Settling in

After a busy day at Poundbury, noticed earlier, we had a couple of quiet days before getting into the main, relative-visiting business of our visit to Devon.

Reservoir

A bright fine morning at Holne, although we were very properly warned by a villager that the warmth of the village was deceptive and that it would be cold up in the hills. And it was indeed cooler at Venford Reservoir, just up the road, which we had selected as a soft option for our first day. With Forestoke, one of at least four stokes, where we have stayed at least two times in the past, visible bottom middle. The substantial River Dart, top right. Holne itself, just off-map bottom right.

The sheepdip?

Just the place for a gentle walk, with going round twice, once anticlockwise, once clockwise, taking something less than a couple of hours. Various snoozes in the sun along the way and a pic-nic near the car park at the end. As previously noticed, the Waitrose kabanosi were not up to the standard of some of their other stuff, but the wholemeal bread from the butcher next door was fine. A touch heavy, but entirely eatable, more or less by itself, without butter or anything else.

Stone bowls

Cuckoos present in sound. One chaffinch tweeted. Much bird song but no other sightings. And I had forgotten to take the monocular out with us, more or less essential for small bird tweetings these days.

Some red rhododendrons on the fringes. Lots of bluebells. Lots of buttercups and dandelions. Plenty of the white flowers with five pairs of petals noticed at reference 3.

The stone contraption snapped above was not some form of medieval punishment, rather something to do with tin mining. Perhaps the ladies had to pound the ore in the bowls as a prelude to treatment by fire. While the stone channel, now part of the input to the reservoir, was maybe something to do with sheep, before the land was flooded?

Back to the village hall at Holne for their plant sale, where I met a local vicar. A tall, educated sort of chap, who would have done as a vicar in an Agatha adaptation or in Midsomer Murders. We did not buy any plants but we did buy half a cake, in slices, involving banana, walnut and chocolate chips, these last seeming to get everywhere these days. For the money, quite good. And having forgotten to bring any DVD's with us, we also bought a second boxed set of the Pallisers for the princely sum of £2.50, a tenth of what we paid Amazon seven years ago and subsequently donated to a charity shop. See references 1 and 2. Given their age, they are re-viewing rather well, despite my still not caring much for Susan Hampshire.

St. Sebastian

Rounded off the day with a visit to St. Mary the Virgin, across the road, just behind our cottage, to find a fine St. Sebastian in one of the panels of the ancient rood screen. Looking him up in Taschen (of reference 5), I find that it was the custom in the Renaissance to portray him as a handsome young man, more or less naked, smiling blissfully through the pain, at the thought of the fast-track entry to heaven so-earned. I also find that the arrows did not finish him off and he turned up a few days later on the steps of Diocletian's palace, where Diocletian had his guards finish the saint off with cudgels. The body was dumped in the town sewers, but this did not, it seems, stop it becoming a cult object in various places in later centuries. The Taschen painting is that by the Pollaiuolo brothers, otherwise notable for using three male models for the six cross-bow-men.

From where I associated to the holy fathers of the early church telling enthusiastic young converts - usually pretty young ladies - that getting martyred on purpose for said fast-track was not really the idea. More drawn out suffering in this world was a much better route to the next. I think I learned about this in connection with the diary of Saint Perpetua of reference 6.

Monolith

Some, but not all, of the nave columns were granite monoliths. The Broadwood piano, noticed at reference 7 at the very beginning of the piano count, was still there.

Post-war pews

Handsome oak pews, I would think from the 1950's or the 1960's. At a time when there must have been some rich parishioners, in any event a lot more of them than there are likely to be now.

Not a kneeler

In addition to a full set of embroidered kneelers, we also had an entertaining embroidered bench. I would only add that the boss lady did not have a very firm grip on entry requirements for the ark - with my being sure that the rule was exactly two of each kind, no more, no less, with just a very small exception made for us humans.

Occasional altar

Another fine bit of joinery, probably rather older than the pews and used occasionally in the nave. No regard for the Catholic rule that altars should be a stone slab, evoking the sacrificial altars of old, despite the church being quite high looking in other ways.

Surgeon-Lieutenant Alfred Leslie Pearce-Gould

Noticed more fully at reference 8. The pale cross must have been that used in the field cemetery in France, repatriated at the end of that war. He must have been very attached to Holne for his Cavendish Square parents to have put it up here. I observe in passing that one tends to forget that the navy was present in the trenches in the form of the Royal Naval Division; the lot that Churchill wanted to deploy - in his capacity as First Lord of the Admiralty - to save Antwerp from the Boche - at the very beginning of the war. I think he was overruled.

And so back to our cottage, clutching our new-to-us, second boxed set of Pallisers.

Earlier in the day, BH had discovered a slow cooker in one of our cupboards and so the round of chuck bought at Poundbury had been slow cooking all day, perhaps for 10 hours. Not bad with boiled vegetables and Villa Maria Sauvignon Blanc, although knowing what we know now, 7 hours would probably have been enough. Rounded off with a bread pudding, prepared without scales, without some of the regular ingredients and cooked in the microwave. Not bad considering!

PS: à propos of Padmore coming to Holne (reference 4), I was checking this morning to see who was on at the Shanklin Theatre this summer, to find one Paul Carrack, seemingly a serious person in the pop world. He is turning up one evening in July and is charging £45, more than double what Padmore is charging, for what one imagines to be a rather larger audience. Thought about it, took a peek at YouTube and decided against.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/2012/11/a-massive-dose.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/2012/12/literary-matters.html.

Reference 3: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/05/abbotsbury.html.

Reference 4: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/05/padmore-comes-to-holne.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/05/adie-memoire.html.

Reference 6: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/2014/01/perpetually-perpetua.html.

Reference 7: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/10/church-snaps.html.

Reference 8: https://www.chch.ox.ac.uk/fallen-alumni/surgeon-lieutenant-alfred-leslie-pearce-gould.