A very talented young man!!

Wootton Courtenay has an exceptional number of interesting and versatile people within its community including a young and very talented musician called Alex. Last night Alex held a concert at St Swithins church where, accompanied by Marcus, he played a range of beautiful classical pieces on the flute and saxophone. Later, to showcase his wide range of musical prowess, Alex sang a well known ballad plus some Frank Sinatra. Not bad for a 20 year old!

The audience loved it and it was great to hear such a variety of musical scores in the church. After the encore, Alex invited the audience to sing along – (I have to say that the overall quality and standard of vocal harmony steadily declined as I opened my mouth and sang)!

Despite the wet weather, we have been taking the dogs out on some lovely walks. A waterproof jacket and leggings makes any walking weather possible to enjoy. Yesterday Derek and Lucy loaded the horses up and took them over to Webbers Post and the dogs and I hitched a lift with them. We walked home via the Horner Woods and the bottom carriage track to Wootton Courtenay. Along this route there are some grassy areas and a herd of Exmoor ponies were busy having a good old feed

Getting ready for Christmas

I can’t believe how long it’s been since I last put finger to keyboard to write on the blog. We have been so busy catching up with lots of jobs, having a couple of days away on the Isle of Wight and although it’s November, we still have guests staying with us for bed and breakfast and to enjoy Exmoor. At the moment we have Jo and Jackie staying who have been for exhilarating walks along the coast at Porlock, horse riding with David at Hunstcott Stables plus seeing allsorts of wildlife on an Exmoor safari.

Even at this time of year Exmoor retains a special magic – the wonderful light, quietness and wildlife. Despite the blustery winds, lots of trees have retained their autumn colour and the woods at Horner and Webbers Post are beautiful. Even though most of berries have been devoured by the fieldfare and blackbirds, there are still some beautiful holly trees fully laden (fingers crossed they are still here at Christmas)!We took the dogs up to Dunkery Hill Gate in the late afternoon which is my favourite time of day. In the dusk, several deer ran across our path and onto the moor beyond. 4 woodcock flew up, several pheasants were on their way to roost and there were loads of rabbits darting in and out of the gorse. On the way home the road drops down towards Webbers Post and view towards Horner Wood and Porlock is spectacular. Below us Cloutsham Farm was the only light in the valley and the only sound to be heard was a fox barking.

The run up to Christmas is always busy on Exmoor. In Porlock next week there is a 2 day Christmas Fair with stalls and exhibitions. The first weekend in December is Dunster by Candlelight and people come from all over the country to enjoy the evening. Shops stay open until the late evening, there are street entertainers, people dress up in medieval costumes and the whole town is full of a festive atmosphere On the 13th it is Dulverton by Starlight and the 15th and 16th is Porlock late night shopping. All these events provide ideal opportunities to buy Christmas presents.

A very active week!

The fantastic weather has prolonged the lovely autumn colours in our garden and across the moor.

We have just had a very busy week with bed and breakfast guests – half term combined with great weather and various activities on Exmoor. From ghost walks at Dunster Castle, master puppeteers at Tropicana and the famous Exmoor Beast cycle event across the moor.

Over 1700 people took part in the Exmoor Beast to cycle either 60 or 100 miles. The weather changed that night and we got up to gales and lashing rain. At 5.00 in the morning and peering out to such conditions would make most people go straight back to bed but not these hardened sportsmen! Not a lot of conversation was flowing (including from me) but 7 men, single focused (if a little doubtful), set off at 6.00 for the ride they wouldn’t forget. Ian's wife Heather, got up to take him to the start of the race (true dedication) but then very wisely returned home for a leisurely breakfast leaving Ian to it!

Making up our cycling guests were Tom and 2 friends from London, Al and his son from Dorset (never done an event like this - a baptism of fire methinks), Ian and Andy. Andy stayed with his family and he owns a cycling dynamics company which offers a specified range of bike fitting and analysis services plus a specified range of bikes to get maximum power, speed, efficiency and comfort – website is certainly worth a look We also had Phil staying who owns a photographic company specialising in bike, marathon and triathlon events and his photos of the riders in action are amazing. He was taking photos for a feature for Cycling Weekly and for his website.

Apparently it was one of the toughest rides ever with gusts of wind up to 70mph on Dunkery - Andy got blown off his bike twice! There were quite a few slips and collisions involving cattle grids, punctures 20 minutes into the race but it must have been a great sense of achievement for everyone who took part.

More and more activities are taking place on Exmoor and its great to see the area become such a focus for so many different events – cycling, Ironman, Wooden Spoon, running competitions, Duke of Edinburgh, Prince of Wales Trust and many more many of which raise a lot of money for charity.