Friday

Checked out of the hotel and hit the road.  I stopped at a grocery store (Marks and Spencers) and bought an instant package of Yorkshire Pudding and some Bird's Eye Custard.  Hope it is as delicious as I remember.

Onto the moor.  I never did see the prison and have no idea where it is, but I spent about an hour driving across Dartmoore.  Saw several hikers, lots of wild ponies, and several big black ruffled birds that I think might be moor hens.  Sweeping vistas of something that looks a lot like sedge grass around the beaches at home.

I had no ambition to go for long walks on the moor.  It seems like the silly heroines in books (the same ones who go down into the dark celler when the electricity is out to investigate strange noises) always decide to go walking on the moor and get caught in sudden mists that don't allow them to see more than a couple of inches in front of them.  I was even warned by the hotel staff before I left, but I never went more than 500 yards from the car, and even then it was only when the way was clear and I wasn't going over the crest of a hill and might lose my way.  Very tame.  I did get out several times to try and get close to ponies or cows, but was able to sneak up on only two apparently deaf ponies close enough for pictures.  I did see a lot of mist in the distance so at least I can pretend that I was at risk of being lost.  There was a fearsome wind blowing all the time, so that may have dispersed any possible mists anyway.  Oh well, the handsome stranger will have to find another heroine lost on the moors because it wasn't me.

I have left Cornwall now that I have gone past the moor.  There is an old rhyme that I remember from one of those 'lost on the moor' books.  It may have even been one of Daphne Dumaurier's books - it went "When you hear Tre, Pol and Pen, you know you are speaking of Cornishmen".  

Dorset is beautiful.  The names are very different - I passed a village called Piddletrenthide on the road!  Again those rolling hills and cows and sheep and some fields of bright bright yellow flower that I will try and remember to ask about.  I also want to ask about a sign I have seen twice now "Cats Eyes Removed".  I hope I will find that means some idiosyncratic and harmless thing like wart removal.

Checked into the Wessex Royale Hotel on High West Street in Dorchester.  Good room with good water pressure and another lovely duvet on the bed.  There are crumpets on the menu.  I have a lowering feeling these are very much like croissants, which I don't care for because they are too airy, but we shall see.

Walked around the town yesterday.  Very hilly, with medieval churches right next to little shops advertising sales on children's clothes.  I had a cream tea at the Horse with the Red Umbrella tearoom.  They had a sign apologizing for the name of the tea room and explained it by saying this was the site of a playhouse, and the last play had that name.  The Dorset and the Cornish clotted cream are historic rivals.  I couldn't tell much difference myself, but the scones I had at the Horse .... tearoom were certainly superior to the scones I had back at Charlotte's Tea House in Truro.  Yum!

Terrible supper - they were out of fish and chips by 6:00 on Friday (advertised as Fish