Poundbury to Holne

First stop, the Waitrose opposite the Duchess of Cornwall, where we lighted upon a remarkably cheerful checkout lady. Perhaps late twenties, perhaps pregnant. In which case BH observed that hormones were probably accounting for her cheerfulness. In any event, it was a pleasure to be checkout out by her. Even if the kabanosi, from Austria rather than Poland, were not very good. Minced too fine, too dry and with too much red colouring.

Second stop, the butcher round the corner, where we learned all about the mysteries of gluten free rusk for sausages. Apparently after trying various things, they found that pea flour worked the best, a granular version of which was also used to make the breaded schnitzels. So six plain sausages and a kilo of chuck steak, this last sold tied up in the round.

No trolleys lying around, so clearly the wrong sort of housing estate. And there was a Ferrari parked up outside Waitrose. Which said, Poundbury is actually a rather democratic sort of place, catering to all sorts of country people, with something for everybody turning up in the Duchess.

For some reason I yawned for most of the drive down to Buckfast Abbey, where we broke the journey to Holne, rather as we sometimes use National Trust places. Everything you might want except petrol and cash machine.

Mutant nettle?

Slug free?

How do they manage to keep the slugs off their hostas? A place where they get plenty of rain and plenty of damp off the Dart just below, which one might have thought would make it a good place for slugs. Surely they don't use pesticides? Or do the slugs get stopped in their travels by the white chippings, despite their being held down with some kind of resin, which must take away from their sharpness?

Araucaria

A fine young araucaria, planted as a memorial, probably in the winter of 2008-2009.

Curious leaves

Sadly, I did not think to count the leaves in the rosettes, and I cannot tell from this snap, so I will have to pay a visit to the one up the road. See references 3 and 7.

High Altar

Tiling

The tiling in front of the high altar reminded me of the much older tiling in a similar position in Westminster Abbey. We wondered, for the second time, what it would take to persuade this new abbey to lend their replica of the Aachen Barbarossaleuchter to the old abbey, where it might look rather well. See reference 4. However, a quick look at reference 5, suggests that the home of the real thing is more like Buckfast than Westminster, so who knows. Perhaps we need a computer simulation to help us decide? Perhaps the people from Liverpool noticed at reference 6 could help?

Altar piece

Onto the lady chapel, to try and find the sanctuary light (I think it must have been there), where I had a sit in the quiet, the chapel being reserved, when not in use, for private prayer and reflection. Despite not much liking the new stained glass altar piece, snapped with the altar above, the space itself was impressive. In part because of its deep silence, so silent that I could hear the blood running around my ears.

A good visit.

Having arrived at our cottage and settled in, we thought to take a walk around 1700. On which we were stopped about 100 yards down the lane by a downpour, for which we were not adequately dressed. Bottoms of trousers sodden in minutes. Streams of water running down the lane. Despite which, by the following morning one would hardly know that it had rained.

In the evening, after the rain, it was quite cold in the cottage and we were at first reduced to sitting wrapped up in blankets. But eventually, more by luck than judgement, we worked out how to work the night storage heaters (first noticed at reference 1), after which everything was fine.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-old-and-new.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/05/fake-70.html. Flowers on the table in the cafeteria at the Abbey.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/05/cds.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/10/canopy.html. I notice that I had trouble tracking down the proper name of the canopy. On this occasion, I had trouble once again, trouble which was resolved by Bing turning up the relevant blog post. I wonder about the route Bing took to get there. How much was it helped along by knowing about me and my search history?

Reference 5: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbarossaleuchter.

Reference 6: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/01/abbey.html.

Reference 7: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/05/fives.html.