Clovelly

I had always wanted to go to Clovelly ever since Mum came back from her trip a few years ago and described a quaint little fishing village built on the side of a cliff. So we headed off on Saturday....We had plenty of time on the M5 to look at the range of caravans and trailers that Britons take on their summer holidays as well as bike racks. The racks are either the conventional ones that are attached to a tow bar, or sit on the roof or on the trailor or are attached to the back of a hatch with belts and buckles. We rather liked the look of the latter (after thinking of the difficulties of getting a bike onto the roof of a car) and may investigate the possibility if we want to take our bikes on holiday with us. The day was foggy with drizzly rain - but somehow this added to the atmosphere of Clovelly. We wandered down steep cobbled streets, where no vehicles are allowed and donkeys used to carry heavy loads but now people pull sledges, past little gardens and stone houses. Donkeys still live in the village but now only offer small children rides, live in comfort in a barn and are adopted by the locals every year. (One donkey was called Kiwi). Although the village dates back to the 14th century it wasn't until the early 1900's when one of the family members who owned it, took the seriously deteriorating fishing village under her wing and renovated all the houses, church and hotels. Each house has a date above the door, not signifying when it was built, but rather when it was renovated. It is still owned by one family (the Hamlyn's) - the second only in hundreds of years. The town was home to Charles Kingsley, the author of 'Westward Ho' (which is a little town not far away) and poet of 'for men must work and women must weep' . Little did I realise that this poem was about men who risked their lives daily in fishing boats - perhaps I never read the whole poem thoughtfully as a teenager. You could imagine the harbour confronted by a storm at high tide and the life boats setting out to rescue those on a ship in distress (the topic of many of a historic novel set in England). But today the town had a tranquility about it that was not disturbed by the weather or the number of people wandering around it. There were few seagulls (I think reflecting its cleanliness) and boats going nowhere in the harbour due to low tide. We wandered along the beach to the waterfall, where I suggested going under the waterfall with the umbrella was a good idea. 3 people jumped at the chance, a Dad, Harry and a young teenager to the amusement of those close by. We could have started a business 'hire an umbrella for 20 p'. The water that fell from the cliff formed a stream under the stones we walked on and in places people had piled up the stones to see the flowing steam. After picnicking in the rain we drove through many small towns, past what I think must have been hotels for tired coach travellers and the Exmoor National Park up to an altitude of 500 metres (where scotch heather and 'bonsai' gorse grows), through hedges and trees just turning colour for the autumn. We had dinner in a 400 year old pub in Wellington (how could we resist going there?) and tasted the best chips we have had so far (well worth an hours travel when ever we feel like chips we think). Moments of the day - when Harry seriously told me that the red tarmac on the downhill side of the road was a special 'anti grip' tarmac (I think he meant 'anti slip') and I seriously misread the name of a little town on the map called Shillingford. Today,marks three months since we left NZ - it seems so much longer in many ways and yet such a short time in other ways. There is so much more to see and do and yet I can feel the pull of home every day which just confirms what I already knew - home is where the people that you care about are.