Euphoria

In those days Keith deBerry was Rector of St Aldates, Oxford.  Every year he organised an working holiday at Lee Abbey for students who attended his church.  Although I was not one of his "sheep" I managed to cadge a place somehow.  The deal was that you helped in the grounds each morning in exchange for a reduced rate.  Perhaps this was my first taste of "living in community".

One afternoon I took off on my own heading West along what is now called the North Devon Coastal Path.  The weather was idyllic: blue sky, a haze over the sea, warm.  The memory of that walk still ranks among my most euphoric experiences.  For ever I have been happy in my own company and with nature.  I ran down into bays, waded through surf, climbed rocks, walked along headlands.  Perhaps it runner's high I was experiencing.  One day I hope to retrace my steps to repeat the experience but I doubt if it will be the same.

The first photograph is my own - you can see Lee Abbey in the distance.  I hope it conveys some sense of the magic of that particular afternoon.

I have copied the next photographs from the internet.  They give some idea of the terrain.  The first is taken from the Valley of the Rocks which is just east of Lee Abbey.

The next two further along the coastal path.

From Oxford you travel first to Lynton and Lynmouth and thence to Lee Abbey.  There is a funicular railway that joins high-up Lynton with Lynmouth.  The railway consists of two cars each on its own track, connected via a steel rope that passes over a pulley at the top.  A natural water-course has been diverted so that it fills a tank in the car at the top.  When sufficient water has entered the car descends by gravity pulling the other one up.  As a child (and still am) I was of course fascinated by the apt use of free energy.  The picture of Lymouth is m own, but that of the railway was copied from the internet.