A red post

It's the pillar box from Easter Island, sloping backwards slightly (perhaps from a collision with a vehicle) this iconic letter box is on Le Molay Littry Way. No we're not in France - this is Bovey Tracey in Devon which has, as a twin town, Le Molay-Littry in Northern France. The road you see is a by-pass which takes some traffic away from the middle of town to break the speed limit. Like a lot of letter boxes nowadays this one was looking drab and dirty until someone knitted a very nice combination waistcoat and hat for it to brighten things up. After a couple of weeks the knitwear was removed and, guess what, it's has a very spruce paint job! Was the Royal Mail embarrassed into painting it up? I must take a look at other local pillar boxes to see if it's just a one off or a new broom policy by the post people. Or maybe a local resident has crept out at the dead of night with a tin of pillar box red!

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Well this is a new one to me! There is a whole society devoted to surveying historic graffiti in Devon. These are especially found in medieval churches and rather than getting the idea that churchgoers 500 years ago got bored and started to scratch their names on the wall there are other reasons for the appearance of graffiti. In many cases it seems that symbols such as pentangles were created as ritual protection marks, others were stonemason's handiwork and could have been the equivalent of their signature. The Devon graffiti surveyors seem to have particular fun trying to decipher some of the writing styles of long ago, with varying degrees of success.

Here's St Winifred's in Manaton a fine Devon church brimming with medieval graffiti. Manaton (as opposed to Manhattan) is a pretty village on the edge of Dartmoor and on a sunny day we packed a picnic and set off on a ramble having parked our car near the village green but at a judicious distance from the cricket pitch. We didn't go into the church to survey any graffiti but this photo gives an idea of the fine clear day it was. We set off past the remains of a large granite cross in the graveyard - this was sabotaged by the vicar in the mid-19th century as he wanted to stop the villagers carrying coffins thrice round the cross before burials took place. He considered this to be the relic of a pagan rite! There seems to be no record of whether or not villagers carried on carrying coffins round the rather substantial remains of the cross. We took our lunch up to Manaton Rocks a secluded viewpoint well worth the rough climb up.

And to round off this post full of miscellany, here's a selection of beers suitable for mountain runners. Scafell needs no explanation but the brewer, Northern Monk is continuing to come up with superb ales, one of our favourites. Brewdog have a new clear pale ale - and we've traversed many jagged edges on the hills. Buxton Brewery have gained an international reputation and I'm sure the beast on the front of this one chased me on a particularly dark night in Derbyshire. Finally another Derbyshire brewery, Thornbridge has recently teamed up with the North Brewing Co in Yorkshire to produce the excellent North Bridge which is described as a 'Mountain Ale'.