Devon and Somerset Gliding Club

Yesterday we drove great-grandma to Blackborough on the edge of the Blackdown hills, and that reminded me of a previous run and spurred me to do something similar again.

Blackdown Hills part of my track

This time I left early in the morning on this our last day in Willand, and I clocked up exactly 16 miles with elevation gain 817m. The footpaths around my furthest point in Broadhembury did not disappoint. You'll see that (in the unlikely event that you are interested enough to look) from my photos. All barefoot of course. Click on the images to enlarge.

Sunrise over the Culm valley

Footpath #1 through the middle of a field of long grass

Footpath #2 - a wide swathe through corn

The picturesque village of Broadhembury

Footpath #3 with horse

More of footpath #3, so wonderful

Last stretch of footpath #3 showing well maintained style

Ascending the scarp face of the Blackdown Hills

Stony underfoot but not bad

A glider-club airfield at the top

Sadly no airplanes though

Majestic Blackdown woods

View of Culm valley from Blackborough

I'm a wimp

12 year old Christian Li with his violin

“I’m so excited to have signed to Decca Classics just after my 12th birthday, and to be releasing my very first recording! I love playing the violin, and really hope you enjoy listening.”

When I read about a 12 year old like this I realise that I am a wimp. I aspire to musical heights but hardly lift a hand to reach them. Likewise in other areas of my life. I aspire to being an expert in my field, but I am not even sure what my field is. Jack of a few trades, master of none. I've highlighted several other musical prodigies recently. What more can I say? For time would fail me to tell of...

This two weeks chez great-grandma: the early mornings are mine as neither she nor Ali surface until after 9am. So I've listened to some music. This morning it was Tchaikovsky's 5th conducted by Manfred Honeck, a symphony I have not listened to for many years. And yet in it are themes that have infiltrated my being since my youth, so that I find myself humming them whilst running, or picking them out when I sit at the piano...

The french horn solo in the 2nd movement - way back in time when I had that reel-to-reel tape recorder I recorded this excerpt onto a small tape reel and mailed it to my Aunty Mary. Now-a-days you would just attach a clip to an email or chat but such things hadn't been invented back then. I wanted to reach out and share my enjoyment and hoped that she would respond appropriately. But there was no response and later, when I asked her, it seemed as though she hadn't even played the tape. Which saddened me.

Accepting that I am a wimp I long, at least, to in some way inspire the youngsters at home to excel, particularly but not necessarily in music. I see much potential for talent, even some desire to do well but, as a community, I think we shy away from excellence and competition perhaps because it is seen to exalt the creature rather than the creator. I wonder - what would we do with a 12 year old that wanted to practice 6 hours a day? The nearest we've had to this is when my daughter was learning to fly: a seeming impossibility at the time but it happened and this ought to encourage me to push others, but there's got to be something to push...

Great Western Canal

Click here for original

My track, 26.1 miles

The goal - to traverse the whole of the Great Western Canal Country Park cycle route on Jenny's bicycle before it changes hands, to explore the canal beyond the Country Park, and to buy some carrots for Sunday's dinner. Click here if you are interested in some canal history.

OpenTopoMap showing hill contours

So I cycled to Tiverton (6 miles) to the terminal canal basin which is strangely situated on the side of a hill. In its hay-day when used to transport goods by barge - how did they man-handle the goods from this terminus to where-ever?

Canal basin, Tiverton

Being a canal with no locks for the 11 navigable miles, the tow path is of course level and thus ideal for cycling. Being a Saturday there were lots of walkers and a few other cyclists which slows one down a tad, but altogether very enjoyable.  As my cell-phone was strapped with insulation tape to the bike frame and thus somewhat inaccessible, I took no photos till I got to the other end.

The other end of the 11.42 navigable miles

Plaque at the other end, click to enlarge

Just before the other end is a short tunnel (40 yards) which the tow path and thus I circumnavigated. The final other end was once the first (Lowdwells) lock since Tiverton. The first part of my mission complete, my next was to investigate whether the footpaths that follow the now largely dry remains of the canal from here to Taunton were navigable by bicycle. The short answer is "no"...

OS 1:25000 map

I got as far as Greenham - along the way once sinking to wheel hub depth in mud and many times pushing nettles and brambles out of the way whilst hardly balancing between hedgerows either side and finally hauling the bike over a style in Greenham. The continuation of the footpath there appeared even more formidable as so instead I detoured slightly to wash myself and bicycle in the river Tone and then returned on metalled roads via Whiteball to the A38 and thence home (8.75 miles including the difficult footpath).

One day maybe I'll drive to Greenham, park and explore the footpaths on foot, as there are what promises to be interesting remains of boat lifts, an aqueduct over the Tone and locks on the way. Although making it all the way to Taunton and back might be a tall order!  For a complete walker's map see here.

Oh - and I forgot the carrots. So, after hose-spraying the remaining mud off the bicycle, I tootled off to the nearby Co-op store thus drying the bike and acquiring said carrots in one operation.

Garnsey's Tower

I don't know anything about this chap Garnsey except that he built a tower on the brow of a hill. This site suggests it is "a decaying tower in Blackborough woods that served as shelter for whetstone miners" which is not ever so revealing. Whetstones are used for sharpening tools and can be a variety of rocks, and I didn't see any evidence of mining. But the tower served as a focal point for the run-cum-hike barefoot which included several major footpath segments.

15.2 miles, 657m height gain, 4.2 mph

Detail showing some footpaths...

The work of an enterprising houseowner in Kentisbeare

It was a simple circuit in Gauge 1 and working too

Checkerboard church tower, Kentisbeare

Thatch is picturesque but that's about all

The ascent to Blackborough Common

My first footpath got dicy here - it was not well kept

But it resolved into a much better path

The roof of the ruin of Blackborough House

And finally, Garnsey's Tower, ruin thereof

From this angle, clearly a tower that once was

The views looking north from this part of Blackborough Common were spectacular. You can of course enlarge the pictures by clicking on them, after which you can scroll through them.

Large toadstool I noticed on my descent

The second major segment of footpath was also poorly maintained. According to my GPS enabled maps (I use UK OS and OpenTopoMap via MOBAC on OruxMaps) the footpath led me through the middle of an oil-seed rape field and then...

...through the middle of a wheat field (or some such grain) - I followed a line made by a tractor to minimise any additional damage to the crop, but in any case going barefoot does a good deal less damage than when shod because one feels one's way through the stalks.  And then...

...through a grassy meadow where I could actually run...

... and through hard to identify gates or styles to the next field or, in this case to...

... a very muddy and dark lane that finally opened up into the village of Ashill where there was a helpful sign telling me the lane was "not surfaced", and thence to...

... Culmstock and my much traversed water-meadow footpath to Uffculme and home. And (sadly) one tick so far.

Beauty or the Beast?

Yesterday in London.



It is now Sunday morning: I am sitting here, quiet and alone, in great-grandma's lounge listening to Rachmaninoff portrayed by Александр Малофеев with conductor Kristjan Järvi: such beauty, such wonder, such rendition, their interaction, their humility yet expertise. Albeit my tinnitus always there, a constant reminder of mortality so evident behind quieter passages.

Rachmaninoff second piano concerto

All his concerts have been cancelled or postponed as Alexander is currently unable to perform because of coronavirus lockdown, yet protestors in their thousands are ignoring social distancing. How is it even possible for two such extremes to voluntarily coexist on this planet? Who are these people flouting law and order, killing, maiming, destroying, as if that were valid compensation for exacerbated police brutality the other side of the globe? Have they not yet discovered joy, beauty?

And yet even in a concentration camp the birds sing.

Trooping the Colour

Looking good at age 94 and 99 respectively

We are at great-great-grandma's where the TV rules the day, and have just finished watching the Queen's official birthday Trooping the Colour at Windsor Castle. It brought back memories of school days. Once a certain age all pupils, unless with good reason, had to choose to be an Army, RAF or Navy cadet and play soldiers every Friday afternoon thereafter. I choose the RAF. Most of the time we were square bashing but there was some desk work - I remember learning about the Bernoulli principle and lift. I still have a certificate from an exam we took - I'll dig it out when we get home. On one occasion the NCO giving the lecture asked the class if we knew what "info" was. Bloody information he shouted, as if that was a peculiar revelation.

Every term there would be an outing. We came to school in our cadet regalia and bearing a packed lunch and were whisked off in a hired coach to our mystery destination, often a military base with real soldiers. On one such occasion I got to fly in a chipmunk. On another we went up in a cargo plane with no windows so one wonders what the point was. We had our own firing range using .22 rifles where I seem to remember I did better than average: on one outing got to fire a .303 and experienced its considerable kick-back.

Once a year there would be a General Parade over which a visiting top-notch would preside. It meant standing for hours on end waiting for things to happen. Usually one or two cadets would faint during this ordeal and this added a bit of interest to the otherwise dullness.

John Ashurst with Duke of Edinburgh 1965

One year the top-notch was the Duke of Edinburgh. He arrived by helicopter, landing in the playing field, and that was sufficient novelty to mark the event in our memories. So we did the general salute and march past thing, like in the Trooping the Colour, in which you marched forward whilst facing to the right and saluting. And then back to standing at attention in our ranks whilst the Duke did his rounds, stopping every so often to ask some boy an inane question. And I fervently hoped that he would not stop in front of myself. The same sort of feeling as in pass-the-parcel with forfeits, or that ridiculous party game where you have to dress up and eat a bar of chocolate with knife and fork, chocolate the previous folk have slobbered over...

The good and the not so good

OK, I know this will be boring unless you happen to like barefoot running and happen to be in the area and happen to want a route recommendation. Or maybe I should set up a public database of barefoot friendly footpaths.

Day 1, about 10 miles

My first foray on this trip to Devon was to explore some promising looking footpaths I had noted during our previous visit. But they turned out to be not so good - through recently strimmed brambles, fields sown with wheat, and inquisitive cows.

Day 2, another 10 miles

After a day's rest, the footpaths in my second foray were very good. The footpath part of the run is shown in the detail below.

Day 2 detail

It starts just north of the village of Uplowman (lower left of the map). The name sounds strange until you realise that Lowman is a river, and Uplowman is located in its upper reaches.

The path follows the river (technically a tributary to the Lowman, and just a brook) valley and is carpeted with soft meadow grass.  But about here it started to rain. Running in rain is very pleasurable provided one keeps warm - and I had checked that the forecast was OK in that respect.

By now it was raining steadily and I worried for my Pixel 2, as the plastic bag "sock" I had grabbed wasn't quite long enough to cover its entirety. But it survived.  At Murley farm I misread the map a bit (by now it was raining heavily, making it hard to read the map) but soon figured out my mistake.

Here I am looking back at the misty rain-sodden horizon as I climb out of the river valley towards Whitnage farm where again I lost my bearings (by now the rain was sluicing, so that I had to pause in the shelter of a barn to read my map). Those cows were content to leave me be, BTW. I decided to ignore the last planned footpath and get back home a.s.a.p. before dying of hypothermia.

Finally back along the Tiverton Parkway cycle track where I passed the 15:30 up train from Exeter to London Paddington. Thence back home to a shower and cuppa and later an excellent meal of risotto à la Instant Pot thankyou Ali!

Definitely worth repeating, both the meal and the run!