And the excrement piles up............

There's really no way of putting this politely: the world is a shitty place at the moment and it's too easy to disengage, throw up our hands and think only of sports, entertainment and family life. But that's exactly the best way to hand power to those who are against the values of liberal democracy. Those on the right who are jumping on the Trump bandwagon. Those on the right who seem hellbent on dismantling much of what makes for a civilised society. And for what?

What can we do about it? Perhaps most crucially, tempting though it is to batten down the hatches, we have got to stay informed and engaged.

We have got to keep track of what’s happening.

We have got to support democratic institutions, including news organisations (no matter how imperfect) and/or individual journalists. We mustn't follow the mantra of 'fake news' and swallow lies and misinformation.

We have got to communicate with our elected representatives, telling them what we find unacceptable and encouraging them when they do something right. We can do the same with journalists and their bosses.

We have got to support organisations that defend press and speech rights like Liberty. We can seek out trusted voices, like those of the Guardian writers, George Monbiot and Polly Toynbee, and many others.

Sadly, some of my friends across the Atlantic have decided to check out. After all, they did what they could to keep Trump from getting a second term – they voted, they donated, they wrote letters to prospective voters, they worked on campaigns. Having failed, as they see it, they say that they’re done caring. I can understand that attitude and, if I were in their shoes, I might be tempted to do the same. But what I'm certain about is that if we all tune out, there’s no hope at all. Let's be vigilant. Let's do what we can to maintain our national values and what we hold dear.

At the same time, we need to be responsible for ourselves as well. Our needs for making a difference and being a force of good aren’t going to happen if we surround ourself with the bad stuff all the time. But actively seeking the good stuff isn’t about putting your fingers in your ear and singing la la la! Alhough it is pretty tempting at times!. Instead, it’s about prioritising your mental health and knowing that just seeing the bad shit all the time isn’t going to help. I know it’s hard to believe right now, but on the whole, people are kind, people care, and people are sensible. Yes, there's a lot of shit around and it feels as if the dung heap is growing by the day but let's not give up on the world. Instead, let's look for the good stuff and hold on to it as tight as we can. All things must pass and we've got to believe that this will too.

What has socialism ever done for us?

Every now and again, and against my better judgement as I'm very aware of "feeding the trolls", I engage with those who make comments on some of my posts. Recently, I've had an amicable exchange with someone, quite young, who claims that they hate both socialists and socialism. I'm not too sure that they really know what they are talking about so I thought, with all due respect, that I'd challenge their views - assuming that they still read what I write. So this is for them (Anon from the UK).............and any others who may have lost sight of the benefits of socialist policies. And which could be lost if we drift to the right. And for what?

You've told me how much you hate socialism and socialists and I really hope you’re not being hypocritical about it. If you truly hate socialism, you’d better not be benefitting from public ownership or accepting any of the rights that were won for you through the sacrifices of our socialist forefathers. Here are a few things that you might like to ponder on.

Public health: If you or your family have ever used the NHS for anything from injury and illness to pregnancy and childbirth, you’ve benefitted from socialised public health. If you truly hate socialism, you should want to pay profits to capitalist profiteers every time you visit a doctor, and detest the lefty idea of "free at the point of need". Am I correct?

Paid holidays: If you’ve ever had paid holidays at work, you’ve benefitted from the workers’ rights won for you by generations of socialists. If you truly hate socialism, you should reject the advancements that our socialist forefathers fought for, and always refuse paid leave. But I expect you already do this without any prompting from me.

The weekend: A lot of people take the idea of the five day working week and the eight hour working day for granted, but they were actually won for us by socialist activism. If you enjoy your weekends, and protections from bosses trying to force you to work insanely long hours, you’re benefitting from socialism. Pretty good, eh?

Employment rights: Do you think bosses should be able to fire their workers whenever they like and for whatever reason? Like Elon Musk is doing right now in the USA?

* If they don’t like you advocating for safe working conditions, or if they’re a frothing bigot who wants to get rid of you because of your race, religion, or sexuality?
* If they want to use their position of power to punish you for your political opinions?
* If they want to fire you and hire someone who will do your job for a much lower salary?
Well, if you hate socialism, you should want a bonfire of employment rights so that capitalists can bully, exploit, and dispose of their workers as they see fit. And you won't complain if any of these things happen to you and yours.

Pensions:  You’d better not be planning to accept your state pension when you retire, because that’s a socialised benefit. You should be wanting to work until you drop dead, or get killed by the insane hours and unsafe work conditions that your pesky socialist forefathers fought to eliminate, right?

Social security: If you properly hate socialism, you’d better not have ever accepted money from the social security system. No statutory sick pay; no child benefits; no tax credits or housing benefit when your employer paid you exploitative poverty wages; no automatic National Insurance contributions when you were studying or raising children; and no unemployment support if your employer ever unexpectedly laid you off.

All of these advantages and protections from destitution were won by socialists, so if you properly hate socialism you should have been rejecting them all, and uncomplainingly suffering destitution in your times of need.

Culture and public arts: You do realise that a huge proportion of museums, art galleries, music venues, theatres, town and village halls, community centres, and cultural events are supported by public funds? If you’re opposed to socialising the cost of these things, you should be distancing yourself from most of Britain’s cultural life, shouldn't you?

Universal education: 93% of us went to state schools, so it’s highly likely that you benefitted from socialised education. Even if your parents were loaded enough to send you to private school, you still benefit indirectly from the fact that your doctor, accountant, plumber, train driver, sales assistant et al have literacy and numeracy.

If you truly believed in capitalistic exploitation, surely you think all parents should pay capitalists to educate their children? And then the children of the poor and ordinary should have to learn to live without literacy and numeracy because their parents can’t afford the ever-inflating education fees that are required to cover the cost of capitalist profits?

Roads: If you hate the idea of public ownership, you’d better not be freeloading by using Britain’s road network. You should want the roads to be privatised, so that you can pay tolls to the capitalist operators every time you step foot outside your door.

The armed forces: If you hate socialism, have you ever asked yourself why the Armed Forces aren’t privatised? I mean, defence of the nation seems like an extremely important thing, and if the right-wingers are correct about capitalism being inherently more efficient than public ownership, it seems extremely odd that they’ve left the Army, Navy, and Air Force under public control. In fact, if public ownership is so inherently inefficient, how come the government uses the Police and Army to step in at the last minute and save the day when capitalists totally screw things up, like security at the 2012 Olympics?

National parks and public spaces: I’m a big fan of Britain’s national parks and public spaces, but they must make you furious. You must boil with rage that huge swathes of the countryside are publicly owned, or protected by public legislation. Just think of revenue capitalists are losing because they’re prevented from concreting over our national parks?
A lot of people think that one of the things that makes British cities so great is that we have so many public parks compared to a lot of other countries. As a self-declared hater of public ownership, you must be enraged that capitalist profiteers are cruelly prevented from buying up and building over all of this prime building land.

Privatisation: I’m with the majority of British people who think that privatisation of essential infrastructure and services like energy, water, and the railways have been disastrous for British people and the British economy.

As a hater of socialism you should be ecstatic every time you receive extortionate energy bills; see privatised water companies inflating their profits by pumping raw sewage into our rivers and coastal waters instead of treating it; or have to suffer our creaking, unreliable, over-crowded, and over-priced rail network.
You must be delighted at the billions of pounds that have been soaked out of our economy by the privatisation profiteers, after they were given all of this stuff at a fraction of its true value. And you must seeth with rage at the popular idea that these essential things should be renationalised and run for the benefit of the British people and the British economy, not for capitalist profiteering.

Anti-Britishness: It’s interesting that right-wingers of your ilk promote privatisation by claiming that public ownership is inherently inefficient, but then have no objection whatsoever when foreign governments buy up massive stakes in our "privatised" essential infrastructure and services. It seems that people like you only hate public ownership when it’s British public ownership, but you’re absolutely cool with it when the government of France buys up all of our nuclear power stations for example, and when countries like Qatar and China buy up chunks of our privatised water companies and national grid.

It would be less hypocritical if you could be honest about it and admit that you just hate the idea of British people benefitting from socialised ownership of British infrastructure and services, but that you are fine with the people of France, China and Qatar reaping the benefits through their government's ownership of our stuff.

"Other people’s money": But socialism is just "spending other people’s money" you like to squeal, but then you seem to be forgetting how your beloved capitalists are completely addicted to public cash. Fossil fuel and arms companies receive literally trillions of pounds in public subsidies every year globally. When capitalism fails they always go crying to the government for bailouts, like what happened after the reckless UK financial sector gambled themselves into insolvency in 2008.When capitalist employers boost their profits by paying their workers unliveable poverty wages, they rely on public funds to lift their workers out of destitution via in-work benefits that cost tens of billions of pound in public funds per year.

Why are you OK with governments endlessly subsidising and bailing out greedy capitalist profiteers, but go apoplectic with rage at the idea of public funds being spent to improve the lives of yourself and your fellow Brits?

"Idle layabouts": Who told you that socialism exists to pay for the lifestyles of idle layabouts? Socialism exists to ensure workers get a fair deal, and to keep the most vital components of the national economy (health, education, water, energy, transport, mail …) out of the hands of greedy capitalist privatisation profiteers.
If you want to oppose an ideology that supports the lifestyles of idle layabouts, maybe you should have a think about how capitalism actually works? Who are really the idle layabouts? The socialists calling for better wages and working conditions for British workers? Or the capitalist shareholders passively collecting lavish dividends on the national infrastructure that was sold off to them at a tiny fraction of its true value?

Who told you to hate socialism?: Maybe it would be helpful to consider how you came to believe that socialism is such a terrible thing?
Did you read it in a capitalist newspaper? See it on a capitalist TV station? Get fed it by the algorithm of a capitalist social media platform? Hear it from a capitalist-bankrolled politician or someone who idly profiteers from shares in what used to be our publicly owned stuff? Get told it through one of the dodgy opaquely-funded right-wing think tanks whose paid propagandists are virtually ubiquitous on TV politics shows these days? Perhaps it’s time to have a think about why capitalists are prepared to spend such vast fortunes trying to convince ordinary people that socialism is a terrible thing, even though ordinary people would be even worse off than they already are without socialist protections and public provision? Perhaps it’s time to think about what right wing policies actually mean for you and your family?

The race to the bottom continues............

 

This week, yet another UK-wide opinion poll put Nigel Farage’s hard right anti-immigrant fan club Reform UK Ltd in poll position in Westminster voting intention. The poll, by YouGov, gave the Faragistes 26%, Labour 25% and the Tories 21%. This was shortly followed by another poll: this time carried out by Find Out Now, which gave Reform an even bigger lead, 29% to Labour’s 23% and 21% for the Tories. Translated into Commons' seats, this would see Farage as the next Prime Minister, giving Reform UK an overall majority with 333 seats, while Labour would plummet to 88, losing 323 of their current MPs. The Tories would drop to fourth largest party with 68 seats and the LibDems on 78 seats.

The grains of comfort we can take from these polls are that we are more than four years out from General Election, so asking voters how they will vote in 2029 is hypothetical, and merely gives those questioned the opportunity to register a protest. And we all know that there is plenty to protest about when it comes to the policies of Starmer’s Labour party, which is becoming known as the Tory Continuation Party.

Assuming Starmer’s government goes to full term, and with such a large majority there’s no reason it shouldn't, by the time of the next General Election Donald Trump’s term in office will have come to an end and the massive damage caused to ordinary working class communities by the policies of the billionaire enabling populist right which both he and Farage espouse will be starkly apparent. Am I being deluded in hoping that by that time some of the allure of Reform UK will have worn off on UK voters currently considering voting for the nicotine stained chancer?

For the rest, Labour and the Tories both seem to be in full pursuit of Reform UK in the nastification of British politics. Labour has become the new nasty party, the Tories, the original nasty party, have become the vindictively chaotic party, and both are chasing after Reform UK, the morally repugnant sadistic party.

In an effort to head off the threat from Reform, we have seen the Labour Party adopt ever more cruel and callous policies towards migrants and asylum seekers. Labour has started to publish videos (anti-migrant porn) inviting viewers to celebrate the demonisation of poor, vulnerable and desperate people. The government plans to spend up to £392m on deporting undocumented migrants - that's enough money to train more than 10,000 new nurses.

This week the government announced that those who arrive in the UK by irregular means (because all safe and legal avenues of getting to the UK have been closed off) will be denied the right to apply for British citizenship. Moving to the right on immigration in order to head off Reform is, as one writer has put it,  "Chasing after the reflection of the moon in the sea. You’ll never catch up with it, and the chances are you’ll drown.

Labour, or the Tories for that matter, can never out-hardman Reform on immigration. All that happens is that Reform is emboldened and enabled and becomes even more established as a credible political force, demonstrably influencing the policies of the other parties and being seen to set the agenda. The tactic of trying to bash immigrants even harder in an attempt to appease the hard right always fails, because the hard right nurse imaginary grievances and racist conspiracy theories which can never be appeased.

All that happens in consequence is that the envelope of British politics is pushed more and more to the right and we all descend even further into the abyss of far-right cruelty. The only winners are fascists. The British political establishment, aided and abetted by the right wing media, is epically failing every single moral and social test put before it. Labour, just like the Tories, is attempting to exploit the basest prejudices of uninformed voters for political expediency instead of trying to inform them. It will only succeed in pushing the issue of immigration and the far right’s supposed solution to it ever higher up the political agenda. It’s wrong-headed, immoral, and ultimately counter-productive.

You don’t pander to the far-right, that only grants it power and influence. You have to confront them head on and expose what their 'solutions' really mean for working class people of whatever ethnic background, sexuality, or gender. They mean suffering, they mean poverty, they mean deprivation, they mean the entrenchment of inequality and injustice. They mean the devastation of public services and the effective privatisation of the NHS. They mean abandoning future generations to the full force of climate change and the ripping up of the social, employment, consumer and environmental standards that all of us rely on in order to have a decent life. The rich will get richer and public policy will descend into the moral bankruptcy of the compassion and humanity free zone of the comments sections of the right wing press, where empathy and understanding are alien concepts to be reviled and mocked.

It’s not too late, we can still preserve decency and humanity in public life, but it has become increasingly obvious that there is no place for kindness and gentleness in a UK whose politics are defined by nastiness, cruelty, and exclusion. All who are not invested in the fascists must start to shout from the rooftops about what the vile reality of the politics of the hard right really means for the UK. Despite all their faults, and their disappointing performance so far, Labour is the only major political party left in the UK which still claims to hold fast to the values and beliefs of social democracy. But they are not the ONLY political party, they really should be getting closer to the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Lib Dems to start forging alliances against the common enemy. But will they? 

The Fabulous Four go to Dartmoor

 Just four of us for this walk but very enjoyable nonetheless. The day was dry, clear but very cold, especially when there was a wind. But not too bad as long as we kept moving.

This one came in at 6.88 miles on my GPS so we'll round that up to 7. A good mixture of urban, woodland, riverside and open moorland, with a few steep bits to exercise our lungs as well as our legs. We started and ended at Okehampton Station, which had a cafe at the end! Hooray. We dropped down into Castle Park and walked through the town, passed the College and then up the East Okement River, as it flows through West Cleave. A fair way up, we headed up and around East Hill before dropping back to the station. A good walk and a good day to choose, as it poured with rain the next day.

An interesting twisted oak in Castle Park, opposite the eponymous castle. Someone has gone to a lot of trouble constructing a spiral of stones on the ground underneath. 

A couple of old water pumps on display at the roadside opposite what remains of the Okehampton Workhouse. My sort of street art.

'OBB 1935'. Okehampton Borough Boundary marker, of which there were 11 originally, but not all of them remain.

This Robin was disappointed when there were no crumbs falling from our coffee stop. One of the very few small birds we saw on the walk.

Looking back down the East Okement River, with the take-off point on the right for the Old Town Leat. This runs for the better part of a mile and once fed a couple of water mills. The last of these closed in the 1950s, but had converted to electricity long before then. Although the Victorian mill building is still standing, the site was first mentioned in the Doomsday Book. 

A rather poignant inscription on a wooden bridge over the East Okement at Fatherford.

And here is the story behind the inscription. Before the bridge, crossing the river was by the nearby ford. Charlotte was crossing this on her horse, the horse bucked and Charlotte was thrown off and drowned. The bridge has been constructed so that it is wide enough for both walkers and horse riders. A fitting and very practical tribute to her memory.

A series of views as we progressed up the side of the East Okement. I think we were all expecting the river to be running higher than it actually was. Despite this, it was very impressive and, having walked up a considerable length of it, it loses elevation quite rapidly.

The lane to Lower Halstock farm, with the just about discernible remnants, to the left, of the original ford through the brook. Just a little bit of forgotten history.

An unusual lichen growing on a wall just up from the ford/bridge. Not sure what it was but my naturalist neighbours, Mary and Tony A, were able to shed light on the identity: "The lichen is Peltigera canina, Common Dog Lichen (most likely - the commonest one). Supposedly named after the canine-like tubercles on the underside. Rather variable in cuticle colour depending on what the symbiotic co-species of alga or cyano-bacteria is cohabiting with the fungus". It's always nice to know what you are looking at,

There was actually some snow on the upper reaches of Yes Tor.

Seeing ponies and horses on Dartmoor is a common occurence but this was the first time I've seen so many and so many that were not your usual Dartmoor-type. In fact, these are Shetlands and Miniature Shetlands bred at the Lower Halstock stud farm.

Descending from the higher slopes of East Hill, we came across these earthworks associated with 'settlement' on the OS map. Here's a little more information:
The rampart on East Hill stands 3 metres high in places and has a wide, flat-bottomed, ditch on the outside. East Hill is properly termed a promontory fort, rather than a hill fort, having been built at the end of the East Hill ridge to take advantage of the natural defences provided on two sides by the steep wooded slopes above the East Okement River and the Moor Brook. 
East Hill Iron Age fort lies on moorland south east of Okehampton and can be approached from a number of directions using public rights of way.
Hill forts are characteristic of the middle and later Iron Age (500BC – AD 50) and are seen to be the fortified settlements of the Celtic people. At least 12 hill forts survive on Dartmoor. East Hill fort is at grid reference SX 604 941.
Records show that East Hill fort was examined by the Reverend H G Fothergill in 1840. One hundred years later John Brailsford undertook a very small-scale excavation on the central entrance which divides the rampart in two. He found that the end of the rampart was neatly faced with eleven courses of small slabs and there appeared to be a palisaded trench forming a passage into the entrance. No other finds were recorded. A nearby outcrop of rock is known locally as ‘Roman Chair’. This name possibly arises from the 19th century discovery of a horde of 200 Roman coins in the East Hill Area.

The footpath taking us back to the Fatherford Bridge was, in parts, quite vertiginous. The sides of the West Cleave, through which the East Okement runs, are surprisingly steep.

Another one for Mary and Tony A and the response was: "The plastic "biscuit wrappers" are a proprietary item used for surveying for Hazel Dormice. Ecological surveyors plaster an area with them as a quick and dirty way of finding out if there are any HD in an area/site. The HD frequently build temporary nests in them, so the surveyors visit them for several months at weekly intervals".

A more traditional box used for the same purpose as the plastic version. Once you get your eye in for these, it was surprising how many there were. 

A closer view of the Peltigera canina, showing, if you look closely, the tubercles at the 'leaf' edges that look like dog's teeth.

And for those, like me, who find the sound of running water so calming and evocative.

Liz Truss: another one of Trump’s useful idiots?

You really couldn't make this up as yet another politlcal titan shows how moronic they are. In response to Donald Trump’s social media announcement that he’s bringing back plastic straws in the US, Liz Truss claimed, on X, that lefty policies like banning plastic straws were to blame for the unprecedented Tory election wipe out in 2024. With content like this Truss renders political parody useless. How are we supposed to compete when Britain’s shortest-serving Prime Minister in history keeps doing herself over like this? It’s debatable whether it’s even worth going through all the reasons she’s delusional, but I’m going to do it anyway, because it’s funny, and because I think we still need to reflect on what went so wrong with our political system that such a foolish person ever became our Prime MInister.

Truss takes absolutely no responsibility for the Tories getting trounced in 2024. According to her timeline it went - ban plastic straws in 2018, then nothing, then lose the election in 2024. The rest in between is apparently irrelevant. Small matters like these:

* Boris Johnson’s night of the long knives style purge of most of the brains behind the Tory operation in 2019, leaving the party with no choice beyond fools and fanatics when it came to his successors.
* Johnson lazily plagiarising Theresa May’s shambolic mess of a Brexit deal, despite having voted against it when she was trying to get it through.
* Tories drunkenly partying away in Downing Street and Whitehall while they forced the rest of the country into lockdown.
* Tory politicians using the Covid crisis as an excuse to tear up official procurement rules and siphon literally £billions in public cash to their mates in dodgy PPE contracts.
* An internal Tory civil war to get rid of Johnson, which ended up with a plonker like Liz Truss becoming PM.
* Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng side-lining the financial regulator (OBR) to rush through a disastrous mini-budget that than tanked the economy.
* Truss getting replaced by Rishi Sunak, despite the fact he’d been caught red-handed pretending to be a full-time resident of the US when he was working as Chancellor of the Exchequer in Downing Street, while his wife simultaneously dodged UK taxes by pretending to be resident in India!
* All of this against a background of austerity ruination, incompetence, multiple corruption scandals, and continued economic stagnation.

Apparently none of this played a role in the Tory downfall, and if they’d just listened to Truss’s objections to the plastic straw ban in 2018, they’d still be in power today!

Then there’s the idea that banning plastic straws is a "lefty policy". In reality it’s an environmental policy aimed at preventing a particularly bad type of disposable single-use plastic ending up in our oceans.
 It’s actually got nothing to do with the left-wing politics of securing better conditions for workers, and public ownership of vital national infrastructure and services (energy, water, public transport, health, education, mail, etc.). Believe it or not, it’s possible to have centrist or even fairly right-wing views, and still believe that it’s wrong to dump a load of disposable single-use plastics into our oceans.

You have to be way off on the fringes of the bonkers political right to think that pollution and ecological destruction are a price worth paying for plastic manufacturers to turn a tiny bit more profit, but the fringes of the bonkers political right is exactly where Truss resides.

* It’s the school of thought that considers it good that privatised water companies are pumping raw shit into our rivers and coastal waters to save money on sewage treatment, because that means more cash to pay out to shareholders and executives.
* It’s the school of thought that rejects any and all efforts to protect people and the environment from the excesses of capitalist profiteering.
* It’s the school of thought that holds profit to be king, and anything that gets in the way of capitalist profiteering "ludicrous".

Truss is so divorced from reality that she actually seems to believe that the majority of the country are as much on the looney radical-right fringes as she is, that her spectacularly rapid downfall was down to a conspiracy of the "lefty deep state", and the massive public rejection of the Tory government in 2024 was due to the ban on plastic straws, rather than their trail of chaos, incompetence, and corruption. And in this instance she’s taking the phrase 'clutching at straws' to a whole new level. Or, maybe, this was the final straw for Liz? The straw that broke the camel's back? Let's take a straw poll and see what the consensus is.

Dartmoor Walk: Bellever from Dunnabridge Pound

The day was dry, cold and clear and a great opportunity to tackle a stretch of open moor in an area unlikely to be too waterlogged. A circular from Dunnabridge Pound fitted the bill. A good stretch of the legs, followed by tea and coffee at the Plume of Feathers in Princetown. And it was cold, just above freezing with a very keen wind. Definitely a case of keeping moving to keep warm.

We started at the Dunnabridge Pound car park and headed towards Bellever, skirting Bellever Tor. From Bellever, it was a pretty straightforward route back, via Laughter Hole Farm and Dunnabridge Down. My GPS clocked 6.3 miles, a little longer than planned but we had to make a view adjustments as we went along. And the sky was blue all the way around.

The view from the car park, blue sky and an open vista.

Dunnabridge: postbox № PL20 453. A Victorian postbox set into the wall of a farm building and emptied each morning, except Sunday, at 10:30.  This one, which is listed, dates from around 1880, and has been serving the local community since then. Long may it continue but, given all of the changes going on with Royal Mail, I do wonder how long they will be a feature of the countryside, particularly these more isolated areas. They are worth fighting for so let's keep an eye out for actions that we can take.

Looking across the open moorland towards Bellever Tor which, at this point, I had intended to climb. But it didn't quite work out.

A less than helpful signpost, indicating 'Path' in both directions. I suppose it's useful to know that you are on a path but it would be even more useful to know where you are heading for, or coming from.

Getting closer to Bellever Tor. At this stage, the plan was to skirt the trees to the right and then head up to the tor with those who were feeling energetic.

Bellever Forest - very popular in the warmer months but we, more or less, had it to ourselves today. We only saw two other walkers as we went around. Well, we actually saw them twice, presumably on their out and back routes.

Light brown cones decorating this Sitka spruce.

So near, yet so far. The theory was correct but, in the event, the way up was so rocky and pitted that I decided that it would be better to give it a miss. Is that a sign of advanced year? Showing a little common sense.

The rather clapped-out clapper bridge at Bellever. Not surprising really, as it dates from the mediaeval period. It originally had four spans but only two preserve their lintels today. English Heritage state that this bridge is likely to have been on the medieval track known as the Lich (or Lych) Way which led from the Ancient Tenements on the Forest to Lydford.

I wonder how many of my fellow walkers noticed this at the side of the path as we headed for Laughter Hole Farm? The farm is sadly no longer in use and is now fenced off to prevent trespassing by curious walkers.
The farm has a sad tale attached to it, dating from the Victorian age, concerning a young girl,and her over-protective father, who tragically lost his wife in a horse riding accident and as a result forbade his daughter to ever leave the protection of the farm. Obeying her father, the girl spent her days helping out where she could, the only time she allowed herself any sign of rebellion was when her father went to market to sell their produce. Once a week he set off early, not wanting to leave the girl on her own any longer than necessary, whilst she in turn made the most of his absence by climbing to the top of the highest tree in the forest to sit and daydream about what life must be like in those far off lands beyond the confines of her home. One day her father returned early, eager to show her the new doll he had bought for her. Being roused from her fantasies with a start and not wanting to be caught breaking the rules, she scrambled back down the tree. In her haste, she lost her footing and fell...her fall being broken when the strap of her apron dress snagged on a branch, snapping her neck in the process. Her father arrived back to find her lifeless body hanging from the tree. Distraught, he cut her down and immediately buried her in the grounds of the only home she had ever known. As he placed a handmade wooden cross, to mark her final resting place, a white dove flew up from the trees above and the father took this as a sign that his daughter was finally getting the freedom she craved.

A tree festooned with the epiphytic lichen, Usnea (Epiphyte = lives on but does not damage, unlike a parasite). One measure of air purity is based on the presence/abundance of such lichens, where different lichens can tolerate different levels of pollution. The method uses the Hawksworth & Rose Zone scale for the mean estimation of mean winter sulphur dioxide levels in England & Wales. With a scale of ten levels of pollution/purity, the presence of Usnea species indicates the purest air. Walkers in this part of the world breathe only the best air!

Ah well, better luck next time for Bellever Tor. And there will be another time as I've sorted out the best route to the top.

Dunnabridge Pound is another of the many Bronze age structures on Dartmoor. It has certainly been used in more recent times as a cattle/sheep enclosure. Although back in the Bronze Age up to 17 people lived here in a number of huts, one of which can just be made out in the centre of the walled ring. Just inside the entrance on the left is the Judge's Chair, believed to have been brought here by the local Dunnabridge farmer. He maintained that a bench from Crockern Tor formed the seat and that the Crockern judges table formed the roof of the Judge’s Chair. What is for certain is that it was used as a shelter by those tending their animals within the Pound.

Not a tor? Definitely Notter Tor

 I've always been intrigued by Notter Tor, simply because of where it is and the fact that it seems to be rarely visited, probably because it doesn't look particularly inspiring and does not have any clear access points. Having a spare couple of hours recently, I wandered off for a solo exploration. 

It was a short walk, centred on the hamlet of village of Henwood, on the eastern edge of Bodmin Moor. It was a very pleasant jaunt of just under two miles.

In the distance is the engine house associated with Houseman's Shaft at Minions, a reminder that, at one time, Henwood was at the centre of a network of mines and quarries and was a very busy place. Nowadays, it's tranquility belies its heritage.

Access to Notter Tor is via a stile off the footpath from Henwood to North Darley. And this is part of the footpath! It seems to be permanently flooded but is easy to negotiate by clambering up the bank on the left.

Just over the stile and starting up towards the top of the tor. Stunted trees, mainly oak and lots of bracken and gorse. So much of both in the summer that they make the tor essentially inaccessible. That and the ticks.

One of those little mysteries that you come across every now and again on a walk. A small solar array with no obvious connections in the vicinity. Maybe it was there to power an electric animal fence? A bit nerdy of me, really, to ponder on such matters.

Looking across to Sharpitor. Notter Tor is lower than the immediate mass of Bodmin Moor so there are no extensive views in that direction. Sharpitor, at about 2 miles away, is the limit of the panorama.

A disused and flooded quarry of the Darley granite workings. There is only one quarry working around here now, and that produces high quality stone for monumental and memorial purposes.

On the road back to Henwood, looking up to Notter Tor. It looks like a pretty undistinguished lump and that's probably the best way of describing it. I'm glad I went but it's a case of "I did it, so others didn't have to". I won't rush to do it again.

A stand for milk churns. Gradually disappearing as a feature of the roadside near farms. It won't be long before their purpose will only be remembered by a few. There's quite a knack to swinging a 120lb full churn onto the stand - I think this is one of my skills that I'll never have cause to use again.

Henwood Methodist chapel has been long closed and converted into a dwelling. I guess you could call this a shrine to its memory?

Probably the remnants of one of the old chapel's windows. I wonder how many miners sat in pews beneath it and sang hymns on a Sunday. No longer does Henwood echo to their voices. Perhaps on a still evening, they can still be heard?