Tears to the right of me, laughter to the left – here I am
Escape to the country
The looming approach of Christmas always makes me nervous. The dark evenings and colder weather do not, in themselves, upset me as I know they do some people. But I do feel a need to escape at this time of the year, particularly from the relentless cheeriness of Christmas ads and far too early jollity.
So, I’ve had a short manic spell of gadding about before we have to hunker down for the onslaught of festivities. (Or rather, before we have the plumbing company come and refurbish our shower which, like so much else in the house, is currently defunct! – and, unlike the rest of the house, can’t just be cleaned and tidied in the hope that people will be able to turn a blind eye. More than tripling the occupancy for the best part of a week with no shower facilities might not be wise, even if we ARE all related.)
Anyhow…
At one day’s notice, I book myself a train to Barnstaple in Devon, and three nights in a town centre hotel at a bargain price so that I can complete two long but completely flat sections of the South West Coast Path. This will leave me with just over 50 miles to complete the path, which I plan to do in the Spring – hopefully with friends and family and, of course, to enormous fanfare!
As with previous short visits, I base myself in the middle of the two-day stretch which in this case conveniently has a railway station and a good local bus service so I can be completely independent. On the first day I take the bus from Barnstaple to Appledore and then walk back (approx 14 miles) and on Day 2 I strut out from the hotel, amazingly refreshed after a night’s sleep, and head for Croyde where I am able to catch a bus back to Barnstaple.
Not the most exciting of walks, but possibly the largest number of miles I have covered over two consecutive days on this path. For the first time on the path I listen to pod-casts and music to while away the hours, because much of the route is unremarkable, and there is no wave-crashing accompaniment for most of it. The route largely follows a disused railway line alongside a river estuary. This now serves as a bicycle superhighway according to friends who did this part of the path in high summer, as well as a route for the South West Coast Path. My friends got completely frazzled by the endless stream of lycra passing close by them. Fortunately, late November is not a busy time for cyclists in these parts, even at the weekend, so my encounters with mad bicyclists were few and far between, and almost all heralded by a tinkling bell or gentle vocal alert that they are ‘coming through’. Rather convivial in fact.
Even on the long straight bits, there’s always the sky
The first day I manage to reach my hotel before it gets dark and I have time for a quick shower before going downstairs for a pre-booked early supper. This is good and I’m early to bed to rest my weary, but still functioning, limbs. On day two, my legs are a little less impressed with my antics. Despite some upbeat tracks on Spotify, I am flagging by the time I reach Saunton Sands, a haunt remembered from my childhood. I stop and order myself the obligatory pasty (in fact a vegetable one which is presumably much healthier than the obligatory one) and stagger to some rocks at the nearest end of this enormous expanse of beach. As I munch, I idly watch a nearby bunch of ladies of a certain age (my own age, oh dear) potter down to the sea together in their brightly coloured cossies, bob around for a few minutes and then return to wrap themselves in those newly fashionable oversized drying/changing/warming coats, never stopping their friendly banter throughout. I wait for them to leave the beach before packing away my now empty paper bag and can of pop and attempting to stand. This is harder than I expected and I find that my legs have unilaterally (hmm, there are two of them – should that be bi-laterally? Either way, they did not involve ME!) decided that it is bedtime and they are not going anywhere till morning. This is a slight problem because I have at least one further mile to cover to reach the bus-stop for the return journey, and some of that will involve the only upward incline of the day.
Eventually, I bully the legs into a gentle limp across the sand and up into the dunes – well, I can’t just sleep on the beach because the tide is coming in. Silly legs – the very idea! Once I am above the high-tide line, I proceed to bribe them with a promise of Maltesers and a bath which gets me up onto the headland, which in turn seems to ease whatever muscles had seized and allows me to speed up a little as I realise how soon the bus is due.
Those legs- and the bag full of promised chocolate
At last, the finish is in sight and I throw caution to the winds as I almost hop and skip across a stream on Croyde beach to avoid a detour to a bridge upstream. Finally, I haul my weary self across the road and towards a capacious and seemingly welcoming bus shelter. Phew! Just ten minutes to spare.
I am suddenly aware of a flick of a towel and a flash of a youthful ankle. My aching limbs grind obligingly to a halt, just in time to avoid a full-frontal encounter as my still lively brain (haha – if you believe that, you will surely believe anything) deduces that this shelter is being used as a changing room for post-dip teenage surfers. Waiting a short distance away and, of course, demurely averting my gaze, I realise that there is a small gang of youths taking turns in the shelter while the rest chat loudly above the sound of hip-hop music blaring from their open-doored car just across the road.
I resist the temptation to break into song (predictably I don’t know the words) or sway to the beat (even swaying is a little beyond me at this point), and am more than somewhat relieved when the bus arrives on time. An initial pang of disappointment that it is a single decker, which means I won’t get my preferred views from the top deck, is replaced by realism and relief as my legs remind me that they are no longer talking to me and I had better not expect many more steps out of them today, especially not stairs.
I’m now slightly scared by the level of seized-up-ness I experience on the very short stagger from the bus station to my hotel. I don’t recall ever being quite so incapacitated. Of course, I dutifully remove my boots at the hotel entrance and, rather than sensibly opting for the lift, I sneak painfully up the two flights of stairs to my room. (So there, stupid legs, you don’t win that easily!) Perhaps this helps a little, who knows. By the following morning it is as if I had never done those miles. How the body heals itself can sometimes be miraculous, and is certainly mysterious. And nothing whatsoever to do with the enormous number of chocolate biscuits and Maltesers consumed in bed in lieu of going out for dinner.
A couple of further observations from this trip which I wrote down immediately at the time.
(1) Breakfast at this hotel (Royal & Fortescue, Barnstaple – not as posh as it sounds but a rather nice family business) is served in an impressive former bank building which is a restaurant in the evening, and doubles as the hotel buffet in the morning. Here’s what I wrote in the heat of the moment after my last breakfast there –
“It being mid-to-late November, the hotel is making the most of the upcoming season and has begun Christmas parties. There is a huge Christmas tree in reception, which looks a little different each morning as they tweak it – it’s certainly still not quite symmetrical to my mind – and last night there was a full festive dinner table laid in the private dining space. Carols playing and everything. This is great for the hotel and I wish them well. Not so sure I agree with the playing of horrendous Christmas tracks at breakfast though. I suspect it was not deliberate and I hadn’t the nerve to challenge them about it. The staff seemed completely clueless today – including greeting me at the breakfast check-in station with a ‘Are you here to check out?’ (Er, I’m not wearing my coat, have no cases with me, this isn’t Reception, it’s breakfast time and I’m in the breakfast area. Just tell me which table I’m supposed to sit at!), then saying « Thank you’ to me as I head for the buffet with the red red robin a bob-bob-bobbin along with me – as though they think I’m finished and off to my room. OK, so it was my third trip – perhaps they were dropping a hint – but who confines themselves to fewer than three trips, especially when one’s table is so small it can barely fit a plate of eggs and bacon and the cup of coffee and the toast they always bring at the beginning when I want to eat it at the end.
Actually, on the first day I was brought tea instead of coffee. I spent several minutes wondering if perhaps I was so befuddled (it being 7.30am, a time with which my brain is no longer overly familiar) but I can’t imagine my subconscious or conscious mind would ever come up with ‘I’ll have tea please’ – no, not ever. Unless, unless, unless …”
(2) Part of the enjoyment for me in these trips is the journey there and back. I say that, but it is often not entirely plain sailing. Here’s what I wrote as I was propelled back to London by God’s Wonderful Railway. Apologies for the stream of consciousness rant.
Sitting on the train – already a bit miffed because the train is clearly not configured in the usual way (I know, I have done this trip or similar many times) and my reserved seat which is supposed to be in a Quiet Carriage is clearly not (like that worked well on the way down here, with a couple of biddies a few years older than me – probably – nattering at just too many decibels for me not to be able to tune out to read my book. I was actually reduced to selecting a White Noise option on my Spotify for the first time ever, and it was excellent – just like being on a plane, which in turn made me nostalgic for those days of overnight flights. As these invariably ended with a tremendous banging migraine regardless of the number of glasses of vino or complete abstinence, I’m notsure why I loved it so much.)
Back to my point – sitting on the train and trying to read my book now that I’ve settled in a seat which isn’t the one I booked, but nor is it the one that another chap had booked and turfed me out of (note – I didn’t even bother asking the bloke who was sitting in ‘my’ seat to move. None of the booking lights were working, and it was quite clear this was one of those free-for-all days – perhaps the staff enjoy watching the fights and seething power play that ensue.
This time, it’s not slightly-too-loud-but friendly nattering, but a furious woman who wants to complain to the world that the GWR ticket person at Taunton wasn’t very sympathetic when she couldn’t find her ticket, after having a dreadful taxi ride that nearly made her late, and didn’t help her by magically finding her ticket for her or waving her through without a ticket at all, and by the time she eventually found the ticket, which was down the side of somewhere or on her phone or something equally predictable, there were only nine minutes left to make it across the bridge to the correct platform. (NINE minutes? That’s about seven and a half more than most people would actually need – oops being catty now!).
I hear this story related at length on the phone and then again when the onboard ticket inspector appears. Unlike his evil Taunton colleague he is a veritable paragon of patience and diplomacy. I would give this man a medal, or an Oscar, for his performance in which he does not for a moment acknowledge any actual wrongdoing on behalf of any of God’s Wonderful Railway staff, but manages to appease (and fortunately finally to shut up) the aggrieved passenger.
And now, because I have stupidly not selected white noise again but allowed Mr Spotify to choose tracks for me, turned up loud in case there are more recounting of Taunton Station awfulness, I realise that one of my more surreal overnight flight experiences is being partially recreated in my ears by the random selection of ‘Shallow’ – oh dear, please let’s not go back there again! (Well, maybe to Australia, but not to those compulsive shallows.)
Sorely tempted to sing along. That’d show them. Give the stressy woman something else to complain about.
Just realised that tapping away at this iPad on the tiny seat-back fold-down tray is probably driving the person in front of me mad. I could already hear her tapping on her laptop, and she has one of those big tables. Actually, I can still hear her tapping in-between tracks of my Spotify playlist, and I could read it if I chose to peer between the seats. Probably writing about the annoying woman behind her who keeps sighing histrionically and is now banging away on the seat back.
Enough. Time for another adventure. More on that another day.
