Lydford Gorge

What is it about 4 day weeks? They somehow seem longer than the normal week and everyone is more tired by Friday than per usual. And so it was with us.

On Saturday, we headed to Lydford Gorge. It is a National Trust property on the outskirts of the Dartmoor Forest (not a forest anymore cos there are few trees but more a moor where lots of people get close to nature by walking in boots and carrying heavy looking back packs - one of the closest thing to tramping we have seen). Lydford has a deep gorge with a water fall (known as the Whitelady Waterfall) dropping 30 metres close to where we had our picnic lunch - apparently if we fell in the pool and saw a white lady we wouldn't drown - we didn't try it as she may not have appeared to us kiwis. There are also heaps of trails through the forest and down the ravine which were fun to wander around, take lots of photos and simply enjoy the lovely spring day with the blue bells and wild garlic. There's the Devil's Cauldron whirlpools caused by softer rock being eroded away over time, instructions on how to build a home for every living creature you do or don't want in your garden, a castle (built originally as a prison around 12th century), a church and a Norman Fort (well a mound of dirt covered in grass).

We drove back through the Dartmoors - rather picturesque moors - where black faced lambs hadn't learnt the road rules and bounced around and in front of the car, miniature ponies grazed along the road side and families played beside the Hound Medieval Tor (the remains of four 13th century stone farmsteads which stood out against rather a flat landscape).

England has lots of legends - these are stories that might be true or might not be true. I definitely believe the ones about the Gubbins family though. They're a family that are short and stocky with a mop of red hair (possibly about the size of a leprechaun I think) - and we looked for them every where (apparently they can out run horses so a bit hard to spot). I did wonder if the little person dressed in blue was a Gubbin in disguise.

Sunday was rest day. We did a bit of cooking as friends were coming around for tea, bought a new vacuum cleaner (third time lucky they say), some mats for the car (long time coming), and a new mat for the kitchen (other was 'trip over the curled edges with a hot pot' territory). We also looked for a new mattress for our futon (the current mattress is a 'sore back when watching tv and sleepless nights for our guests' type of mattress) but didn't find anything so that is another days purchase. It was also Mothers Day in New Zealand (it is March in England so have great problems remembering it in May) and so enjoyed long chats with Sharon and Aaron, Mike and Becks and my Mum.
News is mainly about all the MPs stretching their expense accounts to pay for everything for their 2nd home in London (like saunas and massages, three outfits of different homes in a year, two toilet seats, kit-kat bars - you can imagine the fuss).