New Year 2

the first view from Kit Hill below is towards Plymouth. The English Channel is the thin sliver of bright light at the top right.
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The second view is of Brentor sitting in front of the main mass of Dartmoor. It is usually much more difficult to pick out from the background.
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Brentor is the little pimple like hill (plus church) to be seen just below the russet brown line of Dartmoor on the far horizon . It is a strange place (see link) with many legends (see link)

the New Year

It has been unusually cold for this part of the world recently. From the Saturday before Christmas until the middle of last week the roads were covered with sheet ice and many people couldn't even get out of their houses. Car travel was almost impossible without 4 wheel drive. After a brief milder spell, it has turned very cold again. The air is very calm and clear. The views from Kit Hill were spectacular and the quarry was frozen over for the first time in Spot's experience, who can be seen assessing the situation very gingerly (and no, he wasn't allowed to walk on to the ice) .

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and a better view from Carthamartha

we returned to Bishop's rock this morning (with permission) to get a better picture of this strangely quiet and isolated part of the Tamar valley

tamar flow

lovely colours in the Tamar as it flows over a salmon (?) weir above Endsleigh

bird at prey...when it stops raining

After seven weeks of incessant rain the sun has finally come out. It was a lovely misty morning. All the local buzzards immediately headed for their favourite perches on the top of telegraph poles where they can watch rabbits from a far. Unusually, this buzzard did not object to being photographed; too busy sun bathing.

down at Inny foot

if you are an avid reader of Spot's blog you may remember a picture of him standing by a tree in the middle of the Inny (see link). Here is the same tree, 10 feet under water. There appears to be a bulge in the water level here presumably because it is where the Tamar (in spate in the background) and the Inny meet. The water level rises dramatically under these conditions.

Below is a tangled wood photo. It turns out that this pond is by a very ancient road down to the ford at this point. In the mist we can hear the faint sound of footsteps of people long gone, tramping towards the future.