Ashburton highlights

Item one, the town still runs to a butcher, a butcher who, inter alia, makes & sells his own pork pies in little foil tubs, a sort of piggy cup cake. He sells them hot or cold. Rather less spice and stuff than is the norm with the Tesco's or the Sainbury's product, which was a good thing.

Item two, the town now runs again to a baker, with a small bakery opened in the front of a shop by three young ladies. Storage, preparation, cooking and selling all done from the one room, which must get very hot in the summer. White bread good, in the form of small tin loaves, hot cross buns were whole meal, which were acceptable, but I do prefer my buns white. I also bought some of the flour on offer, yet to be tried out.

Item three, there was an off-licence carrying a decent good range of beer, cider, wine and spirits.

Item four, the book shop near the main car park was still there, a book shop which we have been visiting for perhaps 20 years. The place from which I had obtained such gems as Julian Jaynes on the origin of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind (see http://www.julianjaynes.org/ for the fan club), the first volume of the minutes of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society and two volumes of Oscar Lewis on life in the slums of Mexico City in the first half of the last century. Sadly there was a 'For Sale' sign outside; it was not clear how much longer the shop would last and I didn't like to ask. But just in case, I picked up a couple of scores and a history of the Old Vic. One of the scores caught my interest as it appeared to have been printed photographically in Italy from a very neat but nevertheless manuscript copy - while I had always assumed that movable type ruled the world of music in the same way that it ruled the world of letters. 'Alissa' with music by Raphael Douglas, the baron von Banfield Tripcovich, words by Richard Miller and printed by Ricordi of Milan. Transcribed for voice and piano, which gives me some excuse for not being able to follow it at all in the orchestral version offered by YouTube. Did slightly better with the free sample offered at http://www.operapassion.com/cdbaalpa19.html.

There was an imposing church, but I did not visit it properly as the first opportunity arose just before divine service and the second on Good Friday, which last I did not think was a proper day to be a tourist in a Christian church - even though pretty much all the shops in town were open. But I did get as far as being told that one of the aisle pillars was a monolith, made out of a cylinder of stone cut in one piece from the living rock. Not something I recall seeing before.

An interesting collection of old buildings, as befits a once thriving mining, sheep and market town. From which I share Fish Tail House (illustrated), remarkable for the odd shape of the slates hung from the top half of the front wall. Looking at them from below I did think that the slates were actually composite, with a very thin slate bedded on a layer of mortar, but looking at the picture now, maybe they are just slates.