Showers.

The showers continue but for the most part it has been a dry day here. Peter went into town and came home saying it had been raining heavily there while I had been happily working on the slabs without a drop falling here. I'm getting a little quicker and a bit less messy with my re-pointing but I think the rough slabs would present a challenge to the most skilled builder.

This evening we had a dinner invitation from Gemma, who used to live with us, at her home in the middle of a forest an hour's drive the other side of Barnstaple. Google maps didn't recognise the address so Gemma met us in Holsworthy and we followed her back to her home in Cookworthy Forest. You have to drive right into the forest, past the public car park and up a track to a row of cottages that were once railway workers' cottages. It was very peaceful with just the sounds of the birds in the trees. (Now that I know where it is I found the cottage using the satellite view.)

After a tour of the cottage which they are renovating and extending, and the garden we sat outside this cabin which Gemma's partner has built, chatting and watching the dramatic sunset.  Later we ate dinner inside the cabin, a hearty oxtail stew with mashed potatoes followed by vanilla and fig cake. It was a very pleasant evening but we didn't stay too late as I had a long drive ahead of me (Peter had driven us up). Even though it wasn't late it was pitch dark with dramatic clouds framing the full moon. I wasn't familiar with the road home so I had to concentrate a lot especially as I was driving Peter's Rav. Not only did the road constantly go up and down sometime very steep hills, but it also bent first this way and then that. But that's not all, for most of the time it was a normal road with a dotted line down the middle and then suddenly it would narrow to 1 car's width maybe only for 100 yds and then widen out again. Going through the villages the road also narrowed and widened to accommodate the buildings that stuck right out at odd angles. That's what happens when the road was originally a cart track going from village to village. Finally to add a little extra spice there were strands of mist floating across the road from time to time. I just drove at a steady speed and felt a lot happier once I was back on roads I knew.

The cabin and cottage in the forest.