After the church it was time for coffee and a scone at the Dart cafe just across the lane. The café has very mixed reviews online. Some very enthusiastic and others accusing the proprietor of ignoring people in favour of talking to his regulars. I can easily imagine both being true. He certainly does engage in a lot of conversation with the regulars. But I like the place still. Perhaps it works for me because in the absence, and sometimes the presence, of notices saying that there is table service my practice is to walk up to the counter and say what I want. I'm rarely ignored at that point and if I am I just walk out, there is always another café and if I were merely in need of food I would buy something in the nearest supermarket.
The view of the retaining wall of St Saviour's churchyard from the café
Morning lover Go the route you've chosen darling Drive carefully It was so nice to meet you To play with you To be fucked by you Next year for definite Keep in touch please Bonnie xxx
@22Michelle Thank you but don't you don't think the outfit of the day was a bit dowdy? I like the top but paired with the black skirt it seems a bit dull.
@ninalanyon Obviously the original, 13C, "planning permission" document for the church still exists for that lovely translation to be made. Presumably it is kept locked safely away somewhere, perhaps in Exeter; but it is sobering to consider if many documents from our time will exist and be readable in 800 hundred years' time.
The building seems to have something of a chequered history. Most of that structure is not 13C. Was it heavily "restored" in Victorian times?
Pity the turret clock has not been restored to working order.
@ArishMell In the those times the number of documents that existed was minute and surely almost all were more significant than the vast majority of documents are now. I wonder if the problem will be not that too few documents survive but that too many survive and that seeing what is meaningful and what is dross will be difficult in eight centuries time.
It wouldn't be especially difficult to print significant documents onto long lasting media and in human readable form. But how is one to decide which documents to preserve like that? Documents that exist only electronically often do not outlast the organization that creates them, computers and the disks inside them get discarded or reused. Magnetic and most optical media have lifetimes measured in decades rather than centuries. I have boxes of 3.5 inch floppy disks that are mostly unreadable now despite being less than thirty years old. and most computers produced in the last twenty years don't have the necessary hardware anyway.
But perhaps the two situations will not be so different. After all in the thirteenth century and earlier producing documents of any kind was a laborious and expensive business that few could perform and few could afford, so much of life went unrecorded.
@ninalanyon Well that's just made me realise I didn't drink any cider this summer, something I usually enjoy. My reduction in alcohol consumptiom is probably responsible, but it has surprised me. Problem is reducing alcohol seems to have been compensated by increasing cake and chocolate consumption!
My holiday is almost over. I think I probably should stop calling it a holiday.
Spending five months of the year travelling is not really what the word holiday connotes for most people. It's simply the way I live, it's more hobby than holiday. Some people chase Pokemon, I chase places I haven't been and places I have found I enjoy.
After much deliberation I have booked my Channel crossing. I did consider taking the ferry from Harwich to Hook of Holland because that will shorten the driving time by a few hours on the far side. If I could catch the right sailing it would only be about 40 GBP more than the Channel crossing. But I can't get to Harwich from Hook in Hampshire for the 09:00 sailing without getting up at a ridiculously early time or staying an extra night somewhere closer which of course adds even more expense for no personal benefit. The evening sailing is 40 EUR more expensive and I'd rather not spend that for no real gain. So I'll just go back the way I came on an evening sailing from Dover. A Better Route Planner (abrp) says that including deliberately (and theoretically unnecessarily) charging to 80% at Dover before driving to the terminal it's only three and a half hours so even turning up two hours early for the saling leaves me at least two hours of leeway.
