Substack diary no.167: Friday, 29th. May 2026

I am not an early riser. However, this morning I was out of bed at 0645 after a period of semi-wakefulness of about an hour or so; I am always like this when I must get up at a specific time rather than a time that is natural for me. The reason? I am off to Chagford!

Actually, that is not the reason I was up so early this morning. The real reason is the ludicrous timing of the one and only bus a day, which leaves the town centre at 0845, requiring me to leave home at 8am as it is a 40-minute walk. The bus arrives in Chagford at 10am, which may not seem too much of a problem.

However, the purpose of my visit is to meet up with an old friend and enjoy a few beers in two or three excellent pubs. I do not feel comfortable sitting at a bar with a beer at 10 o’clock in the morning, and the hotel bar in question is very genteel with well-off middle-class city dwellers getting what they believe to be a taste of Dartmoor, and who tend to frown upon people who ‘drink’ at 10 o’clock in the morning. Not that it bothers me. I am being unkind. I apologise.

My day trip of good conversation and good beer will be cut short by the same bus that takes me there, which leaves for Newton Abbot at 1340. The last bus back into town. How nuts is that?

I shall enjoy what little time I have immensely. Chagford is a very pleasant little Dartmoor town and the bus journey itself is very pleasant, passing through some of the best countryside in Devon and including another Dartmoor town en-route: Moretonhampstead. I am looking forward to it.