Wednesday 8 October 2014

Dartmoor - If you're happy and you know it, let it show!

Early on in our stay we picked up a cache just down the road from our cottage.  We were on our way to Widecombe-in-the-Moor. 

The Cache Owner had put a note on the cache page stating that the local farmer was completing some work at the cache site so it may not be possible to pick up the cache.



When we arrived at the cache site, there was clear evidence of work under way, lots of cows lolling about on the grass, but no one around, so we managed to pick this one up nice and easily. 








When we looked more closely at the work underway, it appeared that a face was being built into the dry stone wall ..... What do you think? 

We were most impressed and thought it was a really unusual, but definitely, fun idea that we had never come across before.






We passed this spot again, later in the week and could see that good progress was being made. It was most definitely a face. The eyes had just been installed. We really hoped we'd get to see it finished before we had to head for home. 







We came back past the wall again on the Wednesday before we were heading home and, hurrah, the farmer was there, stood on the wagon just about to put the last two stones in along the hair line, so we couldn't resist pulling in to say hello and tell him how much we loved what he'd done. 



He said that he'd had a great year, the weather had been kind, the harvest was in and he was really happy and wanted to express that. He'd had to rebuild the wall anyway and just had the inspiration to do something a bit different. 

He had done it all himself, cutting the mouth and the eyes, everything. He said it would be finished by Friday so we said we'd definitely be back to take more pictures of it fully completed before we headed back home. He was really chuffed that we'd stopped for a chat and was delighted that it had made us smile and posed for a picture before we headed off.






Daft as it may sound, this was one of the real highlights of our holiday.  When we went back to take our pictures of the wall in all it's glory, there was another couple parked up, who had stopped to look at it.  They were taking pictures too, so we filled them in on what the farmer had told us about why he had done.  We think it will most definitely become a favourite local landmark.




2 comments:

  1. Thanks for posting this. We saw this wall while exploring the lanes and did an internet search to find info. A real feel-good story.
    cheers another phil

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    Replies
    1. Thank you so much for commenting Phil. We were so pleased to have watched this be built and to get to speak to the farmer. It was definitely a highlight of our holiday 😃

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