Escape

Yesterday evening everything was soaked, after a night of heavy rain. Shining puddles dance with concentric rain circles.  A burnt orange jeep, foursquare and cheery, sits perfectly parked bettween carpark lines.  I've escaped Exeter for a quick break - sore eyed from computers and too many books as well I think.  

It's not the nicest of Premier Inns.  It looks shabby and the signposting from the road is terrible - I overshoot and find a tight lane, which promises an evening walk.  There's an open Toby carvery and suddenly, after a queasy headachey day I feel HUNGRY.  So I succumb to a roast.  Turkey, lots of veg, mac&cheese, all in restrained quantities. Oh, did I mention half of Guinness (painkiller) and profiteroles? Hmm, I can never resist profiteroles in any format, but these were a bit sticky sweet but they did the job.

A bit of middle age TV - gardeners world and a programme on John Denver.  My mum loved him, had his records - she's an Anne, and he wrote "Annie's song" for his first wife.  I sadly seem to have been born singing the songs and know most of them, to my surprise, off by heart.  He had terrible, dreadful taste in shirts and should never ever have danced with 70s dance group Pans people - awful, embarrasing,  I guess that's what I remember - parents taste in music and embarrassment - but actually I really like his songs! 

With the help of radio 4 I slept like a happy log.  Good job it was only a small beer as the breakfast room has plastic grey stools with stripy fabric tops, battered, flaky paint chairs and a floor of wood laminate chevrons in green, brown and duck egg blue.  It's a bit vibrant for the morning but hash browns, bacon and the other nice Premier Inn bits and pieces make up for feeling slightly queasy.

I shot off to Montacute and spent an hour walking in the parkland, to catch the early sun. Picked up a decent coffee after the worst cup I have ever had with breakfast.

only to find this large, furry robber drinking my water.  He would have had the coffee too, if I hadn't booted him off the table.  

Montacute is so good.  It makes me feel slightly awed, knowing that in Queen Elizabeth's day, people were walking round this house, pacing up and down the massive long gallery, admiring their new tapestries, watching the cheery plaster friezes drying, slowly.  It is that old. The honey colour Ham stone glows in sunlight, it is beautiful.  This time, a different selection of National Gallery portraits on loan - last time the gallery was full of them, this time only a few.

I enjoy looking at the faces - some look unnervingly modern - one military man, minus the silly Elizabethan beard and dressed in khaki with red tabs could be a twenty first century brigadier. One woman looks like Sonia, who was one of the characters I worked with in Transplant mastertrain, I wonder if her Elizabethan counterpart was equally miserable and grumpy in the mornings!

I finished off with a couple hours of weeding for friends - 3 barrow loads of weeds and leaves for the bonfire and my half price goretex trainers are now suitably worn in and muddy.