How many
birthday celebrations can you remember?
Looking back over my many(!) birthdays, there are only a relatively few
that I can actually remember. There was
my 5th, when my mom took Sara and me to Deering Oaks in
Portland, where she rented a rowboat for a wee row around the pond and somehow
got under the fountain and we all got wet:
very fun and memorable! There
was my 17th when Sara organized a surprise party for me at our
home – and invited boys (!) from my class and we all had a great time: quite a highlight for a shy person. There was my 22nd when I was
going to school in Detroit and my boyfriend took me on the back of his
motorcycle for a picnic on Belle Isle, in the middle of the river. Both my 29th and 59th
were spent with Bruce in France, and featured dinner at special restaurants. For my 60th, Bruce and I set out
for an unknown destination (to me): intriguing
and mysterious. It had all been planned
in advance and ended up in Montreal, where we saw a Cirque du
Soleil performance. There are a few others
that stick in my memory - the big round-number ones with special parties. This
one in England will join those other birthdays that I am sure to remember.
Our host,
Robin, who is a native of this area, had offered to take us to a few special
places around Dartmoor. Since we had
arrived a week earlier and had come straight to the farm from the train
station, we hadn’t seen anything of the area.
So we were interested in our first stop, the small village of Lustleigh,
not far down the road. The road to
Lustleigh was a paved lane, really, just big enough for one car and bordered on
both sides by high hedgerows that obscured vision of the fields and landscape
beyond them. It was a bit like driving
through a green, leafy maze. Along the
way, we would catch glimpses of beautiful old stone homes that must have been
at least a century or two old.
CHARMING!
Robin and Woofer Lisa in the village of Lustleigh
Lustleigh itself is old and charming, too, with thatched roof buildings clustered around a stone church. There is the requisite pub, which we found, complete with a massive stone fireplace and low beamed ceiling. Ahh, the atmosphere! Being that it was before noon and just the start of our day, we opted for interesting sparkling organic fruit juices, produced locally. Robin ordered an elderberry flower drink, for example. It was a pretty busy place on a Saturday. We chatted with the owner, a friend of Robin, and discussed the merits of blueberry juice drinks.
Our first
real destination was Buckfast Abbey, a centuries old abbey which, like many
others, had been ordered torn down by Henry VIII when he was rejecting
Catholicism. Reconstruction was not
completed until 1938. The stained glass
windows were remarkably beautiful, done in an old method with chunky pieces of
glass which reflect the sunlight more fully, creating brighter colors.
Buckfast Abbey
The second
part of our outing was a tour of the moor.
This is an area made famous by Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca and more recently as the setting for the movie War Horse. It is high and rather barren looking, with
grass that is kept short by the grazing of sheep, cattle, and wild Dartmoor
ponies. Most of this area is part of a
National Park. Princetown, a town in the
moor, is so named because it falls within the area that is traditionally owned
by the Prince of Wales, currently Prince Charles. He, in turn, rents out the land to farmers
who pay him rent to keep him in beer and skittles. The residents of this area are quite fond of
Prince Charles, actually, because he is a good landowner who cares about the
land and the way in which it is tended.
wild Dartmoor ponies
On this day,
the wind was blowing hard on the moor, so we opted for a more sheltered area
for our picnic lunch, beside the gently flowing Dart River. Mossy rocks were scattered over the riverbed,
and we settled there to eat the sandwiches that we had prepared before leaving
North Harton Farm. Upriver just a bit, a
couple of guys were fishing on this spring day.
And before we left, a hardy mom and her 8 year old son, in bathing suits,
came to the water’s edge, looking like they might take a dip in the chilly
water.
perfect spot for a picnic
Back in the
car, we headed off in the direction of Princetown, riding through more wide
open spaces of high moor land. Princetown is
the location of the infamous Dartmoor Prison, dark and forbidding. The story goes that escapees have been known
to come back, knocking on the door and asking to be re-admitted, such is the
harshness of the moor in winter.
infamous Dartmoor prison
Dartmoor Museum explained the history of the moor, the farming, tin mining, even the presence of an American army base and hospital during WW II, and a display describing the filming of Spielberg’s War Horse.
Back at North Harton Blueberry Farm, Wei-Wei had
been doing a lot of cooking and preparation.
The birthday festivities included balloons, fun animal masks, delicious
homemade sushi, and a birthday cake. We ended the day by
watching War Horse and seeing the area that we had just visited.
I felt very celebrated and was so appreciative of the kindness of Robin and Wei-Wei. Except for the fact that most of my loved ones were far away, it had been a delightful way to
usher in a new year!
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