“Hmm, that crow seems to have landed on top of it. I suppose I’d better go and take the shot now then.” It seemed a bit of a wrench to be honest, but the feathered photo-bomber promised to add something to what was already an appealing proposition in the form of a lone leaning hawthorn up on top of the Exmoor wilderness. I reached inside the van for the camera, and stumbled eagerly across the few yards of tough grass.
You’ll probably laugh, but when we realised that on the final morning of our stay we needed to leave the campsite by 10:30am at the latest, we went into a very mild sense of panic. As a landscape tog, I’m supposed to be roaming the open countryside in my wellies at 4:30am on mornings like this, waiting for the sun to rise at a carefully chosen location. But then again, not long ago I read this theory about humans, which I felt explained why life had always seemed so difficult to me. It postulated the notion that early humans were pack animals, and so some of those instincts remain. While some of us are singing “Oh what a beautiful morning” at the top of our voices at the crack of dawn, others are still fast asleep, waking several hours later to stare mournfully at their porridge as they try to come to terms with the fact that the new day has started. And this is all because different members of the pack needed to be alert at different times of the day. Evolution decided to design us that way. So while the larks are starting to flag by early evening, us owls are bellowing the chorus to “All Night Long” as the midnight hour passes.
Whether the theory holds any truth I can’t say, but I’ve found solace in it as a chronically grumpy ball of discontented misery before about 10am on every day ever in my life, and cling to it as a whine against the world for having to conform to the norms of society. When I was able to take early retirement, not even the end of commuting and the oodles of free time came as a greater reward than waving arrivederci to that first assault upon the senses by the early morning alarm. And that’s why in my Flickr feed of five hundred odd pictures, you could probably count the ones taken at sunrise on the fingers of one hand and still have a couple left over to tell me what you think of them. All I can say is, I count myself lucky to live on a west facing coast where I can go sunset bonkers whenever the mood takes me. And Ali is exactly the same – in fact she usually sleeps longer into the mornings than I do. And if you’re like us, I hope you’ve found some comfort in the realisation that there’s nothing wrong with you. Your nine hundred and eighty-six times grandad was the nightwatchman in the Neander Valley tribe and he passed the trait down through the generations to you. If it hadn't been for him the rest of them would have been on the menu in the local sabre toothed tiger takeaway.
The 10:30am departure deadline was relatively early in comparison to many of the sites we’ve stayed on, and needed a cunning plan. A fairly simple cunning plan in fact, and while we'd permit ourselves a morning cuppa to set the wheels in motion, we would skip breakfast until the other side of the scramble to leave our pitch in time. So here we were, sitting at an empty car park on top of the world in the first sunshine we’d seen for four days, spooning down porridge in our camping chairs beside the open door of the van and watching the world around us. To the north lay the Bristol Channel, the mountains of South Wales filling the horizon with a warm haze in the background, while on all other sides lay the open moor, dotted with quietly grazing sheep, the occasional car breaking the silence as it rumbled past. After the rude awakening of the earlier start than we’re used to, we were content to sit vacantly for a while and soak up the sun with a second cup of tea.
But as soon as we’d arrived I’d noticed that tree, crouching between the drifts of gorse, looking as photogenic as you like. In true moorland style it left the viewer in no doubt as to the direction of the prevailing wind in these parts, leaning decisively towards the east and leaving its thin trunk behind it. I was pretty sure the new lens would isolate it, but there was no rush. I’d take the shot a bit later; for now, I just wanted to sit here and do nothing. In the last few days, the step count had mounted on the steep slopes around the twin villages of Lynton and Lynmouth, and our tired legs had earned the rest. Here we sat and quietly enjoyed the thoughts of the last few days we’d passed on this rugged North Devon coastline, so different from our home just a couple of hours further down the road. Exmoor is easy to overlook when its larger cousin sits to the south, easier to access for us at least, and packed full of beauty and diversity. But here, the moor has its own delights, coming right to the edge of the sea as it does, with rivers rushing down from the high ground into the narrow valleys and gorges above Lynmouth. Our stay had been short, and the heatwave that had engulfed the nation had been replaced here by three days laced with fits of moody drizzle, but the opportunity to explore an area that neither of us had been to in many years was one we’d really enjoyed. And that’s the great thing about having a campervan; we’re visiting places that we’d never have imagined going to before Brenda came chugging into our lives. She’s got a new fridge that the solar panels happily power without complaint or intervention from other energy sources – we can even have ice creams and a properly chilled gin and tonic in the evenings now. What more could we ask for?
Well, a crow seemed to be the answer to that question, as I was stirred from my reverie by its arrival in the tree I’d been eyeing up. With the big lens already mounted on the camera, I finally moved from my camping chair and wandered a short distance into the rough; just enough to isolate the tree from most of the scrub that surrounded it. A few clicks later the crow decided to move on, and somehow I managed to control my excitement and not return to the van with a blurred action smudge, which I suspect had rather more to do with the quality of the lens than that of its owner. I returned to my chair, grinned, and gave the matter of boiling the kettle and making another brew some serious thought. It was about as much as I was prepared to do for the time being. Everything else could wait for a while.