there’s no ‘g’ in Burgh Island

That’s the first thing I learned upon approach­ing the Devon coast, look­ing for the “Sea Trac­tor” that would take us across the incom­ing tide to the Island. It’s pro­nounced “Burr”, I sup­pose sort of like “Edin­burgh,” Scot­land. The real dum­mies like me start out pro­nounc­ing it “Edin­burg,” with a ‘g’, and then move onto the only slight­ly less dumb ver­sion, “Edin­bur­row.” No, it’s just “Burr Island.”

But I’m skip­ping ahead. Hav­ing seen Avery off on her school trip, we hopped in the car and head­ed south. Well, south/southwest, through beau­ti­ful Wilt­shire, where we stopped in a lit­tle town called Chilmark and had the req­ui­site plate of Wilt­shire ham and a “brace of eggs,” very deli­cious. The ham is actu­al­ly cured, instead of being smoked, and the fla­vor is very del­i­cate and the per­fect accom­pa­ni­ment to a plate of fried eggs. Get some, do, at the Black Dog pub in Chilmark.

Then through Som­er­set, which is just about the pret­ti­est coun­try­side you can imag­ine, the set­ting of one of my favorite mys­tery series by Janet Lau­rence. I must say, in an igno­rant way it’s hard to get real­ly worked up about the deple­tion of our nat­ur­al resources when you dri­ve through hun­dreds of miles of seem­ing­ly end­less land­scapes, filled with sheep, cows, pigs, hors­es, as far as your eye can see. It does make me won­der why on earth we live in Lon­don, but then we have to admit we love it here, too. Yet anoth­er of life’s apho­risms proved true: it’s con­trast that makes hap­pi­ness. Right on through Devon, then, with its hills full of red cows. Not black and white, not brown, red. And all the miles of slight­ly drunk­en-look­ing right angles of hedgerow, so beau­ti­ful under the change­able grey-blue sky. Just as we got into Mod­bury, the lit­tle vil­lage that’s the clos­est to the island, the sun came blaz­ing out and we could put the top down on the car. Gorgeous!

We should have stopped in the lit­tle town of St. Anne’s Chapel, as the hotel guide told us too, and phoned the hotel to get across the tide-swept expanse of Big­bury Bay between the main­land and the hotel island, because they were quite cor­rect in say­ing mobile phone ser­vice was iffy (how love­ly not to have a phone), but in the end it worked out just fine because as we were oohing and aahing over the view of the hotel from the oth­er side, we saw the nut­ty “Sea Trac­tor” com­ing across and waved our arms at the dri­ver. I ran down with our bags and the love­ly guy (I wish I knew his name but I don’t) went up in his Land Rover parked on our side of the water and showed John where to park, then they both came down and joined me on the Trac­tor. As you can see in the pic­ture, it’s a restored 1966 vehi­cle that reminds me of the thing they did space walks on: a sort of hayride wag­on fit­ted with long spindly legs and enor­mous tyres, designed to dri­ve right the way across the beach in two feet of water. Crazy, but a lot of fun. The Burgh Island Hotel staff ran out to let us into the hotel, which is like walk­ing back into 1929. Every piece of fur­ni­ture, work of art is a peri­od piece, joined by lots of framed reviews of the hotel from 1929 to the present.

We dumped our bags in our room, called the “Cunard,” (which felt just like the descrip­tions of ocean lin­er cab­ins I’ve read) and went on an explor­ing tour of the hotel first (a real bil­liard room!) and then the grounds. Rab­bit war­rens every­where, and some glimpses of bun­nies, until they saw us com­ing. It remind­ed me of the hours Avery and I spent in Scot­land hud­dled out­side rab­bit door­ways, wait­ing for a lit­tle face to peer out. I men­tioned this to John and he said, “No way am I crouch­ing on wet grass to wait for a rab­bit.” Well, that’s why peo­ple have chil­dren, to have some­one to do that with.

Enough tour guide from me today. I’m off for a mam­moth gro­cery shop in prepa­ra­tion for our tired, dirty and no doubt starved child’s return tomor­row. More on Devon presently!