To Lyme Regis

A journey which took us a short way around the M25, a short way along the M3, a rather longer way along the A303 and then the cross-country bit down to Lyme Regis.

Starbucks - outside

Interior wall linings

Detail of same

First stop on the way was a Starbucks, part of a new complex, replicated on the other side of the road. Probably the one called Weyhill, between Andover and Amesbury. Probably operated by the people at reference 1. The Starbucks provided much better tea than we have sometimes had in some places. And while we had our tea, we admired the linings to the walls, seemingly once real timber and about half an inch thick. They looked rather expensive to me.

Done with that, we wondered about management and supervision, with the whole place seemingly run by three youngsters who did not look long out of school - if indeed they were out of school. Was there a manager looking after the two places, one on each side of the road? Did an area manager pop in from time to time - if only to attend to hiring, firing, pay and rations? Did the Euro Garages people provide a site manager who looked after that sort of thing for all the franchises?

Round the back

Second stop was at a place which had once been 'Little Chef' but which has been reborn as an American Diner. We opted to park around the back for our picnic, not spending any money in the diner at all. No-one seemed to mind - and we might even use them one day on the strength of this free loading.

Rather surprised today at the amount of information out there about all this sort of thing.  Information into which someone has put a lot of effort.

The famous dinosaur hunter

First stop after checking into our hotel, the Royal Lion, a place we have used several times now, was the church of St. Michael and the Archangel, a little way up the hill and overlooking the sea. Home to the last resting place of that famous dinosaur hunter, Mary Anning, with her gravestone having been given a wash and brush up since Wikipedia took their picture of it. I have a memory of going to a play about her at some point, a play involving, apart from her, a lot of stuffy gentlemen fossil hunters, not too keen on accommodating the efforts of a lady, and a working class one at that who made her living from trade - albeit a trade in fossils. BH claims she knows all about the play but was never taken to it. While the best Google and Bing can offer are a brand new play and a brand new film. All very puzzling.

Puzzling lock

Further puzzlement in the form of the lock to the gallery, with my failing to find any way of opening the thing or to work out what form the key might take. Perhaps one waved something at the black pad, in the way of contactless payments, but that seemed terribly up to date for a church in darkest Devon. However, back in connected Surrey, I learn that Yale do indeed make all kinds of locks which do not involve keys in the ordinary sense of the word, so perhaps Devon is not so dark after all.

Brownies

Lastly, a reminder of the way that some ships of the Royal Navy were linked to the town that they were named for, in this case H.M.S. Lyme Regis. As I type, I am unable to think of any comparable community activity nowadays; the nearest I come being the links between some churches and hospitals & asylums. Links from which most people, not being church goers, are excluded.

A miller lifted from reference 4

On the way back to the hotel we were pleased to come across the Town Mill, a sometimes working water mill towards the bottom of the small river running down through Lyme Regis, the last of what was once a number of such mills. It was the end of the season and the end of the afternoon, so we had the knowledgeable and interesting trusty - an immigrant from Wokingham as I recall - to ourselves for an hour or so. I was reminded how much bigger an operation a water mill was than a wind mill, in this case running up to three pairs of stones. The big businesses of their day. And stones which might be monoliths or which might be made up of pieces, bound to together with an iron rim in the way of a waggon wheel. While the rest of the machinery was mainly wood, reinforced with a bit of iron. We were told that the teeth of the gears were once made of apple, and now, I think, beech. We were told of the propensity of flour and flour dust to explode. Of the water mill origins of the phrases 'damsel in distress', 'grinding to a halt' and 'show us your metal'. This last one I had heard of previously, possibly in a mill somewhere to the north of Cambridge. And a few seconds search this morning turns up reference 4, so on this occasion at least, memory serves. On the strength of all this, we made the expected donation and bought a bag of wholemeal flour, for use, in due course, instead of the Canadian stoneground from Waitrose I usually use to health-up my bread flour mix.

Restaurant, with SM&A visible rear left

Rounded out the proceedings later in the day by a visit to one of the towns Italian eateries. With the staff of this one making no pretence to be Italians, in the way of most such eateries in London. At least the ones which we mostly use. Bread not up to much. Tiramisu disappointing. Grappa yellow. The rest of it all good. A place which we will no doubt use again at some point.

The wine

The label

The wine having been a Gavi from references 5 and 6. Entirely satisfactory. From the Piedmont, a place with a complicated and chequered history, but which went on to become the springboard for unification and the Italy we have to this day.

Reference 1: https://www.eurogarages.com/. One of the many operations which have slavery statements these days: 'we are committed to acting ethically and with integrity in all our business dealings and relationships and to implementing and enforcing effective systems and controls to ensure modern slavery is not taking place anywhere in our business or in any of our supply chains'. Presumably prompted by some central regulation or other, but I would have thought, dependant on journalists and other such people to keep them informed on such matters.

Reference 2: http://www.mattiadiner.co.uk/. The Sparkford site probably being the place we visited.

Reference 3: https://www.townmill.org.uk/.

Reference 4: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2013/10/two-birds-with-one-stone.html.

Reference 5: http://www.marcobonfante.com/. 'Real connoisseurs don't drink wine: they taste secrets'.

Reference 6: http://www.marcobonfante.com/resources/Gavi%20di%20Gavi%20ENG.pdf.