Agatha Christie's home.. and a River

Today we set off after a full-English breakfast (very nice!) to discover the home of the author Agatha Christie - Greenways..

We used the Park & Ride in Dartmouth - the bus taking us right down to the harbour. We had a bit of a wait for the next lap of the journey and, despite the grey skies at that point, the views were pretty good!!

Having used the ferry along the River Dart, (seeing some varied wildlife including a couple of seals) we alighted at the landing stage at the bottom of a steep hill. There was a car to transport those who wanted transporting, up the hill to Agatha Christie's house, which was quite a climb. I prised Pete out of the car and we walked up to the house. The views were amazing

The house wasn't large by some standards and had a very homelike feel to it. I'm looking to buy a new house... I wonder if they'd accept reasonable offers... ;)

We had a tour around the house and then sampled the soup for lunch - carrot and lentil and very nice it was too.

The house and grounds..

From up here we looked down and saw the seals. A record shot only but my very first seal picture

We sat in deckchairs in the sunshine reading our books before heading off to the cafe for tea and cake... well we had walked a great deal today.

Lemon drizzle and coffee & walnut cake which was very yummy and then a gentle walk down the hill to catch the return ferry.

Back on shore, the gulls provided good subject for pictures whilst we waiting for the bus.

AND, our final bird and a great find was a

Razorbill! Woo hoo

Another really relaxing and lovely day :D

Down Devon way....

I got up at 5.00 and was on the road by 5.40 a.m. I was surprised how much traffic there was at that time of the morning.

Had a very easy drive down to Devon and 186 miles and just under 4 hours later I arrived at the hotel.

Changed over to Pete's car (he'd volunteered to do the driving) and we headed off for Buckland Abbey. In all my visits to this area I'd never been before... it was a pleasant way to start the day especially after an initial cuppa.

I've had to cut down on the number of pictures and there's still quite a few... so I won't ramble on..

I've just bought a new lens (Canon 18-200mm) as a travel lens and, given the light wasn't that good at the beginning of the day, I was quite pleased with this shot which is heavily cropped.

Colourful veg!

Pictures were permitted inside the house.

We had an "OC" moment here..

Having had an excellent Tomato and lentil soup for lunch we headed off to spend the afternoon at Saltram House... again, another first visit.

Ducks greeted us.

Throughout the house these wooden mice were hidden...for children to find... I missed most of them :)

but found this one too.

Fancy this wallpaper? bit busy I feel. ;)

and we had cake.... of course :D but today the Tipple Cake was a little on the dry side although the Coffee and Walnut was a bit better.

Pete was ensuring that the cake didn't disappear before his very eyes!

Some quail (I believe) on our way out..

Despite the black sky as we left it didn't rain!! We had a very few spots on the windscreen at odd moments during the day... but that was just low cloud!!


A good first day which finished with a rather nice meal (the first course being scallops....)

.... and tomorrow is another day...