were rapt by this tale. Davey concluded "Well I never. So, correct me if I'm wrong, but those BTAA feckers by moving his tools into the new community shed must have awoken his restless spirit. Bleddy restless I'd imagine as he'd been forced to hobble about the "other side" for all these years on one good leg after his other one was unceremoniously dumped and later entombed in the shed after the body was removed under the assumption that he was hardly going to need it"
"Exactly", I said reaching for a spare roast potato from the stack of plates being carried by a passing waitress.


Tuesday 19 June 2012

A Tale of The Granny and the Rabbit Hole Drugs.

Medellin, Pablo Escobar, the Juarez Cartel,  Arturo Beltran Leveya, Los Zetas, Los Nortenos, General Noriega, El Chango and Tony Montana all of these are significant names and locations in the pantheon of the global drugs trade. Now another name and place can be added to this notorious list, Landkey and The Granny. Both Landkey, the quiet North Devon village which has found itself at the centre of the global drugs trade, and the narco nom de guerre, The Granny will soon assume their place in this ever expanding hall of infamy. I'm sure that when Los Tigres del Norte or a similar electro-mariachi ensemble hear of The Granny's exploits over here in North Devon they are bound to set about lauding her outlaw life in song and the tale of the Granny and the Rabbit Hole Drugs(La Abuela y Los Drogas del Agujero de Cornejo) will be born and rise to become a top seller in the bandit hit parade.
The Granny and her shady associate Mr X are thought to have handled at least fifteen shipments of cocaine over a period of eight months and were using a caravan on their smallholding out at Landkey as a distribution point. According to police, who had them under surveillance for some time, they were running a "family business" as wholesale dealers in cocaine (t'wouldn't be the first local family business to be founded on the gains from illicit activities neither) Once again Devon and Cornwall police have managed to nab chummy by using up to the minute technology, they had at their disposal a device which logged vehicle number plates, I suppose in this case it could be some sort of fancy telephoto lens, and after some weeks watching the comings and goings at the vegetable plot they were able to swoop. Whereupon, they discovered a quantity of cash, several thousand pound at least at the last count and saw Mr X, just before having his collar felt, throwing away a packet into a neighbouring field. However, as the packet had just lodged in a hedge the police were able to retrieve it. Later after extensive forensic analysis they were able to ascertain that it contained a significant amount of cocaine. Interestingly the packet was embossed with an Alice in Wonderland motif which turned out to be the logo of the family firm. They then brought in Misty the local sniffer dog and began to undertake an extensive search of the property and it wasn't too long before the keen nosed 2 1/2 year old Dachsund Springer Spaniel cross soon uncovered 173 grams of the drug down a rabbit hole. Thinking about it I suppose the Alice and Wonderland reference may have provided a clue as to where the drugs could be found. Sherlock Holmes maybe, D&C police unlikely.
Of course, due to it's prime Atlantic location and the propensity of many of it's inhabitants towards enjoying the odd puff, toot or two, this is not the first time North Devon has found itself mixed up in the international drug smuggling business. A few years back armed police swooped upon a boat moored at Bideford Quay which contained millions of pounds of narcotic cargo and bales of the stuff are often washed up on local beaches and coves. I meself keep an eager eye open for such a windfall down at Ashford Strand. To my mind it's the local equivalent of winning the lottery, better odds and all.
Now I've heard of all sorts of methods used the concealing and transportation of drugs including the use of mules, but I reckon this must be the first time in the history of narcotrafficking that rabbits have been involved. Another first for North Devon.



Could Landkey and The Granny find themselves the anti-heroic subjects of a narco corrido like this one? I must say I do like the tune.

Saturday 16 June 2012

Puffin attacks Razorbill, Lundy

 

Blimey, I see it's all kicking off over on Lundy. I must get over there some time this year and catch up with all that's been going on. I think I'll take me tent and spend a few days birding and a few evenings in the Marisco Tavern. Tell you what though those puffins can be right little buggers. They'll have you if you disturb them. One time I was mobbed by a whole flock of them when I was fishing off the rocks. They came down from he cliffs, hundreds of them, all was a blur of beaks and feathers as I beat a hasty retreat back to Benson's cave. I left me sandwiches and bait on the rocks and they soon made short shrift of that. Picked clean in seconds. They might look all cute and innocent but they're cold hearted killers inside.

Friday 8 June 2012

Entente Cordiale Pt 2 - Farm Swap

The first weekend down there in the Pays Basque was bleddy marvelous . The sun shone, the air fresh blown down from the snow capped mountain peaks was clean and crisp. The trees were all starting to come into leaf and in the orchard cherry, apple, peach and pear blossom was coming into bloom. Jays, cuckoos, woodpeckers, doves screeched and squawked and cuckooed. In the undergrowth toads croaked and lizards basked on warm rocks. Ashford Strand seemed a long way aways. My lodgings, the caravan was very comfortable, nice dry and cosy the only thing was which I didn't realise when I first stumbled in there on the first night was that I had to share it with one of the cats and her litter of kittens. I woke up the next morning by the little buggers climbing all over me, licking my ears, scratching their noses on me beard and making hang of a racket scrapping with each other. Still it was very entertaining. After the second morning of this I did have a word with Jean Michel via Piers and he gave me a rather menacing looking cage so I could shut them up at night and stick a blanket over it. When I heard their pathetic mewling from underneath I did feel a bit bad but they soon shut up.
Old Piers was very quiet for the first few days he largely spent his time up in the spare room writing the script which sounded all a bit ominous. He'd make an appearance for aperitifs but then he'd be constantly looking at his Iphone thingymejig which was a bit odd since there was no mobile reception, and no internet lost he was without it. So much so that he'd march off from time to time and walk up the top of the fields to the road where he could get some sort of signal.
I was happy enough to be left to me own devices. I spent the best part of the day sitting in a deckchair looking out over the mountains which looked like a range Codden Hills and peering up at the big sky. Spectacular. Old Jean Michel made no concessions to visitors and cracked on with his work I'd go along and help him lift a few things and just have a look around. I did offer to do a bit more work but they were having none of it, Claudette would physically drag me away from the sheep and sit me down on the veranda and plonk down a bottle of Jean Michel's vintage in front of me. As the days went by I started to get a bit suspicious about this and I don't think the nature of the programme 'Farm Swap' had been adequately explained to them! They didn't seem too keen on a Devonian bloke poking his nose into French agricultural practises
Still I wasn't complaining Jean Michel took me out round his land one evening with the dogs and, " I feel we bonded," as Piers might say. We were happy just walking across the fields, throwing sticks to the dogs and prodding things with our sticks. The universal countryman's language.
Towards the middle of the first week Piers came marching down the field from the road and announced that the script was finished, locations had been sourced  arrangements had been made and shooting would commence forthwith

Wednesday 30 May 2012

Buzzard trapping plan abandoned


Buzzard trapping plan abandoned




Good. I don't see that the killing of young pheasants which are being wholly bred to be shot for sport warrants a cull of these wonderful creatures. It certainly doesn't present a clear problem for me and I've bagged a pheasant or two in me time. Bleddy Countryside Alliance, bunch of embittered, small minded landowners, chinless in-bred throwbacks, snobs and quasi 'country folk' and their demented, forelock tugging, lackeys and deluded supporters.
Don't like 'em. Long live the Buzzard.


Saturday 26 May 2012

Entente Cordiale - Hands across the Ocean. Part 1

Well not so much the Ocean the crossing between Plymouth and Roscoff, the English Channel or La Manche as I learned that the French call it. I have to say it was a smashing crossing, nothing like I remember it in the past. They seem to have found a way of reducing the vibration and the stench of diesel fuel which in turn leads to a reduction in puking. Not that that bothered me as I've got me sea legs. However, t doesn't make for a pleasant trip. These days the ferries are like a floating Weatherspoons except you can buy Toblerone and you get a very talented cabaret act laid on. During the crossing or cruise as Brittany Ferries call it I was able to brush up on me French. "Je Voudrais un Magners" The fella seemed to understand me. I also fell in with a lovely couple who were off on a tour of Britttany in their camper van. I told them about Devon's historic links with Britanny, how the Anglo Saxon invader had driven my ancestors across the water to settle in France and went on to the torpedo boat raids of WW2 and my experiences of dredging the harbour at L'Orient. They were very interested.
At Roscoff I met up with Piers of Tarka Taw Film and Video Services who was waiting for me at the Gare Maritime. He'd been staying at his parent's chateau which was nearby.  Piers got in a bit of a huff when he saw the state of me and bundled me swiftly into the back of the Renault Space wagon and off we went on our long drive all the way down to the French Basque country, the Pays Basque. Here we were going to liaise with a bloke called Jean Michel Mendieta, a Basque sheep farmer, cheesemaker and cider connoisseur  he people at TTF&VS have an idea for a programme called 'Farmer Swap" and they wanted to get it into development asap. The idea is that agriculturally minded people go and stay on each others farms, small holdings and compare notes on their lives, work and lend a hand about the place. Although, I'm not a farmer I am the closest thing they know to one and being their Mr Fixit in the Barnstaple area they thought I should be able to wing it.
Blimey it was a long journey. It took us all day. France it turns out from top to bottom is a bleddy big country and when you're on the motorway it just goes on and on and on. The thing that stuck in my mind was how flat it was down that west side. I was hoping to see chateaus, river valleys and vineyards. Nought just tarmac and ill looking spindly trees. Fortunately, I had some travel sickness tablets which I took with a couple of beers at a service station and bingo I knocked meself out for the last 300km. I don't think I missed much. I came to as we were driving along a twisty road that was winding through a valley with mountains up ahead, the evening sun was setting and we were surrounded by green fields dotted with red tiled, white walled farmhouses. There was snow still on the mountain tops and the shadows cast upon the rocks beneath all made for a spectacular vista.
In only a matter of minutes we were turning down a farm track and soon pulled up outside a tumble down farm house one side of which had completely collapsed but the other side look perfectly habitable. Pier commented that it was called French rural chic, I just thought it looked like Badger Bovey's place out at Chittlehamholt. Even more so when I spied the old caravan in adjoining hay barn. This it turned out was my lodgings as Piers had wangled the spare room with it's lovely mountain views, and rather comfy looking iron framed bed, writing table and en-suite shower.
From the start Jean Michel and his wife Claudette were very welcoming. No sooner had we unpacked the van we were shunted out onto the veranda with it's commanding views over an extensive meadow with the Pyrenees providing a backdrop in the distance. A vase of water was placed in the middle of the table and a bottle of pastis was opened. The Mendietas didn't speak any English and my French is basic but with gestures smiles, shrugs and a few Ouis and yesses we got by. Piers who is fluent in French translated when he could be bothered. After a few aperitifs we sat down to dinner and Claudette served up a smashing vegetable gratin made with stuff they had grown themselves. We were joined at the table by their two farm hands Clement a gruff old boy who muttered and spluttered his way through his supper and looked like he wasn't scared of hard work and a young bloke called Maxim,  a white rastafarian! He was a friend of the family who'd come down from Paris to get away from something unspoken. Maxim spoke English very well albeit with an accent which made him sound like a French Bob Marley. Everything was cool, everything. He looked like he'd never done a days work in his life but as was later proven, appearances can be deceptive and he worked like a Trojan.
It was a smashing evening. Everyone around the table eating and drinking together. No telly, it put me in mind of us all at Granfer Eddy's place up at West Down in the sixties. Very civillised.

Tuesday 22 May 2012

From Mount Olympus to Ashford Strand

Well that was a bit of a flash in the pan. The Olympic torch zoomed past me at about 50mph in a bleddy van! What's going on there I thought to myself as I stood at the new bus stop down at West Ashford. (Thank you Devon County Council after years of petitioning they have eventually given us our very own  stop. People power) I was under the impression that the torch relay was just that, a linked run around the country for some 8000 miles, 8000 people running a mile each.
No one told me that they'd be on and off a fleet of coaches for the best part of the jaunt. To my mind that's a bit of a cop out, not really part of the Olympian spirit is it. Mind you, I reckon they should run all the way from Greece these days they'd probably have no shortage of volunteers at the Hellenic end. So there I was, standing beside of the road with me Devon flag, excitement building as I could hear approaching sirens, moments later a phalanx of police motorbike outriders hove into view, closely followed by a Coca Cola truck blasting out rap music, a Lloyds bank bus with scantily clad ladies clinging onto a platform on the back and for some reason a lorry with a screen on the side with Samsung written on it. Then a couple of coaches decked out in London Olympic badges and stickers thundered past pursued by a Metropolitan police van filled with rather sinister looking coppers dressed in black combat gear and military style helmets. A smaller van followed up, this I later learned was the flame transporter. So, I suppose at a stretch, I could say I'd seen it. Seconds later they'd all disappeared around the corner by the Braunton Inn and that was that. I must admit it was an unusual sight to behold along Ashford Strand on a Monday morning.
A bit mazed and confused I called up Annie Cawood and told her what had occurred it was she who told me about the peculiar logistics behind the relay. Daft that's all I can say. We arranged to meet later in The Marshals as a few of the Lunch Club had decided on such an illustrious occasion to convene an extraordinary meeting.
I suppose I should have looked a bit more closely at the itinerary but I wasn't exactly feeling at my best yesterday and this morning. I had a two day hangover due to having spent Saturday up at Exeter  down at the Devon County Show as a guest of Taw Tarka Film and Video Services. Over the course of the afternoon I fell in with some Canadian Mounties, who have proved to be a real crowd puller this year, and after a few pints of Barum I got to explaining North Devon's link with St John's Newfoundland the beaver trade and the cod fisheries. They were all very interested one of them even claimed to have roots in Barum. Shapland was his name!
So basically the idea of a couple of pints appealed and I'd already felt as if I'd missed out on something special so I got on me bike and pedaled into Town an see what was going on.
They were all in The Marshals. Charlie Street, Ian Stokey, Wes Twardo, Ken Tisbury and old Annie Cawood and all. Blimey they weren't half jabbering on, high on the occasion and evidently a few pints of cider and orange. I was soon up to speed with the morning's events. The flame had gone out for the first time in Torrrington, the stilt walker had fallen over on the Strand and Frankie Biederman's trousers had fallen down during his stint with the torch. True.
I told them about my misunderstanding and I think I managed to convince them of the validity of my torch relay experience and we agreed they probably appreciated my support as I stood alone waving me flag on a rather barren stretch of road. Annie, whose from out that way, pointed out that I saw more of it than the people of South Molton as the town had been completely by-passed by the procession. Mind you that was probably for the best, as the sight of the flame may regretfully have given some it's citizens half a mind to burn a witch or two.
As we were talking BBC Spotlight came on the TV and we all watched the happenings on the big screen. At that time the torch was limping through 'Combe. Until that is along the High Street, just before they got to Oxford Grove, the flame was passed over to well known local Christian and ex-triple jumper Jonathan Edwards. We agreed that this was a canny move on the part of the organisers as to be better safe than sorry they'd got someone who could run fast if required. It was amazing that going passed McColl's some scally didn't skulk up to him to ask if he had a light and any change so that they could get a bus into Barnstaple to visit a 'friend' in hospital.
The last we saw of the relay was a long shot along Combe Martin High Street framed within a view out to sea, there were crowds and crowds the and the sun was shining brightly. Smashing. It gave me goosebumps. Ah Devon.


Thursday 17 May 2012

Diners left mixed-up as scrambled eggs off menu

I’ve been abroad for a bit, first time in years so I’ve missed out on whats been going on in recent weeks. As soon as I got back to Barum I gave Anne Cawood a call to see if she could bring round the Journals that I have missed all the time I’ve been away. Blimey, there’s been plenty going on and I feel as if I’ve been missing out on a quite a bit. Turns out, I have a lot of catching up to do.

I couldn’t help noticing this story as I have had a similar experience myself up there at Sainsbury’s  cafe. I feel there is a lesson to be learned somewhere in this story.

A bloke called Danny Wooliams, a local estate agent, was amazed when staff at the cafe refused to cook him and his lady friend scrambled eggs. Oddly, they told him that the scrambled eggs hadn’t been delivered that day but they would happy to do him a fried one. Young Danny by this stage was beside himself as it turns out it was his friends birthday and he wanted to treat her to a Full English. Now, myself I like an egg on egg breakfast and last week when I was staying in a hotel in Orthez France mind you I got a few queer looks when I went along the breakfast buffet and asked for fried, scrambled and poached eggs all in one bagette but the French fella seemed happy to dish it up. I suppose France is a country known for it’s cooking. Lovely. Anyway, Danny was so perturbed by this state of affairs that he went to seek out the store manager, he was hungry, disappointed and desperately wanted answers. The manager explained that the egg powder for scrambling had not been delivered that morning. At this point Danny’s suspicions had been confirmed. Sainsbury’s use powdered egg for their scrambled dish. The manager went on to explain that bizarrely they don’t have chefs up there, they only have cooks whose culinary skills only extend to heating things up. Danny was bemused by this and rather predictably he puts it all down to health and safety concerns, nothing to do with the fact that he is actually in a sandwich bar next to a supermarket and not down at the rather fine breakfast buffet in the Royal and Fortescue Hotel.

So there it is, the lesson to be learned. If you actually want a cooked breakfast patronise an establishment that actually cooks one. The Fortescue’s breakfast while bleddy lovely is a little on the steep side and also you have to dress up a bit when you go in there. I’ve been turned away by the liveried doorman several times when I’ve turned up in my waders. No for me it’s the Market Cafe all day breakfast which tickles my fancy. Very good value all served in convivial surroundings. Also upon request they’ll be more than happy to do you you an egg on egg platter.

Friday 30 March 2012

Mk II Golf catches fire in Fremington





THERE was drama in Fremington on Tuesday evening when a car burst into flames on a busy residential street.
At around 6pm Mike Tetley's Mark II Volkswagen Golf caught fire on the junction of Elmlea Avenue and Oaklea Crescent and was ablaze for around five to ten minutes before the fire service arrived to extinguish the fire.
Mr Tetley said he had just left his house and was turning the vehicle around when it suddenly caught fire. He said: "I heard the car back fire and didn't think too much of it but my mate Jason shouted to me that the back of my car was on fire."
Mr Tetley jumped out of the car and within a minute it was engulfed with flames, he said. He also said that while the car burned there were several loud explosions. Mr Tetley's friend, Jason Wonnacott, who lives on Elmlea Avenue, called the fire brigade.
Smoke poured from the vehicle and a crowd of around 100 residents came out to watch the fire, before the a fire engine turned up. Three firemen wearing breathing apparatus put out the fire using a hose and carbon dioxide extinguishers.
The car was eventually removed, leaving burn marks and deep holes in the tarmac where the fire melted the road surface.

Thursday 8 March 2012

CSI North Devon

I was glad to see old Charlie Street up and about the other afternoon. I was doing a bit of weeding on the old bank behind my place when I heard him calling up from down below on the cycle path. He made a joke "You can come and do mine when you've finished that".  I told him he couldn't afford me. Jokes a joke. As I was just finishing up I asked him if he wanted to come in for a drop or two of the Ostlers that I was given at the wassailing do a few weeks back. Lovely stuff. Charlie wheeled his bike in and we sat down on the porch with our juice and a view out over the Taw delta. I was happy enough to sit there in the glorious spring sunshine and take it all in while Charlie mumbled and muttered on about his recent aliments. Turns out he'd been off his legs for sometime, some sort of mystery virus, shingles or something. They couldn't do anything for him up at the NDI but after spending a while up at Exeter he was now on the mend and glad to get back on his bike. I told him he looked the picture of health and he'd be back to his old self in no time with a bit of exercise and some . "Be bugger it comes to us all" was he's response. I told him I had a way to go before I caught up with him as he must be near eighty if a day.


Crime scene
He then started telling me about his step nephew, Cain who had been in trouble with the law recently. I know the bloke he meant, hapless little sod if ever there was one. Always furtively darting about the town lanky greasy haired to say he looked like a ferret would do ferrets a diservice. The same thing goes for weasels. Always in trouble, been in and out of prison for one thing or another countless times. Nice lad really just a bit dim. Not quite the full quid as the Aussies say, an expression which would have been all too familiar to Cain if had committed his crime 150 year ago. If he wasn't in prison he'd be on community service  He'd cut the back the whole of the Old Stickepath Hill and cleaned out all the rubbish that the students had tossed into the bank over the course of one summer with the amount of hours he was sentenced to put in. They say he single-handedly keeps the old folks home up at Hele in a fine state of repair. Anyway it turns out that this time he is facing prison once again and the judge is not going to be so lenient with him now that all of his five or six kids, I think it is, have started school. Also, the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary want to make an example of him as he is a "prolific thief" and they wish to illustrate the effectiveness of the new advances in technology that they have at their disposal to detect crime and apprehend criminals. 
Turns out the daft bugger had joined a fitness club down at Mill Road and after one zumba session he stayed behind in the changing rooms till closing time when he ventured out and proceeded to empty the vending machine of a few dozen cans of Lucozade Sport and a heap of loose change before making his escape by way of a conveniently open toilet window. After fleeing the scene of the crime and weighed down by his swag he had the none too bright idea of breaking into a garden shed and stealing a wheelbarrow to help him cart it all back home. He obviously made it without raising any suspicion as by the time the police arrived at both crime scenes the perpetrator was gone. To start off with the police had nothing to go on, no fingerprints, no witnesses nothing just two seemingly unrelated crimes save for being committed within a similar time frame and location. However, just as they were finishing a sweep of the garden crime scene an eagle-eyed copper discovered a discarded can of Lucozade Sport which had been flung into a flowerbed. They had the lead they had been looking for and a link between the two crimes was soon established. Cain must have got thirsty carting off his load and with the added effort involved in  breaking into the shed he must have opened one of the cans in order to isotonically replenish his energy. Now comes the the clever part. The Policeman then suggested to the Scene of Crime Officer, SOCO,  that maybe they could scan the can and see if any DNA could be found which could provide a match with DNA stored on the national database. At first they laughed him off not really appreciating the input of a uniform plod, but the officer insisted, believing that this would be the only way that chummy would be nabbed.So reluctantly the can was sent off for analysis. And a few days later it turned out that a match had been found and it was none other than Charlies' errant step-nephew. Over the course of his criminal history young Cain has provided enough DNA samples to get himself cloned. He is now up at Exeter on remand awaiting sentencing. If it weren't for the dogged persistence of the officer on the beat Cain would now still be at large rather than behind bars where, according to the local newspaper which carried the sensational case on it's front page, he belongs.
It's amazing what they can do with technology these days. After Charlie recounted this yarn it put my mind to thinking. I hope they don't try and extend this DNA database, testing for all, and start looking back into unsolved crimes as I could be truly for it. That was a chilling thought. Not that I have ever done anything too bad, just run of the mill country stuff, opportunistic stuff. No harm done. I reckon there must be a few evidence bags stashed away in the cold case unit up at Police Headquarters in Heavitree with my DNA all over the contents. Just my luck if some jobs-worth with a DNA tester takes another look at that old shoe that was found stuck in a bog out at ............. I'm not that mazed I could put myself right in it. Hah they couldn't do that do that, could they? It doesn't bare thinking about. 
I kept my thoughts to myself as Charlie and I finished off the Ostler's while discussing potential advances in crime detecting technology. I've seen that police proceedural programme CSI a few times and Charlie's missus is a fan. So we mused on the idea, which isn't too daft, of a North Devonian version of the popular crime franchise. Instead of CSI: Las Vegas you would have CSI: Ilfracombe, CSI: Miami could be CSI: Westward Ho! CSI: New York, CSI North Devon. I might mention to this to my media mates at Taw Valley Video. I could be on to something here