Usually when it's icy here we're trapped at home, but despite the cold this week it's been dry, and apart from a few dodgy patches the lane hasn't been too bad. On Tuesday Sarah drove us to Haytor (which is only about five minutes away) and we walked from there past the abandoned, flooded (and currently frozen) quarry and down across the valley to Hound Tor. The sky was clear and everything looked lovely, flocked with frost and sparkling in the sunshine. We stopped for lunch among the low, mossy walls of the mediaeval village below Hound Tor, and I started doing my Drawing of the Day.
Before I could finish it a bank of freezing fog rolled in and the whole day changed. Visibility was down to about ten feet, but there was still a hint of sunlight peeking through, so that the frosted rocks and thorn trees took on the appearance of a set from one of those studio-bound 1980s fantasy films like Legend or The Company of Wolves. Except that the frost usually looks more convincing in movies. I started doing another drawing while Sarah took these photos, but it didn't amount to much.
Climbing back towards Haytor along the path of the granite tramway we reached a place where we usually get damp feet, because a bog on the uphill side seeps across the path and runs on down. Not any more; the trickling water had all frozen solid, forming a strange, rippled pavement of ice. Sarah stopped to take this last picture, which captures the atmosphere rather well, I think...
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| All photos by Sarah Reeve. |
