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| Burrator Dam, at one end of Burrator Reservoir on Dartmoor. The road runs across it, so you can walk across and look down at the water , which is an awfully long down down! |
This week we have been to visit my Elder Daughter and her Boyfriend in Plymouth, and had a wonderfully relaxing time being made a fuss of and looked after as if we were really special people. They cooked us wonderful meals, beautifully served up, with the table all laid out properly, and we’ve had home-grown salad, and courgettes, and home-made icecream )not together, I hasten to add, different courses!). And there was home-made wine, poured from a glass decanter – there’s posh for you! I kept offering to help, but I wasn’t allowed to do anything. No washing up, no cooking, no tidying, no cleaning, no washing, no ironing… Sheer bliss! All I did was chill out and enjoy myself, and being so pampered made me feel like Royalty! The Man of the House was just as happy, especially as Elder Daughter and her Boyfriend took out us out and about, so he didn’t have to worry about driving or parking.Â
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| Lakeside view: Burrator Reservoir shrouded in mist. |
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| The trees looked spooky as the mist turned them to silhouettes in shades of black, grey and very dark green. |
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| There were lichens big enough to be in a flower bed…Â |
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| … And others encrusted branches so there was no wood ro be seen. |
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| Droplets of water caught on a cobeweb. |
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| I guess this is another of those cross-bred ducks, similar to the ones I’ve seen in Tamworth. |
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| Raindrops on the spikes of a thistle flower. |
So plans for a reservoir were drawn up, a site found, and construction got under way  on August 9th, 1893. Work took exactly five years – Burrator was officially opened on September 21st, 1898, and the whole thing cost £178,000. Part of the old Leat now lies inside the reservoir, which is fed directly by the River Meavy, with a dam at either end. Initially it held 668 million gallons of water, but it was enlarged in 1923, when the dams were raised by ten feet (another five-year project), with a re-opening ceremony in September 1928. It now holds more than 1,000 million gallons of water, is managed by the South West Lakes Trust, and is a popular spot for tourists and residents alike, with the most incredible scenery and tracks for walking, cycling, fishing and wildlife. I just loved this spot – it was so beautiful, and so quiet, and completely unspoiled, and shows just how amazing a man-made landscape can be, and how it gradually becomes part of the natural scene as nature takes over. Â
Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Melinda at West Metro Mummy.
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| The Wanderer… Me, trailing behind everyone else because they’ve all got longer legs! |
The Book Trunk 
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