route back. No wild ponies loomed up out of the mist, just the usual screeching pheasants. And the occasional crow. I’m grateful for the fact that Castor has no trace of any kind of hunting instinct: it would be difficult to wander around as we do with a different kind of dog. But he trotted along as usual, ten metres behind on the way out, ten metres ahead on the way home.
We also came upon ‘that woman’s grave’, as Mr Tawking put it. Surrounded by a circle of low, windswept trees is a small metal plate on a wooden stake: In memory of Elizabeth Williford Barrett, 1911–1961 .
Nothing more. It didn’t look like a grave. I thought it was probably where her ashes had been scattered in this private little memorial grove.
Who was she? And why this barren spot? No more than a hundred metres from Darne Lodge. She only lived to be fifty years old, and I thought I ought to find out more about her. Not today, but in due course. She is my nearest neighbour after all.
I had lit a fire before we set off, and the house was warm when we got back. I had my breakfast in peace and quiet while reading the first thirty pages of Bleak House . It’s difficult to grasp that the description of a London fog in the opening chapter is a hundred and fifty years old. It could just as well have been written today. I haven’t read all that much Dickens, but Martin has always rated him highly. Maybe I’ll make it routine to read thirty pages of Bleak House every morning: that would make it last for a month, and then I can go to the antiquarian bookshop in Dulverton and buy a new Dickens. Why not? I need to build up my day-to-day existence around practical rituals – now is a time to proceed prudently, not to dismantle everything.
When I look out of the window and compare my Exmoor mist with Dickens’s nineteenth-century fog it feels as if it were a living being, just as he claimed. A sophisticated and intelligent enemy intent on encircling, penetrating and swallowing up everything. As patient and methodical as a virus, it needs bodies with as much energy as the sun to defend themselves in the long run, and needless to say the environment Castor and I have done our best to create will submit eventually. But I think that in fact it is just a variation on the old, familiar theory about the incorruptibility of life and death and the forces of nature, and I persuade myself that I should not succumb to passing whims. And concentrate on outliving my dog, as I have said before. Make decisions and stick to them. Fog or no fog.
Shortly after eleven o’clock we got into the car and set off for Exford. That is a village slightly larger than Winsford: two local pubs instead of one, a separate post office and general store, and with plenty of overnight accommodation for passing visitors. We bought a newspaper, then continued north-westwards over the moor: I suspected that this was the part of the moor that Mark Britton had referred to. But there were no views at all of the Bristol Channel and Wales which were allegedly visible on a clear day.
Then the road sloped steeply down into Porlock, before following the coast to Minehead. I had consulted the map carefully before setting out, and stopped occasionally in order to establish exactly where we were.
Minehead is a real town – no doubt a tourist destination of significance in the summer, but comparatively deserted at this time of year. We parked the car, then walked along the main street – The Avenue – to the sea. We found a launderette, where I eventually managed to fill and start two machines after various problems, and not far away was an open internet cafe. I bought tea and scones, and with Castor under the table I opened our mailboxes for the first time since we left Sweden. First my own, and then Martin’s. I must admit that my heart was racing. I hadn’t taken our own computers with me, but was sitting at one of the cafe’s six slightly old-fashioned setups: I had the impression that
We also came upon ‘that woman’s grave’, as Mr Tawking put it. Surrounded by a circle of low, windswept trees is a small metal plate on a wooden stake: In memory of Elizabeth Williford Barrett, 1911–1961 .
Nothing more. It didn’t look like a grave. I thought it was probably where her ashes had been scattered in this private little memorial grove.
Who was she? And why this barren spot? No more than a hundred metres from Darne Lodge. She only lived to be fifty years old, and I thought I ought to find out more about her. Not today, but in due course. She is my nearest neighbour after all.
I had lit a fire before we set off, and the house was warm when we got back. I had my breakfast in peace and quiet while reading the first thirty pages of Bleak House . It’s difficult to grasp that the description of a London fog in the opening chapter is a hundred and fifty years old. It could just as well have been written today. I haven’t read all that much Dickens, but Martin has always rated him highly. Maybe I’ll make it routine to read thirty pages of Bleak House every morning: that would make it last for a month, and then I can go to the antiquarian bookshop in Dulverton and buy a new Dickens. Why not? I need to build up my day-to-day existence around practical rituals – now is a time to proceed prudently, not to dismantle everything.
When I look out of the window and compare my Exmoor mist with Dickens’s nineteenth-century fog it feels as if it were a living being, just as he claimed. A sophisticated and intelligent enemy intent on encircling, penetrating and swallowing up everything. As patient and methodical as a virus, it needs bodies with as much energy as the sun to defend themselves in the long run, and needless to say the environment Castor and I have done our best to create will submit eventually. But I think that in fact it is just a variation on the old, familiar theory about the incorruptibility of life and death and the forces of nature, and I persuade myself that I should not succumb to passing whims. And concentrate on outliving my dog, as I have said before. Make decisions and stick to them. Fog or no fog.
Shortly after eleven o’clock we got into the car and set off for Exford. That is a village slightly larger than Winsford: two local pubs instead of one, a separate post office and general store, and with plenty of overnight accommodation for passing visitors. We bought a newspaper, then continued north-westwards over the moor: I suspected that this was the part of the moor that Mark Britton had referred to. But there were no views at all of the Bristol Channel and Wales which were allegedly visible on a clear day.
Then the road sloped steeply down into Porlock, before following the coast to Minehead. I had consulted the map carefully before setting out, and stopped occasionally in order to establish exactly where we were.
Minehead is a real town – no doubt a tourist destination of significance in the summer, but comparatively deserted at this time of year. We parked the car, then walked along the main street – The Avenue – to the sea. We found a launderette, where I eventually managed to fill and start two machines after various problems, and not far away was an open internet cafe. I bought tea and scones, and with Castor under the table I opened our mailboxes for the first time since we left Sweden. First my own, and then Martin’s. I must admit that my heart was racing. I hadn’t taken our own computers with me, but was sitting at one of the cafe’s six slightly old-fashioned setups: I had the impression that
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