Tuesday, 20 May 2008



I watched the sunrise over Torquay this morning, at about 0540h whilst sitting parked on the seafront at Paignton. Behind me, in her seat, was Heidi, fast asleep. Rachel meanwhile was having a deep sleep back at home.

Heidi’s appetite is enormous it seems, and she just keeps on feeding, and when its run out, she wants more. She does get a bit of wind so today I picked her up at 0515h and set off down the road with her mumbling to herself. Soon she was in deep sleep too.

The town was quiet as it should be with the exception of the Council who were out putting hanging baskets up. A few pigeons and gulls wandered around clearing away the bits left behind by last nights late night revellers and crows stood defiantly on the white line in the road as I speed by.

The nocturnal strangers who walk the town during the hours of darkness because they “cannot sleep” are all but gone back to bed or have been quizzed out of the area by the police.

With heater on it soon becomes quite cosy in there and Heidi clearly thinks so too. Over to Torquay I go and look back across to see Paignton, all lit by a lovely orange light, with some parts still in black and white.

On the way up the hill out of the town toward home I see Emma from work walking her dogs Ringo and Bracken, talking to her friend Karen.

I get back fully awake as is Heidi who after an hour of driving about is hungry again. Rachel takes over here as I have a shower and later I make some bacon rolls for breakfast. Nice floury baps with thick rashers of bacon make a great start to the day washed down with a fruit juice followed by coffee.

We headed up to Chagford to see Rachel’s mum and dad, Colin and June and wandering up the road to the Square meant we encountered several people. It is a close knit community and so everyone had heard of Heidi’s arrival a week ago. It was nice to meet them and thankfully it was not as busy as a weekend otherwise we would have never got to our destination. Its lovely to receive little packages and envelopes as we go, and people have been so generous.

We took Heidi to meet her big brother in the churchyard which was a sad moment and I’m still not sure what I thought at the time. She was fast asleep, a week old and wrapped in a blue fleece blanket completely oblivious to what was going on. The rooks called overhead, and Rachel and I stood at Freddie’s graveside just thinking about things.

We headed on to see Audrey at her farm and stayed there for a bite to eat before wandering back to home. This is the farthest Heidi has gone although she has not shown a great deal of interest in some parts of it.

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