This weekend we took the train to Exeter (where Ryan goes to school) to spend time with some good friends and soak up the countryside! Exeter is located in Devon, one of the southwest counties of England and one of the prettiest parts of the country. Boyfriend needed to get some work done in Exeter and so we shed the crowded bustling streets of London for the lush hedgerows and pastures of the rural southwest. I haven't been to many places in England, but I have been to Devon several times and it always feels like going home. The people are the epitome of hospitality and chivalry, the landscape is vibrantly green and open, and the food is the best food I've ever had in all of England! To really know a country and its people, you have to go to it's heartland: the countryside.
We spent two nights in Exeter with Ruben, Ryan's good friend from Murcia, Spain. Saturday was a beautiful day so we took a stroll along the river Exe, pictured above. The scouts were having a fundraiser along the river bank, and so we loaded up on 1 pound sausage sandwiches and 50p homemade apple cake slices. With the amount of cake we bought, we must have financed a new boat or something for the scouts! And that was after the Devon cream honeycomb ice cream we had just purchased! Mmm....so good!
The walk was beautiful, peaceful, and invigorating with all the brilliant colors around us. We saw rabbits, waved at passing trains, and picked wild blackberries, which I was so eager to do that I jumped right into a patch of nettle and was sorely stung all around my ankle. Ouch! As idyllic as the walk was, we did have a destination: the double locks--an historic building in Exeter that also happens to be a charming pub right on the river. Drinking Devon cider (much like Belgian gueze) we took in the day and the beautiful weather. And the crazy, silly company we kept made it a truly perfect day.
English lesson #4: Make the most out of any day with beautiful weather, because on these days, England will quietly turn its humble treasures of fields, rivers, and gardens, into some of your greatest memories.
Next up: Sunday feast in Bishopsteignton with Alun!
