Sleepy Time

For a variety of reasons, I'm putting The Leat to bed for the time being. Apologies to the few people who've enjoyed reading.

Thurlestone

A village and a rock formation, but not in one.

Today was spent performing family duties interspersed by a visit to Thurlestone beach where we found waves - for Clover - pebbles - for the camera - and an easy to follow coast path for Ros.

Here's the pebbles (with scenery attached) ...

Here's the waves (but not the ones Clover chased) ...

And this is the bole of a tree ...

For the overly enthusiastic, here's a long shot of Thurlestone - the rock not the village.

Dizzard!

It being Easter and no doubt some appointed day amongst such an amalgum, we went to the beach. But not just any beach - Crackington Haven is, for the next few months, dog free - so instead we went to Dizzard, or to be more precise, Foxhole Strand, a stretch of pebbles and shingle sitting below looming cliffs composed of angled rock strata.

Here's the view back towards the cliffs south of the strand.

Here's a similar view but with a handy pool in the foreground.

And here - cheating because the batteries died today - are the rock strata as recorded in 2008.

Another thing that separates Dizzard from Crackington Haven is that while you are unable, by law, to remove rocks and pebbles from Crackington, at Dizzard ...

Which one's you favourite?

The final attribute of Dizzard is its suitability as a swear word. And this isn't a simple thing you understand. A swear word has to be useful in a variety of literary circumstances. As a noun - you Dizzard - as a verb - I'll Dizzard you - and so on. I'll leave you the reader to find a use for it.

Ripples on Crazywell

It's certainly the case that locations are variable. Last time at Crazywell, the pool was becalmed - at least until Abby put a paw in - this time there was something more than a breeze. Let's call it a biting wind! It was Winter's Return, which is certainly good enough for a Fantasy Sequel, but not, notice, the final volume; that would have to be something hopeful and stirring.

I could go on and on given that introduction, but that's not the purpose here. We did a loopy walk yesterday - me, Ros and Clover - parking beside Devonport Leat above Burrator, following its course to climb the Cascades, before dropping down to Crazywell and from there onto the track to Norsworthy. The hardest part of the walk was the climb back to the car, but the coldest was the ascent of the Cascades.

So, given the conditions, here's Crazywell without a mirror-smooth surface. Bad for reflections, but great for textures.

A quick note on Crazywell. The pool isn't, especially in this kind of weather, a standing, stagnant bowl of water. The cutting you can see in the photo above serves as an outlet and, apart from the usual run off from the surrounding slopes, there's a definite inlet with its own little waterfall. As such, Crazywell is much like a toilet cistern but with a pretty constant inflow and outflow, and given that, it will never rise much above the level you see in the photo. It can, however, fall if there's a sustained drought.

And texture ...

There's a side bar there somewhere. I'll play with that.

Subsequent note, pictures on the sidebar seem to be restricted to a silly number of pixels, so no textured distraction - at least until I can find a work round.