Torqay and Dartington

This is our friend from Torqay, Skanyrich, His family owns and manages our hotel. Rich promised us a cricket match, a barbeque and a view of the ocean and herds of wildebeast. The cricket game rained out, but two out of three isn't bad.

A view of the ocean and tennis courts from our window in Torqay.

We have breakfast with Helen and Chris in Dartington. They take us on a wonderful walk through and old estate. They're setting up for a concert tonight. Dartington became sort of a new age mecca for radicals and eccentrics after the war. Helen and Chris and I have been frequent pen pals for about seven years.

Chris is a Scottish gambler and vegetarian.

Helen convinced me to sell our house, buy an RV and adopt an indian name by writing a poem called "Bluejay and the Pink Plastic Rose"..

Bluejay and the Pink Plastic Rose

Bluejay stepped out into the new day and attached a pink plastic rose to the inside mirror of his Sundance camper van.

And the sun flashed a laser ray over his face and he was a painted warrior.

'I shall drive this van along four thousand trails' he said, 'in search of the pattern of music.'

So Bluejay drove for four thousand days along four thousand ways.

And there were many times across many lines.

There were stories and glories.

There was dark and dangerous mystery.

'Oh yes, there were faces and scars and songs and stars and yet no pattern of music' said Bluejay, as the light turned into indigo night. And the moon flashed a laser ray over his face and he was a painted phantom.

And all the while the pink plastic rose had remained attached to the mirror. Bluejay was exhausted. He tore down the flower.

'So hey' he said. 'and what are you
You rose which never dies
And what know you of joy and grief
Beneath these sacred skies?
You have no fragrance, have no thorns
You need not light nor rain
And do you dream your plastic dreams
Eternal life to gain?'

Bluejay stared at the rose. He heard a whisper through the nowhere silence in his head.

'I may be plastic, may be gold
I may be life or wonder
Some day within another time
I will be death and thunder
I run through questions, run through blood
I am both pure and tainted
There is no place of light or shade
My pattern is not painted.'

And Bluejay threw the pink plastic rose high high into the sky.

'Fly music,fly' he said.

He watched the rising sun flashing a laser ray onto the inside mirror of his Sundance camper van, and drove into the new day.

This is a tilting field...maybe they jousted here at one time?

In the afternoon we drive along the shore. This beach has a WWII sad history. It is where a U-boat caused a heavy American loss during an amphibious training operation.

Lunch and low tide.