The next photograph is a 360 degree panorama taken from the second tor.
[Please click on it to see it at full size, and maybe even click on it twice if your browser scales photographs for size.]
Starting on the left of the photograph, the oak trees are just barely visible in the valley of the stream, with the path leading up to the tors. Then there is the big mound which is the first and largest tor. And leading round opposite from the first tor is the third tor, (as I am standing on the second) and invisible Two Bridges in the distance, and finally at the far right, the root of oaks is just barely visible again.
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While standing on the tor, a drop of water fell on my jacket. The clouds were massing, making a spirited attempt to dump its water on me.
But I was prepared.
I knew that it rained as much as a jungle here, and this was the wet season, so I had bought myself a pair of wellies. For those of you who don’t know, wellies are the boots that Paddington Bear wears. They are also the boots that everyone in the country owns, because they are made from rubber and are completely waterproof to the knees.
They make splashing around in the sodden moors fun.
And the moors are sodden.
I don’t know what it’s like in the summer, but now everything was wet, and everywhere there were tiny streams. If the land was flat, there was a small bog, if there was any sort of slope, then the water ran down it.
It’s good to put your feet together and jump up and down in the puddles on the moor.
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As the clouds massed, the wind picked up, swirling around in an enthusiastic and freezing cold way. Large single drops of rain continued to fall, and in the distance the sun attempted to shine through.
So I took some pictures from the third tor.
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The sun was working hard to shine through, even throwing one single beam of light to the ground.
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Before it gave up entirely to the clouds. At this point the large drops of rain stopped, to be replaced by a thick wet mist, which covered my glasses, so I had to keep looking over them to see where I was going.
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The guide book said there were Bronze Age ruins on this hill. But I never found them. And now I was cold and wet and slightly disappointed I had not come across some stone circle huts.
Which made me smile in a strange way, because that meant that I would have to come back to the moors, to find my Sherlock Holmes hut.
And as I tromped down the hill, sloshing my wellies in the water, I came across a little piece of beauty, a gate from some long forgotten farmer.
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And at the bottom of the hill, my mother was waiting for me at the hotel, sitting on a couch, with a warm red fire, a cup of tea, and what looked like a blind, 20-year-old cat that had decided my mothers lap was the place it was going to stay for eternity.
My mother was perfectly happy.
And I slowly became warm.