Restormel

Friday morning I drove to Restormel Castle, which never saw much military action and was built more for show than for use anyway. It was only used actively for a very brief period during the Civil War, and that was pretty much the end of it. The design is peculiar in that it is completely circular. Of course, there were lots of other buildings surrounding it, but there's nothing left now, just a small park.

All pics here.

Presently a park, this used to be the outer court.


The castle.


Inside the castle.


You can clearly see the outline of the fireplace.


I think these enormously stupid birds are pheasants? Possibly partridges? I've seen them several places here in southern England and their behavior towards my approaching car is always the same. At first they display a degree of intransigent refusal to accept my existence, then they go into panicky flight modus, and at the end they go back to completely ignoring me. Never has the expression "birdbrain" been more appropriate.

Dartmoor

Dartmoor is one of those dark, windy places that I've always heard about but had no effin idea where was. Upon researching this trip I found it, in Devon, bordering Cornwall. On the map it looks huge, until you realize that this is England, and adjust your mental scale by a factor of ten.

Before I left home I made sure to read Sherlock Holmes and "The Hound of the Baskervilles", since it takes place on said moor. Things have softened up a little bit since the days of Holmes, but it's still a windswept, dark and lonely place. It is also intensely beautiful in its own way... but first and foremost windswept.

It is home to the usual suspects of ponies, sheep and cattle - all of whom can be easily seen along the way. I got the fright of my life Thursday night when I drove back to my hotel from a pub and my lights hit what seemed like a big, looming animal at the side of the road. It was just a pony, sleeping upright as is their wont, but for a moment I was mentally back in Norway, preparing to swerve for a fuckin moose.

A very few people live within the borders of the National Park, mainly making a living off of farming and tourism or a combination thereof. When I visited I didn't see many people around; I guess tourist season was over. Some of the roads are extremely narrow, and there are places where you can stand and look in all directions and not see or hear a living thing. Ah, bliss!

All pics here.

Sheep. Long effin horns on them things.


Cow. Can some biologist PLEASE explain to me the evolutionary benefits of looking like a bee?


Pony. As you may notice, the common thread of these animal pics is that they're eating all the time. It's actually quite difficult to get in a picture of them in any other position. The grass is so short this time of year they have to stuff face pretty much every waking hour.


Pony. Uh. Dog. This old girl had weighed 100 kilos (220lb) in her prime, but she'd lost some weight the last year, or so the owner told me. Still a mountain of a dog, and very, very friendly too. Fortunately.


The Devonshire Riviera in the distance. Don't laugh.


I forgot the name of this tor, but I climbed it anyhoooo. The wind was so strong I could barely breathe at the top.


W-I-N-D-S-W-E-P-T.


The sickeningly cute little hamlet of Widecombe-in-the-moor. Yes, that's the name.


There are a couple of inns and shops behind the church. I think this may just be the most English image ever.


This bridge is thought to have been built in the 13th century.


The visitor center at Dartmoor Prison, which is still in use. They had begun their one hour break just before I arrived, and had a strict no-pics policy so I fucked off outta there.


Are you our new daddy? These two doofuses were waiting impatiently for the hotel owner's mom and the maintenance guy respectively, to return. Also, barking at everything that moved and trying to push each other out of the way to get petted. Very, very sweet.


This was the view out of my hotel room window. This is not Dartmoor, but the remaining stretch of Devon, including the city of Plymouth, beyond which lies Cornwall. My hotel was a girl's stone throw (mine) from the national park.

Quote of the Day

It is pure unadulterated country life. They get up early, because they have so much to do, and go to bed early because they have so little to think about.
- Oscar Wilde

Quote of the Day

The only thing that sustains one through life is the consciousness of the immense inferiority of everybody else, and this is a feeling I have always cultivated.
- Oscar Wilde

One itsy bitsy fuckin giant spider

Last evening when I got out of the shower at my "hotel" (more like a pub with guest rooms), I got the very first inkling that something was very, very wrong with my choice of accomodation. I normally hate anything that creeps and crawls, from the tiniest bugs and insects to small dogs - they give me the heebie jeebies. So imagine my horror when I saw this monster waiting to pounce in the far corner of my room:



I've been told that you shouldn't kill spiders, because they eat insects - to which my reply has always been: The spider, by necessity must be larger, hence more horrible than the insects it eats. Besides, I stomp on both spiders AND insects, no worries. Also, I suspect this spider didn't much feed on insects - more likely it feasted on dogs and small children (not entirely bad, then).

So, I rolled up a towel, smacked it so it fell on the floor and proceeded to do a little rain dance on it. In the picture below you can see life fading from its dying, multifaceted eyes - or maybe that's just my flash acting up. Anyway, Ghost 1 - horrible, creepy monster spider 0.



When I got back from the pub a few hours later I counted three much smaller, yet worryingly large spiders in my room, and that's not counting the fucker sitting in the toilet sink, which I boiled in hot water. I was too tired to go on a killing spree, and besides the place seemed like spider central, so for everyone I killed, there'd probably be ten more when I woke up. So I went to bed almost fully clothed, with my shoes placed upside down in the bed beside me. Yes, that's how much I loathe them. In the morning I got the fuck out of that place and I am never, ever going back.

Quote of the Day

Really, if the lower orders don't set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them?
- Oscar Wilde

Wincanton

Some of you will know that I have a love of all things Discworld. I have all the books, and lots more that Terry Pratchett has written and I think they're among the world's greatest literary works. But until a few days ago, I had no idea that there was a shop in Somerset that was the official salesplace for all kinds of Pratchett/Discworld related stuff. So, as the little town of Wincanton was on the road between Stonehenge and Exeter anyway, I planned a little visit there.

Then this morning, while looking for the exact adress to put into my magic placefinding machine (aka my GPS) I visited their webpage, and for the first time I scrolled down their front page and discovered to my great dismay and consternation that the store was temporarily closed due to building maintenance. Lower lip trembling and tears forming I still decided to swing by and at least get in a pic of the place.

And boy am I glad I did... As I parked and walked down, I saw people taking some stuff out of a car and carrying it inside. I asked a lady in the most lost and forlorn way I could muster whether they were closed. She said they were, and then asked if I'd come a long way. "Norway" I said, voice trembling. "That counts", she said and then invited me in.

I was in heaven. The little shop is stuffed floor to ceiling and wall to wall with books and stickers and figurines and clothes and and and... everything you can possibly think of and then some. And such wonderful, warm, kind and just NICE people working there! And funny too, them being British and all. I bought one rather pricey scarf, which was made in Oxford. So I asked if it was made from students' hair, being so expensive. "Yes", answered the blonde behind the counter. "Virgin hair".

One older guy came out from the back room to shake my hand when he heard I was from Norway. He told me he'd just come back from a Discworld convention in Germany and related a little story - apparently "Lili/Lily Marleen/Marlene" had been playing and he'd been whistling along. Now, this is a tune well loved on both sides of the Second World War, something the Krauts aren't always aware of. So some Kraut had asked him if he knew the tune. "Oh yes", the Brit had answered, "my father used to sing it". "Oh", said the Kraut, "and where had your father heard it"? "At El Alamein", answered my Brit friend. Priceless.

We chatted a little, and he told me some more anecdotes about his father, who'd also been to Norway and helped the Norwegian Free Forces mop up some stuff up north just after the war. He wasn't sure about where this happened, but apparently his father and some friends had "liberated" a whole cellar full of wine and spirits the Krauts had left behind, and he'd been full of praise for the Norwegian girls...

As he turned and walked into the back room again, he confirmed to me the wit that makes me adore the British so much. He said he was going in for a nap as he'd had "a long journey from Germany", and then mumbled as he went: "though not as long a journey as Patton..." Only a Brit could have made that kind of quip and I love 'em, I love 'em, I LOVE 'EM for it.

A cat was occupying a chair in the store.


Cunning artificers indeed!


This was a small pub just upstreet from the Discworld shop. This is the kind of thing you see all the time in Britain, as they don't have quite the same concept of political correctness as the US, bless them.


So wonderfully, innocently offensive. I luvvvv it.

Stonehenge

So. I went to Stonehenge. I'd been warned that it was somewhat underwhelming, but that doesn't even begin to describe it. It's a fuckin pile of dirty stones, is what it is, and there's nuffin to see there that a nuclear bomb wouldn't improve upon. My mood wasn't exactly improved by the fact that it was raining sideways, but really there's NOTHING to see or do there except stand and stare at some fuckin rocks.

Stones from afar.


Stones from up close. Booooooring!

Old Sarum

Old Sarum is the original Salisbury. As previously mentioned, they moved the town when the Bishop packed up and moved the Cathedral. They were simple people in those days.

Ruins of the castle. Reportedly, once upon a time it was described as the most beautiful castle in England. Now it's a pile of rubble.


Moat.


Ruins of the old Cathedral.


Salisbury skyline. Woo hoo.


The crapper.

Salisbury

Spent the night in Salisbury, which is a cozy little town. Basically, like a lot of small Cathedral towns it lives off of tourism these days and I was happy to do my share to keep the British GDP going. I got off a few pics of downtown, which was very compact. All of 'em here.

Honi soit que mal y pense - shame on he who thinks badly thereof - the motto of the Order of the Garter.


The Cathedral, which was built in the early 1200s. There were some real power struggles at the time, and king John was even excommunicated by the pope for a while. The bishop of Salisbury abandoned the old Cathedral and built a new one here on his own land, and the whole of the city moved with him. The former place, Old Sarum (the original name of Salisbury) is nuffin' but rubble now.


Nice, old buildings.


The underpass of the motorway. To think you can have ART on a wall instead of graffiti.


Hey, Beavis! They've got a sign with "FART" on it. Huh-huh! Huh-huh!

New Forest Wildlife Park

After the Rufus Stone I went to the New Forest Wildlife Park, which had lots of nice animals. I got in pics of most of the animals except the foxes, who were being vaccinated at the time of my visit (curses!). The park was much smaller and cheaper than the one I went to in Scotland a few years back, but it still had some very nice features, especially the deer. Bambiiiii!

All pics here.

A bambi with no problems being petted. One of them was so "friendly" she was happily munching on my shirt, leaving bambi drool all over me. But they're so cuuuuute... some of them are shy, but a couple of them are like dogs. They'll let you pet them, scratch 'em behind the ears, they'll wag their little tails and beg for food... the works!


Oy! I seen you go in there! I want fooood!


Baby ferrets. Also cuuuute.


Bison. Big, mean lumps o' meat.


A lynx with glowing eyes (it's the flash).


The wolves were quite shy, and this place didn't have a lookout tower, so it was much more difficult to get a decent photo of 'em.


"I'm an otter. I swim around and do cute, little human things with my hands".


Wallaby! MAAAATE!


Look at me! I got two heads!

Quote of the Day

I am not at all in favor of amusements for the poor. Blankets and coal are sufficient.
- Oscar Wilde.

The New Forest

The New Forest is one of the oldest in England. Just accept it. There are several interesting things to see here, from the remains of iron age settlements to modern day animals roaming around freely. Once you get off the motorway you're in a completely different world, an England of small villages, thick, dark woodlands and open pastures and heathland. It's very, very pretty.

Local cattle and horses graze on the land, and it is they that keep it open. They wander around on the roads and sometimes you have to be careful about not hitting them. The ponies in particular are interesting, as they are of a native, English breed. Farmers also make use of their ancient right to let their pigs roam at certain times of year.

I had one destination in mind - the Rufus Stone. Reportedly it was erected on the site where king William II, (un)popularly known as Rufus because of his ruddy complexion and red hair, was killed in 1100 - possibly by orders of his brother. The murderer, Sir Walter Tyrrell has had an inn named after him, which lies a few hundred feet from the stone.

All New Forest pics here.

All the pwetty horses.


Blithely ignoring anything and anyone who hasn't got any food.


The Rufus Stone.


Sparse grassland and chalk, sweet chalk underneath.


The Tyrrell Inn.


Inside the inn. Very cozy.