First Signs of Winter.....

Over the past few days we have had the first signs of winter.......

Turning White on the Tops of the Moor

The tops of the moor have been turning white..... mainly sleet but snow will probably not be far behind......
One of the joys of a winter spent around the Dartmoor area is seeing and enjoying the change from one season to another in a quite dramatic way.....

What was just an energetic walk on the moor a week or two ago suddenly becomes a bit more serious and a lot more of an adventure.....

Yesterday the caravan and awning were covered in a huge sheet of ice and as for the car..well it took me 20mins to clear the thick ice from the windscreen and windows and make it safe to set off on a visit to Anne's sisters house which is a few miles from Hatherleigh north of Okehampton....

Today it's been different again...still very cold but wet for most of the day....

All the weather forecasters are telling us that we are going to have a very hard and cold winter and the moorland around us here can be transformed from tough walking country into very..very tough walking country and not for the faint hearted.... 
All I can say is.."bring it on- we are ready and waiting".

One of those days.....

Yesterday was one of those days..... One of those days when everything seemed to come together to make a perfect day for getting out on the bike and experiencing the joys of two wheeled non motorized travel.....

The winds were very light at about 4 to 6 mph..... The sky was perfect without a cloud in the sky and although it was chilly first thing - by 1100hrs it was warm enough for me to not have to wear full winter cycling gear.... I am still wearing cycling fingerless mitts and not having to wear full cycling gloves yet...

It was one of those days that reminds me of some of the reasons why this is the third time we have decided to spend the winter down here on Dartmoor....

Yes the weather can be harsh on the moor sometimes but then that can make for a bit of a wild walking trip which both Anne and I really enjoy....

However on other days it can all come together to make perfect cycling weather and yesterday was one of those days....

You can see how good the weather was in the image below.......

Perfect weather for a bike ride....

I have always been interested in standing stones and crosses and Dartmoor has more than it's fair share of these.....

When I was posting images on a regular basis on my photo blog 'Aura of Past Shadows' (AOPS) standing stones and crosses were a regular subject but over the past few years I have not been so active in taking serious shots just relying on snaps (although NO dreaded selfies) for the Purpletraveller blog.....

I have been considering getting back to doing some more serious B&W photography and again start regular posts on the AOPS....

My problem is finding the time with everything else that seems to fill up my retirement :-) but if I do decide to re-start AOPS and dig out my Fuji X-Pro1 I will let you know,,,,,,

Anyway... In the meantime a bit of information about the cross in the above image....

This cross can be located at Grid Reference SX/530/711 or 

-4.07504/50.52190 (approx) Longitude/Latitude(+/-)

It is at the junction on the north west corner of Huckworthy Common...

The cross is a Waymarker to the church at Sampford Spiney.

It stands at 6 feet 3 inches (1.90 metres) tall and 1 foot 7 inches (0.50 metres) across the cross arms....

It would seem that in times gone by Travellers from Plympton Priory on route to Tavistock Abbey would pass this cross if they wished to stop off at Sampford Spiney.

The Manor of Sampford Spiney formed part of the lands that belonged to Plympton Priory and would therefore need to be visited from time to time by the monks of the Priory...

This basic and solid cross is still in fairly good condition although there is some slight damage to the North Eastern face of the arms. Both arms have had pieces knocked off which has the effect of shortening the already short arms even more....

The 'Dark Side' of the caravan world......

The non-working fridge situation turned into a bit of a saga and still hasn't been totally resolved....

I called in a local mobile caravan service guy and it was confirmed that it was the fridge's 230v heating element at fault.... To fit a new one required the fridge to be removed from it's cabinet surround...... Try as he did Mr local caravan service was unable to move the fridge an inch and after about an hour he declared defeat....

It would appear that Eriba caravans belong to the 'dark side' of the caravan world with all sorts of 'how to' secrets surrounding them that only an official Eriba dealer is privy to....

After I had handed over the £40 call out charge he left the camp site muttering that he hated to be beaten and it was the first time it had ever happened to him etc..etc... I thought that he was going to burst into tears.... He left a beaten man.........

Still at least he was slightly better off in the financial sense than I was.... I on the other hand was now £40 worse off and still had a non-working fridge....

'Dave the dog' (don't ask) who is a regular summer and winter fulltimer and is camped the other side of the hedge came round to see if things had been sorted......

Now Dave is a bit of a campsite wizard and although he couldn't offer a solution to the stuck fridge he came up with some alternative offerings.....

First he had a full propane gas cylinder in his awning that was surplus to his requirements. This is now installed in my gas locker.

The fridge works on gas ok and it is obvious that it will be useful if we ever have a power outage. It will give us an alternative for our heating and cooking as well as the fridge so it makes sense to have it as a back-up. 

Because we pay for the electric hook up anyway it is not my intention to run anything on gas full time.... However, Dave had a solution for that as well.....

It turned out that as well as having a gas cylinder just sitting around in his awning he also had a domestic larder fridge that was almost unused ....

He has loaned it to me for our five month stay here and it is now installed in my awning keeping my beer nice and cold.

The fridge will be returned to Dave when we leave here in the spring and for a couple of weeks after that I will power the caravan fridge with the gas until the caravan goes into the Eriba dealer for it's annual service at the end of April......

Dave's spare fridge in our awning.....