Far From the Madding Crowd

Health warnings issued (at 32.2C or 89.9F, normal for many places) but here roads melt, train lines buckle, grass fires erupt, and 650 dead in nine days. Oh my god is this really happening in Britain? Does this prolonged heat wave mean the globe is warming wonders sceptics? Nah; can’t be true, especially if you tell me its manmade…makes me feel guilty, so I have to go into denial. Anyway, it was as hot as this in the 1980s says sceptic.

After months of gloomy greyness, and limp summers, the glorious sunshine is welcomed by me.  And I am grateful for a Victorian brick house, which defies insulation, with its sash windows easily forming vectors of cool air. Nevertheless, the sun is blistering and quite treacherous from about 1100 to 1500. I’m not complaining but my body is, especially my heart.

Look forward to opportunity to get away from the heat~trapping concrete jungle that is inner London. Soon heading off to one of my two most favourite locations in England…Devon; the Lake District being the second.

Turnstile Cottage is in a secluded spot located a little way away from the other houses in a small hamlet nestling in the foothills of Dartmoor National Park, pictured above. The cottage is bordered by farmland to the north and a wood to the West, which leads directly on to the moors.
                    
A few yards from the cottage is a river that lulls to sleep at night, then gurgles and gushes as it demands your attention at the merest hint of a return to consciousness. 

For a change of scenery just about 30 minutes drive away are some of the most beautiful beaches in the country (although nothing is as fabulous as the beach at Craster in Northumberland, which the locals insist visitors keep secret). But this one in Devon holds its own, far away from the madding crowds and arcades with their infernal slot machines.


Can’t come quick enough for me.

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