Beer, Devon - for the solstice

We planned this trip two full years ago after our last visit (see blog post from before).  We planned it for June 2020, but it actually happened in June 2021.  You know why.  Rather than using Premier Inns outside the village as before, this time we booked an cottage through Air BnB right in the middle of the village, just up a tiny lane beside the church.  "Up" is important here.  The word "precipice" sprang to mind when we saw it!  Beer is built on two sides of a steep valley.  It's what gives it its charm, of course, and from our sitting room we could see right across the valley over the main part of the village over to other main residential area (see left).

Beer's main claim to fame is its beach - not a sandy on, but peddles.  Tara was not struck by these but luckily they have reused conveyer belts to make matting for dogs (and people) to walk across the pebbles.  We took coffee some mornings and lunch too, sometimes.  Shortly before this photograph was taken, Tara had VERY nearly plucked a discourteous seagull out of the sky as it flew past a bit low, cheekily eyeing up our crab baguette and baked potato.  We are not sure if she would have known what to do with it had she caught it, but it certainly perked her (and the people around us) up, causing a small ripple of applause!

Not every day was warm sunshine.  The weather (as it seems to do just now) went from glorious sunshine which could get too hot at times, to perishingly cold, rainy and windy.  This photo, taken a couple of days before the one above, shows that it was "woolies weather" while two days before we were in shirtsleeves! 

Notwithstanding the cold weather, Tara enjoyed paddling in the outflow from the brook which flows through the village down its main street (see photos in our last Beer blog) and then just disappears into the pebbles at the beach.

Now we get to the more important part of this blog post and the main reason for coming to this rather nice place.  You'll remember from the last post about Beer - from back in 2018 - Lois' cousin, Mike Green, built himself a stone circle.  Not a toy one - a proper one that predicts eclipses and indicates solstices in the way that our stone age ancestors did it (see Green, M (2015). Eclipse Prediction in Stone-Age Britain. Twelve Acre Publishing - available via Lulu.com)  The intention was that we would do the business at the circle on 21st June and see the moment of the solstice sunset at about 21:30.  Well, 21st was pouring with rain, so we didn't go then but did go for a little picnic at Blackbury Camp, the site of a mediaeval fort. It was wet!

 

The 22nd was heavily overcast so although we went up to the circle and had wine and nibbles, there was no sign of the sun!  23rd was a bit better and we managed to see the sun.   Here are a couple bits of (poor quality) video that show the circle from the air (we got a drone but didn't take the trouble to learn to use it properly!) ...

 ... and the moment of sunset on 23rd June - still within the solstice date "envelope" ...

 

And here are some stills:

This was about five minutes before sunset.  The circle is in the foreground and the sun behind it.  This isn't lined up with the keystone and the solstice stone.  The video shows these better.

Again, here is the scene a few minutes before sunset.  This one is lined up, although you can't really tell that because to do it properly, you have to stand in a hole with your eye lined up with a notch on one of the stones, looking at the sun and another stone in the circle!

Isle of Arran

This was a trip that was postponed from Christmas 2020 (and then again from Easter 2021) because of the pandemic.  Fortuitously the new date coincided with our 37^th wedding anniversary which gave us the opportunity to relive the memories of our honeymoon spent on the island in the summer of 1984 – of which more later. 

Of course, nothing in this household goes completely to plan (one of the downsides of planning everything meticulously!) and getting to Arran became a bit tricky.  We noticed on the Calmac (the ferry operator) app that the Ullapool-Stornoway ferry had broken down with engine trouble, so the company had taken one of the two ferries from the Ardrossen-Brodick route to replace it.  Since only one ferry out of the two was operating, we had a 50/50 chance that our booking would be honoured … and guess what – it wasn’t.  Calmac didn’t contact us – we had to contact them, which was disappointing, and there was nothing they could do except to suggest that we went on the “turn up and go” ferry from Claonaig to Lamlash.  Actually, not the end of the world – it should have been an extra couple of hours detour to go via Loch Lomond, round the tip of Loch Fyne and then down the western side of the Firth of Clyde to Claonaig.  The scenery would be lovely, we thought, and a couple of hours extra isn’t much … but we chose to travel on the first Saturday of half term, and it was a nice day, so the whole of Scotland appeared to be on the road to Loch Lomond. Scotland’s roads are not built for tourist traffic (even though a significant proportion of the country’s income is from tourism) so we got stuck in an hour and a half of traffic jam. The ferry was great, though – once we got there.

 

This is the ferry terminal.  It used to have a toilet, but that's been removed.  Basically, you just turn up and join the queue, which is marked up in lanes.  That's us at the back on lane 1 and so we were fairly confident we'd get on.  In the event, lane 2 was filled up too and they still had plenty of space.  It was a very smooth operation.  We had just missed one, so waited for the next - about 40 minutes

 

 

Here's the ferry docking.  It looks tiny here but it's actually stable and absolutely fine.   COVID restrictions forbade us from getting out of the car (although plenty of passengers did) which suited us.  Tara just stayed asleep for the 30 minute crossing (£16.50 all-in).

You can see the Isle of Arran in the background - it's really not far away.

Once across, we had a 30 minute or so drive round the top of the island to get to Lamlash which was where we were staying.  As we read the signposts and passed through places like Sannox and Brodick, the memories from 37 years ago came back.  It was nice!

 

 

 

We found "Whiterock Cottage Hideaway" through AirBnB and it's really well named.  The views are stunning and we had the run of the three fields and extensive woodland that makes up the property. Here is the view from the bedroom window!

 

We were hosted by two absolutely lovely people, both significant artists. Tim Pomeroy is a sculptor – stone mostly – and his wife, Josephine Broekhuizen is a painter. Their work was all around. With the fields and woodland, Tara was in heaven with the smells available to her and had a wonderful time, as did we.  That night we cheated by cooking a pre-prepared chicken dinner and relaxed in these wonderful surroundings.

On  Monday we went to the sizable Co-op in Brodick for shopping.  Brodick has changed in the years since we last visited - there is now a huge pitch and putt thingy on the seafront and the whole place has become much more tourist-orientated than before.  Not a surprise, of course, and the place looks so much more affluent as a result.  They've built a grand new ferry terminal here, although we could still see the remains of the old link road (now a very much sitting area) that we backed along because the ferry in 1984 had been damaged and the loading ramp at one end out of action.  Memories!

Tuesday saw us sightseeing.  We wanted to find where we camped for our honeymoon - right at the southern tip of the island, near Kildonan. We passed through Whiting Bay - its name doesn't come from the fish but is a corruption of "Viking Bay". It is quite a grand place, really, telling of its affluence in the past when a steamer service called here from the mainland  That stopped in about 1960 and the place declined but the big houses remain.  We paused here to buy a freezer block - necessary because of the unseasonal heat!  The weather realy has crashed from one extreme of unseasonably cold to the other extreme of unseasonably hot.  It was currently the latter.

We found the field we'd stayed on - exactly as it had been then!  That's it behind us in the picture.

We stayed at the left of the field, alongside that mound that marks the left edge of the field, shown in the picture below. 

Pladda Island and Ailsa Craig are still there - we looked at those from our tent.  But now there are holiday homes built along the shoreline.

 

 

 

The Breadalbane Hotel, where we ate regularly during our stay, has now largely gone, only the main house remains which is derelict.  We were told it is to be demolished and the land used for house building.

Once we'd completed our nostalgia fix, we continued to Blackwaterfoot where we had some lunch and visited the artisan baker and butcher, buying food for our evening meal.  This is pretty well unchanged since we were here all those years ago, although it is much busier with the inevitable camper vans taking up a large proportion of the car park.  This photo of the harbour amused us.

This it Blackwaterfoot Harbour in its entirety.  The sign on the wall reads "Persons using this harbour so do at their own risk", which is fair enough although there can't really be that many of them.

We returned to Lamlash over one of the roads that crosses the island, stopping at Brodick for shopping.

On Wednesday, We called into Lamlash for lunch and then Lo had a Zoom meeting to "attend".  Following that, we had a tour of Tim's studio - you'll recall we mentioned that he's an active sculptor.  Here are some of his works.

 

 

 

 

 

On Friday we returned to Brodick, ostensibly to shop for lunch and dinner, but also enjoyed watching Ardrossan ferry arrive, unload, reload and sail.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We found a tear jerking plaque along the foreshore. In case you can't read the inscription, it says:

Arran Brodick Barr, Perth Western Australia, 1989 to 2006.

My son's journey through life ended abruptly on Friday 3rd March 2006.

On many occasions, Arran expressed a strong desire to visit the place after which he was named, and I promised him that I would some day make such a visit possible.  This is the only way I could keep my promise to my son.

I hope all who read this will understand.

Simon J. A. Barr

We certainly understood!


We enjoyed tea, coffee and scones at Copperwheat Coffee House on the pier. and later in the day, Lo. had a Zoom meeting. 

We took a run back down to Kildonan to see a bench designed and built by Tim in 2008.  That's Pladda Island in the background.  

The inscription is from Kahlil Gibran and reads 

"Does the song of the sea end on the shore or in the hearts of those who listen?"

Then it was time to leave this lovely island - but not for the last time we very much hope!  This time our Calmac booking was honoured because they'd mended the Ullapool ferry so ours was back in service.  The experience was terrific and there are some excellent facilities for dogs in a special area of the inside saloon. Tara really didn’t like the stairs up and down to the car deck since they were too steep and slippery metal.  Going up was fine, but coming back down was difficult for her.  Thankfully it wasn't too far and that orange jacket she's wearing really came into its own.  It's sold as a buoyancy aid - greyhounds sink in water because they don't have enough body fat to keep them afloat - but those two handles on the top together with the substantial straps and padding round her chest made it possible to safely carry her down.  She wasn't that struck on the water rushing past, but loved the smells coming from the carpet in the saloon … we didn’t enquire what they were!
 
Travelling back home from Ardrossan was easy and realtively traffic-free; it only took four hours (including stops and dogwalks) rather than the 7 it took to get to Claonaig on the outbound journey.