A birthday lunch at Cranks vegetarian restaurant, Dartington

Thank you so much for all your birthday presents, phone

Willow tunnel at Dartington 

calls, messages and emails yesterday! It's official - I'm forty-one :-( Eeek!

As mentioned in my previous post about the unusual shops there, we did return to Dartington for my birthday lunch. Cranks restaurants started in London in the 1960s and Dave remembers them being the first real vegetarian eateries. Dartington is now the only one left of the chain as the general popularity of vegetarian food meant too much competition for the London branches and apparently it is not truly independent anymore, but part of the Nando's grocery group. Cranks still serves excellent food though!

I had Aubergine Charlotte which was lots of tangy feta

Aubergine Charlotte at Cranks 

cheese and juicy mushrooms in a delicious aubergine wrapping. Dave had the seasonal tart which was spinach and mushroom. Both were served with Cranks Salad - actually portions of four different salads - so the whole meal was filling and good value at about £11 each including a drink - I can recommend the Vanilla Steamer. Service is cafeteria style so we could actually see the various options before ordering and the place was nicely busy - buzzing, but not uncomfortably packed. I would definitely go there again.

Parking at Dartington is 50p for an hour or £1 for four hours (and contrary to the car park sign, you can now get a parking refund at Cranks subject to a spend of over £10) so we thought we would make the most of it by walking some of the Sustrans off-road path towards Totnes. The path goes through woodland carpeted with bluebells, primroses and wild garlic flowers. We also saw a patch of kingcups - essentially giant buttercups. Interesting fauna was limited to a single yellow wagtail and a tiny brown and cream warbler-type bird that will probably be forever unidentified.

I was impressed to see a working waterwheel on the side of an architect's offices, then at the edge of the Dartington Estate we found the above pictured  willow tunnel over a boardwalk leading to an observation space. There wasn't actually much yet to observe, though signs of work underway for a nature conservation area. I thought boardwalk markings for www.greenspace.co.uk would lead us to information, but they turn out to be the company that made the boardwalk!

Further along the River Dart, I was very excited to discover

Looking across the River Dart 

the Totnes Hydropower Scheme. Completed in December and now, I think, just in the final landscaping phase, this project utilises a pair of Archimedes Screws - just like we saw at Cragside last year - to create enough hydroelectric power for a school and nearly 300 homes. How fantastic is that?! The power house building also incorporates a fish ladder to enable and encourage salmon and sea trout, and will have a canoe launch and natural recreational areas. I was so amazed to see this technology we had previously admired working in its historical setting actually being put to use here for the future. Well done Totnes!

A final note on a completely different subject: Dave has just renewed his Kaspersky anti-virus software and, as a thank you and a promotional thing, Kaspersky have a special offer for any new customers he recommends. Please Use This Link to buy your new software at up to 50% off the usual price. You will also receive a £5 Amazon voucher and Dave will get a £10 Amazon voucher. Woo hoo!

We visit The Shops At Dartington and find Totnes Community Bookshop

Dave was intrigued when he saw The Shops marked on the

Upcycled figure at The Shops 

map at nearby Dartington. Normally towns don't bother to announce their retail district so proudly so he investigated further. It turns out that The Shops At Dartington are part of something a bit special. The estate was purchased by Dorothy and Leonard Elmhirst in 1925 and they 'embarked on what they called the Dartington Experiment to regenerate a rural community.' The Elmhirsts welcomed people who were interested in social change and reform - artists, economists, horticulturalists - and the estate is still very much a social enterprise today, ploughing any commercial profit back into local projects. There is a full calendar of musical, artistic, culinary and literary events as well as an arthouse cinema, beautiful gardens, restaurants and the eponymous Shops. Parking is pretty cheap and we also spotted a Sustrans cycle / walking route from Totnes.

We began wandering around outside this pretty venue

The Sustrans route leading away from the bridge 

which is all old stone and flowers. Lots of the trees were in full blossom and there are interesting details like the above upcycled figure near to the Restore shop. Restore is a voluntary enterprise, part of Refurnish Devon, which brings people together to learn how to repair and restore their existing furniture as well as upcycling individual pieces for the shop. Right now there's a nice gateleg table there!

We managed not to allow ourselves into the very tempting food shop and also bypassed another business selling fire bowls, outdoor pizza ovens and the like. A homewares shop had Christy towels at half price, but we don't have the space! Instead we spent our time (and money) in a greeting card shop which has a fabulous range of cards - special occasions, humorous, and arty. I especially appreciated their support of local artists and liked designs by Kerry Tremlett from Exeter and Sally Anderson from

Sally Anderson greeting cards 

Teignmouth. Our final discovery was a branch of the vegetarian Cranks Restaurant which Dave remembers as the first veggie eaterie in London. He even ate there in 1967 and we are planning to treat me to a birthday lunch at the Dartington establishment (on Tuesday, just as a by the way!) so I will review it next week. I think if we do find our perfect abode in Torquay, we will be visiting Dartington fairly frequently!

Another town we would be visiting frequently would be Totnes. We have already stopped by once and loved its hippy vibe. This time we hoped for another good DVD, but couldn't find anything promising that we hadn't already seen. My other aim was to find a cafe with a book exchange shelf because I thought Totnes looked a likely place. I wasn't able to google one either there or in Torquay - so if you know better, please let me know. But in the meantime, we made the wonderful discovery of the Totnes Community Bookshop in Castle Street. It officially became a community enterprise in March and hosts events such as open mic poetry evenings, author visits and acoustic music. I think all the books are second hand, but are in good condition and there's an excellent selection. Most of the paperbacks that caught my eye were £2 each so we chose five between us and, best of all, I got a £1 trade-in each on the three I had hoped to exchange. So if you want to read Daughter Of The Killing Fields, Fermat's Last Theorem (review blogged tomorrow) or The Amateur Marriage, my copies are now all at the Totnes Community Bookshop. Go take a look!

Photo from Totnes Community Bookshop FB page

Exploring Torbay and watching Wild in lieu of walking ourselves

We are pitched up on The English Riviera now, at a huge

campsite in between Paignton and Torquay called Widend Touring Park. It is a good location for exploring the Torbay area and we zoomed over to Totnes on our very first day here. Totnes impressed us a lot. It has lots of independent shops, many of the hippy-green variety that appeal to me! There are three health food shops and more organic cotton clothing than I have seen since WOMAD! We bought tofu in The Green Life, delicious fennel and garlic sausages from C.M.McCabe butchers, and a second-hand dvd copy of the Reece Witherspoon film Wild from a fabulous shop, Fretwork Music, that stocked a range of musical instruments, dvds and books. Great mix and the dvd was only £2.99!

In 1995, a young woman called Cheryl Strayed decided to walk 1100 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail across the American wilderness. She was a heroin addict struggling to overcome her grief at losing her mother to cancer. She had never hiked before and set off, alone, with a ridiculously overstuffed backpack and too-small boots. Cheryl published her memoir of her hike years later, in 2012, and it was read by Reece Witherspoon who was then convinced that she had to make a film of Cheryl's journey. Together with director, Jean-Marc Vallee, I think she has done a fantastic job! Wild is just under two hours long, but it flew past for me and I was actually a little disappointed when it finished. The Pacific Crest Trail scenery is stunningly beautiful and Cheryl's story is one of real hope and motivation. I am now so inspired to set out on a long-distance walk of my own! I loved that the real Cheryl was very involved with the filmmaking - her whole family appear in minor roles and her daughter plays Cheryl as a child - and the work feels truthful. Dave did find a lot of the dialogue difficult to hear so we might well watch the film again with subtitles on. Otherwise it is superb!

Back to my reality and a few words about Widend Touring

Our pitch at Widend Touring Park 

Park. I was seriously underwhelmed on arrival. We had booked by phone a few days earlier and had to pay the whole cost of our stay upfront, however they failed to mention Reception's lunchtime closure so we were left stranded in their carpark for twenty-five minutes. An officious woman who said she would find someone to show us to our pitch but failed to do so got quite snarky with Dave when she reappeared. She gave the impression that we should have known Reception would be closed even though we hadn't been told and there's no mention on the website either. Grrr! Not a good start!

The site is large and most pitches are taken, but with unoccupied caravans so it feels like a ghost town. We wonder if there will be an influx at the weekend or over the Bank Holiday. It's pretty peaceful at the moment and cheap for the UK - a deal of stay-six-nights-and-get-the-seventh-free means we are paying under £12 a night including electric - less than many CLs. We have fantastic wifi reception here - our Osprey has five bars of 4G! Water and grey water disposal are close by and the shower block is in good condition, but the doors are kept tied open so it's chilly at this time of year. There was only eight seconds of water on the shower press-button too, though after my shower I tried the next cubicle and that ran for twenty seconds. We are surprised that the only recycling facility is a wheelie bin for newspapers. Everything else has to go in large bins that seem to be just for landfill and we were strongly encouraged to use the tumble driers rather than hanging out our washing - I guess they're not big on environmentalism!

Widend campsite is conveniently located for exploring the Torbay area by car though which is our main objective here as we start our flat-hunting in earnest. I don't yet know if we can do any walks from Widend - I wouldn't fancy walking or cycling on the road past the entrance - but we are only a few minutes' drive from Torquay and Paignton, and a scant fifteen minutes from Totnes. The scenery around here is beautiful, as you would expect from Devon, and we've even had one gloriously sunny day.