An English Idyll - Ottery St Mary and Venn Ottery Common

After popping into the Curious Otter bookshop in Ottery St Mary to leave a couple of postcards and some information about my poetry collection, 'Communion', on the possibly slender grounds that this lovely little town is the birthplace of Samuel Coleridge, and as such, is alluded to in my poem, 'Coleridge Changes his Library Books',  Ted and I headed for Tipton St John, also on the Otter, for a nice walk in the sunshine, along leafy lanes, past fields of ripe wheat, to Venn Ottery Common with its golden gorse, heather just coming into bloom and views across the valley.  Ah, and it was idyllic ... 

... except ... do you think it might rain?

Waiting for the rain to go off ...

Normal (English summer) service resumed.

View over the Otter valley from Venn Ottery Common.

Down the deep lanes, to quote Ted Hughes.

Here, built into the slope of the hill, the rarity that is an unrestored Devon longhouse. It would originally have had a thatched roof and much smaller windows. Would love to get my mitts on it ...

The pyrotechnics of Rosebay Willowherb. So showy it needs four names. Who needs riots?

Oak trees, sheep in pastures, what more do you need?









A Dark, Satanic Mill on the Otter, perhaps?

History rusting in fields ...

A long abandoned railway bridge.

Big heifer is watching you!

What would an English idyll be without a parish church? - Here, St John's in ... er ... Tipton St John.