Dartmoor sun and splitting snowdrops
Our weeks have now settled into a pattern which involves a lot of driving up and down the country in order to spend time with my father. Normally we make a flying visit to Devon but this week we stayed longer and took a day in the middle of the visit to walk, in the morning, and to visit younger son and his family in the afternoon and overnight. It was a cold bright morning with an edge to the breeze and a milky light. We parked high on the edge of Dartmoor and walked immediately out onto the moor, heading for Cox Tor. The grass was bleached to straw by winter and everywhere stones were piled on either side, crusted with lichen. Underfoot the grass was springy to walk on. Blackfaced sheep grazed, their rumps marked red by the ram, not yet ready to lamb. They are a hardy breed to lamb up here. The tors rise up in piles of stone. They look man made but they are not, although the stone is piled like liquorice cakes. It is extraordinary...