LETTER #4 HELLO LORNA DOONE

LETTER #4 – HELLO LORNA DOONE

A crow raucously signals the start of a sunny day. Maybe he was just signaling some road kill.Out my window I see two fat sheep grazing in a hillside pen. At the crest of the hill there are more sheep. It is the beginning of our second day and we are in Somerset. We’re headed for the sun-tossed (we hope) surf off the coast of Devon and the Bristol Channel. Our host Jan, a former engineer, who with her husband David, own the B&B we have chosen - tells me that the two sheep are pets. Their owner is a “Horse Whisperer” much in demand for her laying on of hands and curing sick animals. She visits her sheep regularly. Are they one day to become food? Certainly not. They are her pets. Raised from infancy. They will die natural deaths and will not be sent to a dog food slaughterhouse but interred with respect.

Our high hopes for picturesque West Somerset began at Taunton. The town and much of the countryside have a long and colourful history dating back to before the Civil War. No one seemed able to tell me if Taunton was Royalist or Puritan. Finally found the famous castle only to discover that the renovation s and conversion to a museum, which the guidebook had said would be finished in 2010, were still underway. (It reminded me of the Orangerie in Paris where the announced dates for finishing renovations were delayed again and again, finally re-opening last year after many years of delay.)

Taunton, like many cities everywhere, has closed a large street to traffic. This one was a little sad, almost tawdry. No chic boutiques. The restaurants – except for a Burger King and a café across the road – were closed. We had our first High Tea. It did not disappoint. Dainty sandwiches, scones (no clotted cream) quiche and other little delicacies. But that, and the outside of the castle, were all we got to see of Taunton. Getting out and back on the road was a challenge, around and around we went never finding the highway. Frustrated, I finally turned on the TomTom GPS, which refused (and continues to refuse) to talk to us. Eventually we found our planned route which would take us to our planned overnight – Washford.

After an aborted look at a B&B whose only virtue seemed to be its price, we found Jan and David in their wonderful oak-beamed cottage; “Monkscider” named for the monks who has used it as a cider mill. (This part of Somerset is apple country, but not everyone knows it. More in a minute.)

Jan, she was an engineer, and David, has was and still is a writer and magazine editor, bought the place several years ago and proceeded to embellish it, almost too much, with pictures, knick knacks and all very tasteful adornments. Our room was a-flutter with things like marionettes hanging from a rafter. Jan promised us that we must spend at least a day exploring her part of Somerset. We booked a second night and hit the road early to the next town, Williton, where we would find an ATM machine. Monkscider, like many B&Bs does not accept credit cards. On the way, a fortuitous wrong turn led us to Wachet, a little place clinging to the side of the hill leading to the sea. Narrow streets. Cunning little shops and ;pubs. A promenade with a statue of the Ancient Mariner. Below the boat basin with fishing boats and pleasure yachts.
Scenery abounds. Hills everywhere. The “highway” rolls, twists and turns, rises and falls with the hills and challenges my sense of space as cars whiz by in the opposite direction and I hold my breath hoping not to graze a mountainous hedgerow. Highlight of the day: a trip to the once-wrecked (courtesy of Henry VIII) now mainly restored Cleeve Abbey, a Cistercian monks monastery dating from 1188. Interesting conversation with the woman in the shop who sells the tickets. She complained that people seem not to know about the abbey. That day, excluding a group of students on a field trip, there were, including the two of us, just 12 visitors. Thousands are missing one of the loveliest cloisters I had ever seen, mainly restored. For the children - a treat. They are given monks robes with cowls and shuffled along, looking very Cistercian, from one stone chamber to another.

One wasted afternoon. Jan suggested w ride the steam train thr0ough and around part of Exmoor with step-off step-on stops along the way. Landscapes, when you could see them. Beautiful. Otherwise, bad advice.

We left the Abbey and stopped for a little thirst-quencher at the White Horse Inn just up the road. There I meet a young female bartender who proves to me that my notions of many young people living in their own cocooned world remain unclear about what surrounds them. Making light of it, I asked her if the beer was cold, having been served a Boddington’s pint at room temperature in Taunton. She said she didn’t know. She doesn’t drink beer. Later I asked her about apples. She didn’t know. “You are in the heart of apple country. Look there -a tree full of red fruit.” She hadn’t noticed!

In fact, when I told Jan the story, she was appalled. Said she’d speak to the owners who happen to be friends of hers. In this part of the world everyone is “friends,” even though unless your great-great-great grandfather had tended sheep on the hilly pastures, you were still (as they say in the Maritimes) “from away.” Jan said that was the way it was.

I told her about having read in the wonderful novel “Maine” about an Irish-American family from Boston’s “Southie” – and the comment that Americans all seem to want to be from somewhere else. After generations the family in the book clung to their Irishness. I commented about a sweet lady we had sat next to on a bench in Thornbury. She was English to the core. I got the sense, and I have always had it, that the English are English, even if they come from somewhere else. Sometimes that clinging to heritage can be annoying when you have English friends who have lived in Canada for thirty years and still speak of “home.” Another story.

Dunster Castle was next. A huge well preserved (thanks to National Trust) castle with a view of Bristol Channel. A storied castle that was seized by the Royalists and then besieged by Cromwell’s forces. The walls are covered in portraits, more than a few by the likes of Joshua Reynolds. The usual elaborate bedroom and formal sitting rooms. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to see palm tress thriving in the beautiful gardens.

More hills and narrow-escape roads take us to Selworthy which is, according to “Back Roads of Great Britain” is a must-see for its collection of thatched roof cottages. Ho-hum. Not worth the drive, except for those wonderful moments where you came to the crest of yet another hill and the countryside spread before you.

Next morning said farewell to Jan and headed for Lynmouth. But on the way, a breathtaking view of everything from the famous Porlock Hill. Drivers are advised to avoid the steep hill, especially in the rain, and take the toll road that winds its way via numerous switchbacks to the summit and heart-stopping views of the sea below. Even more enthralling was the twisting “toll road” through a lush rain forest. Canopies of green. Enormous tress, looking like the famed Douglas firs. Along the way you pay a toll and proceed through more woods. Suddenly you break free of the forest and drive along the narrow roads at the crest. Below you is Lorna Doone Country – Exmoor, where the Doone brigands terrorized the countryside and Blackmore got his inspiration. The result was the book almost everyone read in high school lit.

On and up and more up. Then the descent began into Lynmouth. There is a hall memorializing the death of 34 people. You could see why. Even after a bit of rain, the Lyn rivers poured in a torrent from the gorge. Stopped for pictures and my first Cornish pasty. Flaky, delicious and we’re not even in Cornwall.

The rest of the day was a waste, except for a long drive along a one-car-wide road to Barnstaple. That was a stop we could have missed. Wandered around the town fruitlessly looking for the once important waterfront. Gave up. Back to Thornbury the fast way.
Next – we go look for the “man with seven wives.”