Tavistock

Last week we paid one of our twice yearly visits to Tavistock in Devon, the place which gave its name to Tavistock Square in London, more or less where I spent a happy year as the guest of LSE. Once very nearly getting arrested for being disorderly in a neighbouring square, an incident which provoked investigation of an allegation of wrongful arrest by a very serious and very grandly uniformed superintendent. I have often wondered since whether there would have been any such investigation had we come from the estates just the other side of Euston Road.

Started off with the Oxfam shop, the shop which some years ago now was left a fine collection of vinyl by some local connoisseur of music, which did wonders for my own collection. There were still a few bits left, possibly from the same collection, and I was pleased to get a boxed set of the Amadeus Quartet, perhaps the leading London quartet when I was young in the 1970's, playing what they were pleased to call 'Die grossen Streichquartette' of Mozart, box a bit battered but with the five records in what looked like mint condition, all for £3.99. Only to discover when we got back home to Epsom that I already had the very same box, almost certainly bought from the same shop. Which, inter alia, goes to show how rarely I have used them. I am now attempting to make up for lost time.

A once important junction

Spent some time deciding where to take luncheon, with the choice initially being between the Wetherspoon's at one end of town and the fine fish and chip shop at the other. But, on a whim, settled for the Tavistock Inn.

Tavistock Inn

We took a table in the front dining room, a large, high room with lots of brown wood furniture, some of it quite grand. Genuine white linen napkins, apparently something the owner is very particular about. Lunch entirely satisfactory, only marred by something which was sold as mascarpone mousse, but was actually more like a lower grade English trifle. Nothing like what is turned up for this search term by Google at all.

Proceedings much enlivened by a selection of tasteful Russell Flint pictures on the wall. Plus lots of old books of rather lesser interest. Back bars full of all kinds of interesting bric-à-brac. Plus the landlord having a right pop over the telephone to his telephone provider, at full volume for the edification and entertainment of his customers. I suspected that, among his other sins, he was a smoker.

A fine clematis, just off the High Street

When we had finished with the town we had another go at the huge Catholic church on the hill last noticed at reference 2. All credit to the Catholics, a huge church with no-one to be seen, but open to visitors. Better than Anglicans in this regard, who are all to apt to shut up the unattended shop, lacking the faith to trust in the Lord.

The house of the Lord

Detail of the High Altar

The altar rail

Radiator

A  number of brown radiators to be seen, old but not original given the disturbance to the floor boards.

Front and back of a leaflet

This leaflet, on the table of prayers and other stuff at the back, reminded us of the more serious side of Catholicism. But on the up side, I read today that the Pope, somewhere in South America, has said that it is OK to be gay. All part of God's great design. A lot further, it seems, than he has gone before.

Rounded off the day by driving back across the moors to Ashburton. Plenty of ponies, cows and sheep but no pigs and no raptors. Just lots of crows.

PS: one of things wrong with the HP EliteBook that I mostly use is that it is very easy to hit control keys and control functions when you do not mean to. Which just now resulted in some irritating voice from Microsoft reading the contents of the screen, a voice which it took me some minutes to kill off. Presumably an important new feature offered by the latest update from Microsoft - with my finding the rolling updates of Office 365 something of a mixed blessing. Help, as is usual when one is a bit cross, useless.

Reference 1: http://www.sirwilliamrussellflintprints.co.uk/. Gives something of the idea, but rather less louche than the offerings in Tavistock.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/three-churches.html.