Chez Katherine

We got up early on Friday morning - it was still very dark - and set off for the port at Caen at about 8.30. The first thing of note, as we passed through La Vieille-Lyre, was a brand new sign announcing its twinning with Eardisland, the village in Herefordshire we had heard about last year, but of which we have heard nothing since.
The mist along the road gradually cleared, the temperature increased and after one brief stop we reached Caen early and had time to look round. N inspected the arrangements for foot passengers, ready for when - we hope - next year his Auntie Connie and cousin Delia will come to visit us from their home in the Isle of Wight, by ferry first to Portsmouth and then to Caen, and be collected by N in the car.
Despite the fine weather and calm sea, N - who does not consider himself a good sailor - sat quietly by a window for the whole voyage and refused to consider lunch. The ship was larger and better fitted than that of the Calais-Dover crossing we had taken in May, and took about three hours; the journey home was in a different ship and took far longer, but more of that later. So I had a sandwich on my own, and later went and sat in the café with a cup of tea, some chocolate and a magazine, and it suddenly felt like my afternoon tea breaks in the office canteen. I was very glad it wasn’t!
The ship docked at Portsmouth and we drove along the south coast towards the west - inconvenient as the low afternoon sun was in our eyes the whole way. We went though Dorset and into Devon, neither of which I had ever been to before; beautiful countryside with green rolling hills and golden trees, less harsh than the Normandy landscape but similar with its cows, apple trees and adverts for cider and cream. I saw a signpost down a lane to the sea marked Farm Holidays and thought of the Famous Five. We were accompanied by lovely English music on BBC Radio 3 all the way, but couldn’t really find anywhere to stop for tea as we were neither on motorways nor in town centres. In the end we found a primitive cabin in a lay-by selling large mugs of tea - N asked for a sausage roll which turned out to be several fried sausages in a bread bun, and I had an oversized toasted tea cake. Both of these rather spoiled our dinner!
Our excellent satellite navigation took us directly to Bobbie & Guthrie’s front door, arriving at about 7.30 pm. We were all pleased to see each other again, and we were shown to our « room » - the beautifully converted attic of their bungalow.
Throughout the week we were wonderfully well looked after - fed marvellous meals and picnics, and taken to so many interesting places; they had devised outings for us to all their favourite parts of Devon and Cornwall. It was obviously not a shopping trip - which in any case I didn’t really need after my two recent visits to the UK - but I did ask if I could to go to Marks & Spencer’s to get a Per Una dressing gown I wanted, so one of the first things we did on Saturday morning was visit a new shopping centre called Drake Circus, where - Guthrie timed me - I took 22 seconds to find and buy my dressing gown! Once in M & S, N decided he wanted to look for a raincoat, which took a bit longer to choose and buy; Bobbie and I fitting him in and out of various models until he settled on a nice short green Italian one.
That morning we looked at several interesting parts of Plymouth; starting from their home in Plymstock via Drake Circus to look at the Mount Batten breakwater, Drake’s Island and the Victuallers Yard - a large set of buildings dating from the 1820’s built to provide and house provisions for the Navy; mainly Bread, Beef and Beer. The buildings were now being developed as exhibition centres, flats and a waterside café where we stopped and had coffee. After lunch and what they called an « intermission » (nap for those so inclined; I sat on the sofa with my embroidery) we spent the rest of the afternoon walking in Plymbridge woods, one of their favourite haunts, and very pretty to look at; I took lots of photos.
In the evening, as well as cooking us a Thai dinner, Guthrie was busy recording both world cup rugby matches, involving France and England and trying to avoid knowing the scores until he had had time to watch them the next day. The rest of us - certainly me - were being secretly pleased that both France and England had won.
On Sunday our drive took us via Totnes - a fascinating place where there was no time to stop, and where the little craft shops and bookshops were all closed anyway, and on to Dartington, where N had been on music courses many years ago; I had never been but had heard a great deal about it. The grounds and the chapel were beautiful. They took us to the Dartington Cider Press Centre, a series of interesting shops where we all spent some time, mainly trying to find postcards, and where N chose jars of chutney, lemon curd, horseradish and brandy butter, and I bought an apple corer, ready for this year’s crop of nice round apples back in Normandy.
We then visited a delightful house and garden with the equally delightful name of Coleton Fishacre, built for the D’Oyley Carte family in the late 1920’s. After eating our picnic lunch in the grounds we toured the house, now restored by the National Trust to its former 1930’s glory with the aid of a contemporary issue of Country Life. It was a beautifully laid-out house, with lovely furniture and fittings, and one particular set of curtains I fell in love with - a large black and cream pattern reminiscent of tulips. They turned out to have been designed by Dufy and the National Trust had had to get the material reprinted from the original design blocks. In the drawing room a pianist seated at a grand piano was playing Noel Coward, Ivor Novello and Satie, and there were many photos and programmes featuring Gilbert & Sullivan operas.
In both the house and the gardens, which we walked round afterwards - on many levels and containing a gazebo and woodland - we kept wishing we could have been weekend guests there during the 1930’s. There was a path leading down the cliff to a private beach and a cove; while looking at the sea we saw a seal swimming on his own, but too quickly for me to get a picture.
On the way home we took a ferry over the river to Dartmouth, one of several ferries that week, a pretty town with coloured cottages in rows high up by the river, interesting little streets with small shops, public gardens and a view of the Naval College up on the hill. There were also some very large fierce seagulls, who turned away very shyly when I tried to photograph them. There were posters advertising visits to a nearby house where Agatha Christie had lived; I felt this explained why so many of her stories were set in seaside houses, or on trains leaving from Paddington. Since returning home we have seen a Poirot story on TV entitled « Plymouth Express »!
We then drove along Slapton Sands, a bleak strip of land between sea and inland water, where all the inhabitants had been hurriedly evacuated during WW2 so that the American forces could rehearse the Normandy landings.
Monday was a very different kind of day; N and I went by train to Bristol to visit his old university friend John. Guthrie drove us to the station, and we caught a train which had come from Penzance and was on its way to London. The first part of the journey ran along by the sea, pretty in the pale sunshine with only a few grey-haired holidaymakers to be seen, and went through Dawlish, Teignmouth, Bridgwater, Taunton and Exeter.
At Bristol Temple Meads station - an impressive grey brick edifice designed by Brunel - N and John managed to recognise each other and we were driven back to the house; a large, square early Victorian semi-detached with the front door at the side. We had lunch in a high-ceilinged dining room filled with stringed instruments - John is cellist and his wife a viola player - then retired to the drawing room where there was a coal fire, and the two men reminisced over coffee while I sat quietly with my embroidery, occasionally helping out when N forgot some detail of our present life, but the talk was mostly of lecturers and professors at Nottingham University.
John suggested we went out to have a look at a near-by part of Bristol University where he had taught for many years, so we walked through several streets of similarly large houses and reached the university buildings, surrounded by the second-hand shops and bookshops one might expect in student area, and were shown places where John had had rooms while teaching. I noticed we were walking along Whiteladies Road, which seemed a familiar name and then saw we were passing BBC Bristol where many wildlife programmes are made.
When we returned to the house John’s wife was home, back from her day’s teaching in a nearby girls’ school, so we had a quick cup of tea while she talked to N, mostly about violas, rather in the manner of an interviewer, I thought. She had certainly heard as much about N as I had about John! It was then almost time to catch our train back to Plymouth (as N said, it was rather nice being chauffeured around like this) and having invited them several times to come and see us in Normandy and/or Paris, with or without musical instruments, John took us to the station.
The journey back - on a train which had come all the way from Edinburgh - was mostly in the dark, and we ate the last sandwich available in the buffet, together with some crisps. Guthrie was waiting for us at Plymouth station, and there was some excellent vegetable soup ready for us at home.
Tuesday was the only wet day of our stay, and plans were rearranged accordingly, so this was the day we visited the Eden Project, much of which was under cover. It involved crossing from Devon into Cornwall - many jokes about crossing the border and needing our passports - via the Tamar Bridge, dated 1961, by the side of an older but equally impressive bridge, another design by Brunel.
The Eden Project was very well designed and set out; there were car parks all around the site - all named after fruits, we were in Plum 1 - and shuttle buses leading into the centre. Everything was well displayed, and for once there were more than enough toilets, washbasins and hand driers, together with notices saying all the water for flushing was recycled rainwater, and not to worry if it was discoloured, as it was quite healthy!
Two of the giant transparent domes - or Biomes - were devoted to Rainforest plants and to Temperate plants; we visited the former first. It was warm and clammy, and full not only of plants and trees, but of sample houses from different parts of the world and helpful recycling messages and information about the uses of plants, different kinds of wood and spices.
It was then time for lunch; N was pleased to have found a real Cornish pasty at last, B & G joined him, but I went and found a sandwich. In the afternoon we visited the Temperate Biome, a little more comfortable and familiar as it started with an Italian looking garden full of red geraniums in terra cotta pots, but also took in many other types of landscapes including California. After that we progressed to a third dome where we watched a very good little film describing the mission, purpose, design and creation of the Project. When we’d arrived in the morning I had seen intriguing notices with the invitation to « Knit a River », which we caught up with as we came out of the little cinema.
I never really discover the ultimate purpose of it, Bobbie said it was to raise funds but we didn’t see how. There were long, long strips of knitting in various shades of blue suspended on the walls behind a round table on which were eight or nine bundles of unfinished knitting; one just sat down and picked one up, and knitted for as long as one liked - a variety of blue and white wools, designs and stitches. Bobbie and I sat down and joined in, but only managed to get three or four rows done before the men folk wanted us to move on. I said to the woman responsible that I had only just begun knitting again after 25 years; she was intrigued and when I told her about the charity knitting she produced leaflets all about it, trying to promote as well! She agreed it was a pity knitting wasn’t as fashionable as it used to be and suggested I tried cushion covers. She also said the strips of blue knitting would be sewn together as blankets and sent when and where she thought they were needed.
As with all « visits » the last thing to see was The Shop, very large and extensive and full of all sorts of things to use, plant, read, play with, wear, eat and drink. In the end I only bought postcards, but N found four little rockery plants for the garden at LNL. We revived ourselves with cups of tea, and set off on the bus back to Plum 1 to fetch the car. On the way home we took two ferries (including one where we had to pay to get out of Cornwall; apparently it costs nothing to get in) and visited the town of Looe; very pretty and similar to Dartmouth.
Wednesday - our last day - was sunny again, and we all set off in the car towards Dartmoor, having been promised there would be no trekking involved. On the way we stopped briefly at Buckfast Abbey, with a large, solid church built between 1906 and 1938, and another shop where N bought butterscotch and lemon curd and I - once again - only bought postcards.
Our next stop was Widecombe-in-the-Moor, a tiny village with four or five gift shops all selling different kinds of Uncle Tom Cobley memorabilia; I was surprised just how much I could remember of the song, and once I had couldn’t get it out of my head! I bought two small pieces of china, so that I had a souvenir of the song, but Bobbie had already bought N a little booklet with the words, music and pictures. We also looked in the church - rather grandly called Saint Pancras - and read all about The Great Thunderstorm (or Thunderftorm) of 1638 when the church was struck by lightning.
We went on and had a very cold - but delicious - picnic in a village called Postbridge and stopped to admire (and photograph) an old stone bridge over the little river. Between all of these stopping places we covered a lot of Dartmoor itself, driving in between flocks of sheep, and various cows and ponies and being shown some of B & G‘s favourite walks; N wanted to see the Hound of the Baskervilles, but fortunately he didn’t seem to be available. The plan had been to visit Tavistock on the way home, but it was filled with stalls, parked cars and closed roads for the Goose Fair so we just had to drive on through it; a pity as it looked interesting. In the evening we went out for dinner, to a restaurant we had been shown on our first morning near the harbour, where we all ate and drank extremely well.
Our boat back from Portsmouth to Caen was due to set off at 3.15 on Thursday afternoon, so we had variously wondered whether beforehand we should shop at Sainsbury’s (rejected on the grounds that we had bought so much in National Trust shops and stocked up at Sainsbury’s in May) or visit The Mary Rose, something we both wanted to do last time we passed through Portsmouth, and even more so having seen another TV programme about it while in Plymouth.
In the event there would have been no time for either, as we took far longer than the four hours or so it had taken on the way there, having got lost when our satellite navigation told us to take the fifth exit from an extremely involved roundabout, when we weren’t sure which town we were heading for. Briefly, we went round in several circles including at one point turning the car round in a tiny village to the bemused looks of a teacher and a crocodile of small children in maroon uniforms walking back from the church to their school, obviously wondering what a this French car was doing in the middle of their quiet village.
Eventually we were back on the right track and had time to stop in a Little Chef for some lunch outside Portsmouth. We decided if and when we go to Plymouth again, it would be much better to take the ferry directly there and avoid this drive, which at best takes four hours and has no good places to stop en route.
The boat back was very large, very impressive and very empty. The crossing took about six hours in all, and we had reserved reclining chairs looking out on to the sea; very interesting as we left Portsmouth harbour (at least we saw The Victory, which made up for the lack of Mary Rose) but the blinds were closed when it got dark, before we reached Caen. There was a cinema on board, showing American films which did not appeal, but I investigated the shops and cafés and took food and newspapers back to N, who did not require much having eaten an Olympic Breakfast (whatever that might mean) at the Little Chef, and once again, was Sitting Quietly.
This meant he was rested and ready for the drive back from Caen to la Neuve-Lyre, which took about two and a quarter hours. The last stretch from Bernay was particularly strange as we usually do this in the late afternoon on our way home for tea, having filled the car at the garden centre and supermarket, and not on dark roads without a soul in sight.