I haven't written much about the history of any of the places we've visited during our U.K. tour, although the history is ever on my mind. We study much of this history throughout our education and the history is readily available in any guide book or publication about these places. I suppose I take English and Scottish history for granted.
As in the rest of Europe, the history of wars feels more prominent here than it does at home. At home, I think of the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, and I remember blackouts and ration books during World War II, trains passing our back yard carrying huge tanks and other war equipment, and other inconveniences of war. But since the Civil War, war hasn't been a real presence in our land, as it has been here.
There are many here who who remember being bombed and shelled. They remember soldiers marching their streets, air raid sirens, evacuations, and all the reality that war means in your home town. Those people are my age and older. We see many people our age and older here - so much that the fact almost shouts at us, so we know there are a good number of people here who remember those days with strong clarity. Their reality is different from ours.
There are monuments everywhere listing the names of those from the local area who were killed in the more recent wars of the 20th century. Every time we've been to Europe, I've been strongly reminded that war in these towns is recent history, not long-ago past history.
Exeter experienced a blitz in 1942, and so much of the ground we walked on yesterday came under heavy fire from the air, and the buildings were either destroyed or severely damaged. A sign posted on St Stephen's Church tells something of the story of wars in Exeter. I thought it was interesting and well put. We made a tiny contribution to the effort. We like to leave a little of ourselves behind when we can. We don't really make a difference except when we are included with others who are working to make a difference together.From our balcony
The view from our balcony is ever changing as the tide ebbs and flows. Last night, I watched some swans frolic in the water; and out of nowhere, it seemed, I heard a strong beating of wind as two swans flew close to our balcony on their way to join the others. There must have been at least six, and maybe eight swans moving about in the water.
This morning, I watched as two long-legged birds - probably herons, with about 6 birdlings between them, walk to the water and gracefully settle themselves in and swim away. Was it a couple? Or maybe two moms?
The distances are too great for me to be able to get a precise view of all that's happening out there in the marsh, and my camera will pick up only fuzzy figures, but I can tell there is activity everywhere.
As I watched last night, a plane took off in the distance from the water, and as it neared me, a huge flock of birds - probably gulls, took flight as well. It was a beautiful sight to watch.
Touring too many days in a row
As I went to bed last night wondering why we were so tired, I realized we had been traveling nearly all day every day since we left Scotland. That's four days in a row. We usually break after no more than three days, and we had passed that mark with our trip to Exeter yesterday. Today will be our fifth day on the road as we travel through the southern part of Cornwall; but the forecast is rain for the remainder of the week (including thunder tomorrow), and we want to get most of our touring in, in this region, before the rains start. We'll rest on Thursday and Friday, preparing to get back on the road on Saturday morning. I'm sure those two days will refresh us and make us anxious to be on the move again.
Knitting
I might be able to finish the fifth hat before we leave here, too. The hats go fast, but I knit only when there's nothing else for us to do and when we're "home." We're still playing a round of cribbage (three games) twice a day, most days, and there's meals to prepare and other things to do even here at our lodgings, so my knitting time isn't as much as one might expect. Having those needles and "wool" at my fingertips has been a lifesaver, though. I have no idea why knitting is so settling, but it's my thought that if everyone knitted, emotional therapists would go out of business.
Trip to Cornwall
We had a glorious trip to Cornwall today, to Lands End and the cove at Semens. Breathtaking. I'll publish pictures and write more about the trip tomorrow. At Lands End, there's a shop there that says it has fresh Cornish Pasties baked right on the premises daily, but they had only cheese and onion pasties. We weren't too interested! So on our way out of that place, where we had to pay 3 pounds just to park our car, we drove down to the cove at Semens, parked free, and found a place that had steak pasties - and so we met our "have Cornish Pasties in Cornwall" goal.
And speaking of Cornwall, the Duchess of Cornwall apparently paid a visit to a local area today. I didn't catch the place name, but I'll probably hear it 5 more times before I go to bed tonight. BBC is like CNN Headline News - repeat the news every 15 minutes. Well, we missed Camilla, wherever she was today, but we did look her up on wikipedia because we became curious about how her title came about. You can read about it, too, here.
BBC
We've watched some fun shows on one of the BBC channels here. We believe BBC has the broadcast industry sewn up - whether radio or TV - there's BBC One, Two, Three, and so forth, and BBC Radio Devon, Cornwall, Pirates (this must be Penzance), Scotland, or wherever you happen to be. One of the things BBC does on radio that's really neat is that they interrupt whatever station you're listening to with really good traffic reports when there's problems. As we get to know a place, we listen carefully to see if we're impacted. Today, during our trip, we were informed of traffic both in Devon and Cornwall on those roads we were most likely to take during our drive.
This morning on BBC, we heard that the Queen and Prince Philip were visiting Turkey, and then we heard something about a scarf. We didn't catch who was going to wear it, and we wondered all day. When we turned on TV this evening, we learned that it was the Queen who wore it, when she went to the Mosque. In my opinion, the Queen is quite a dame. I like her style!
Rain, rain, go away by morning
We had a nearly rain-free day, and while we were at Lands End and Semen, we had wonderful sunshine, heightening the intensity of all we saw. Beautiful. And we had a pretty good drive there and back, stopping at the grocery store before coming back to our condo. We got over her to the hotel, where we hook up and connect to broadband, before the rain started, but we were no sooner in the door than it broke loose. The roof in part of the lobby / restaurant / coffee lounge started leaking, and the people who work here were scurrying to find buckets and rags to sop it up. I took a few pictures. We'll see if they turn out, and if they do, I'll post them tomorrow.
Weather permitting, we'll be looking for nearby hiking trails the next two days. But if weather doesn't permit, we have our cribbage board, computer games, and (best of all) my knitting - plus TV or radio, whichever is most interesting at the moment.
It's really thundering outside. I guess it's time to close down this computer before the lightening closes it down for me! More tomorrow ... weather permitting!
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