Devonian Time
25/07/08 12:20
The first modern geological map was pieced together early in the nineteenth century in England by William Smith almost single-handed. He also helped standardize some of the terms we use to describe geological periods, which is why some of these refer to parts of the English countryside. But in late July, I found myself in the country of Devon, thinking of Devonian time in a way that was quite different from the geological use of Devonian as I attended a countryside getaway with some friends and their network of acquaintences.
I arrived in Devon after a long sleepless night of (mostly) dancing and munching in Vienna, returned to my hotel room about 4 am to pack, and then arrived at the airport about 5:30. By 8:30 in the morning, I had landed at Heathrow and began looking for train tickets.
Devon is in the southwest corner of England, the county just to the west of Cornwall. My train passed through the London suburbs and then Reading and then into the deeper countryside. Tiny stations with people parked beside the train waived at their children and grandchildren, and wheat fields came to the edge of the tracks. My map spread on my lap to track our progress, I noted that ancient hedgerows began appearing when we crossed into Devon. I smiled in the bright sun, looking forward to the weekend.
A few text messages with my colleague T settled which station I would arrive at and, along with a brief description of my ride, I jumped off the train. Two other guests were on the same train with me, and we all piled into the little car and headed off through a series of villages on narrow, hilly roads to the cottage.
The landscape of Devon is quite old, and the population density seems very low by historic standards. I imagine there have been many times in the past when the number of people living there was much higher.
I arrived on Saturday a little after noon. The schedule for that day involved several hours of cricket, the stately game that I was told was “very similar” to baseball. Cricket is almost nothing like baseball, except that there is a ball (thrown by a bowler) and a bat (wielded by a batsman). I felt fairly awkward. I never had a lot of good experiences with manly team sports growing up, and the rules are both technical and strict. I could also see that there were some very competitive members of the two teams who genuinely wanted to win. At best, I was useless. At worst, I was an unshaven, overexhausted, and uncomfortable North American rube. Nonetheless, I had a good time. And after my stint batting, I was granted leave to go sleep for a few hours before dinner that evening.
The rest of the weekend involved a great deal of sausage and beer. I also took some great walks along roads that seemed to have a sparse seeding of cars. Tractors and sheep seemed far more populous. I wandered between high hedges. Old roads sat next to even older roads that had been allowed to fill in with trees.
Devon was a fine, Vermont-like place, a landscape with a long memory.
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