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Between Ottery St Mary and Budleigh Salterton, falls the shadow which very nearly lives up to its Wodehousian name, lies a sidestreet called Inner Ting Tong.
Let's have that again: Inner Ting Tong.
Even in the field of Devon placenames, that one's truly astounding. So yes, the weather being too erratic for boating to seem wise, we opted for a bit of a road tour of rural Devon instead. I say 'rural', but Exeter surprised me by being a town where one could actually live, more or less - it had its street of odd shops, Kitsch-U-Like and a small goth emporium, secondhand books and CDs, even a comic shop (shut for lunch). I'd forgotten that places this small could still sustain alternative life alongside the clone high streets (and truly, they don't come much more clone than Exeter's). But all around this, places like the aforementioned daffy villages, and then those like Ladram Bay, where once one has evaded all the Thou Shalt Not and Private signs one finds oneself in quite the most melancholy bay for miles, with the slow withdrawing roar of waves and pebbles as sad as Matthew Arnold's Dover, and the huge sandstone towers in the bay slowly being eaten away by sea and burrowers. It would be quite something to be there when any of them finally collapses, though I suspect I'd jump at the chance, and then find the experience horribly upsetting.
Had a real Touched By The Hand Of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kendall_lacey moment early on in the drive, too - flipping through the CDs in the car, I selected the first Killers, and 'Mr Brightside' kicked in just as we turned the corner into his old hood, Honiton*. Similarly, after aforementioned West Country/Islington/West Country/Islington correspondences, found a secondhand Robert Sheckley book which, after purchase, I discovered had begun its life in Islington Libraries. It's clearly just using me to piggyback home. Speaking of which, shall be making my stately progress back to London this afternoon - I had a half-formed plan to go see Friends of the Bride in Soho but failing that, is anything else afoot?
*Even curiouser, there's a Killerton not much further along.
Let's have that again: Inner Ting Tong.
Even in the field of Devon placenames, that one's truly astounding. So yes, the weather being too erratic for boating to seem wise, we opted for a bit of a road tour of rural Devon instead. I say 'rural', but Exeter surprised me by being a town where one could actually live, more or less - it had its street of odd shops, Kitsch-U-Like and a small goth emporium, secondhand books and CDs, even a comic shop (shut for lunch). I'd forgotten that places this small could still sustain alternative life alongside the clone high streets (and truly, they don't come much more clone than Exeter's). But all around this, places like the aforementioned daffy villages, and then those like Ladram Bay, where once one has evaded all the Thou Shalt Not and Private signs one finds oneself in quite the most melancholy bay for miles, with the slow withdrawing roar of waves and pebbles as sad as Matthew Arnold's Dover, and the huge sandstone towers in the bay slowly being eaten away by sea and burrowers. It would be quite something to be there when any of them finally collapses, though I suspect I'd jump at the chance, and then find the experience horribly upsetting.
Had a real Touched By The Hand Of
kendall_lacey moment early on in the drive, too - flipping through the CDs in the car, I selected the first Killers, and 'Mr Brightside' kicked in just as we turned the corner into his old hood, Honiton*. Similarly, after aforementioned West Country/Islington/West Country/Islington correspondences, found a secondhand Robert Sheckley book which, after purchase, I discovered had begun its life in Islington Libraries. It's clearly just using me to piggyback home. Speaking of which, shall be making my stately progress back to London this afternoon - I had a half-formed plan to go see Friends of the Bride in Soho but failing that, is anything else afoot?*Even curiouser, there's a Killerton not much further along.
