By: Blonde Two

One day at the end of last week, I went up to tidy the Dartmoor Christmas Tree. I can’t remember which day, but it was the one on which I decided that I was going to start throwing Maltesers at people, if I didn’t get out for a walk. I was a bit premature in my tree tidying; Blonde One and I usually do this job much closer to Twelfth Night. She was away; she is back now and we went up last night anyway (just because we could!).

Once I had finished de-Christmassing and then apologising to the tree, I sat in the obligatory place, on the obligatory rock and admired the obligatory view. It was stunning, at first the saturated moor sparkled in the low winter sunlight; but as I sat and admired this gentle magnificence, the forecasted (well done Met Office) storm started to blow in its sideways rain.

Tree Coming Storm2

I don’t mind a bit of blowing-in, I am after all a blow-in myself (non native living in Devon). I found myself however nursing a touch of concern for the family walking up the path past me. They were heading for the top, and this particularly top is particularly windy. I don’t know why it is that these days I feel responsible for everyone that I see on Dartmoor; maybe training, or spending so much time actually being responsible has done it, or perhaps it has always been part of maternal me. I am not sure, but I watched family ‘Windy’ all the way to the top and didn’t leave until I was sure that none of them were going to fly past me.

The rain got wetter and more horizontal as I walked back down off the hill, when I got back to my phone rang and it was Mum asking if I was ‘Busy?’ She had an important aunty related task for me. Which was fine because the ‘Calm Before the Storm’ was already a thing of memory and I no longer felt like throwing Maltesers.