We left Weston Super Mare in brilliant sunshine and went down a narrow, narrow lane to East Quantoxhead. It’s a lovely hamlet with a duck pond, thatched cottages, one of which has a 3ft cacti in the garden that has long flat leaves that end with a 3 inch spike.

It was a lovely walk to the beach through a few wooded areas and through the fields and I could smell Autumn. There is a wonderful fresh scent in the air, especially near woods and I remember collecting fallen leaves to stuff the bonfire with and searching the local woods for any branches that could be dragged home to be put into the heart of the bonfire. Anyway I digress, the beach was tempting but we had other places to visit today. The beach is all rock pools and on the walk back we passed two family groups armed with spades and long handled nets.

Our next stop was Dunster a mediaeval village with a Yarn Market Cross, which after a bit of research I found out was built in 1609 for the sale of ‘broadcloth’ (woollen cloth) and ‘homespun’. It’s an octagonal structure with half open sides and fully tiled roof. There is a stone and mortar central column in which the roof beams are set and the top layer of beams slope upwards supporting the joists. The lower layer of beams go straight out from the central column and rest on the uprights. During the civil war a canon ball hit one of the roof beams and has left a perfect 4 inch diameter hole which can still be seen.

The main street is very wide as befits a mediaeval village and the 13th century nunnery is in lovely condition and is now a private dwelling. It’s built from a red sandstone which seems to have been used for a lot of old buildings in this area. From there we noticed a short cut to the Dovecot through the village garden. The villagers raised the money to buy the land and now rely on voluntary gardeners to keep it nice.

The Dovecot is one of the best preserved I have seen and all the nesting holes have been painted white reminding me of a 3D chessboard. I enjoyed walking through the back streets of the village, it was quiet and peaceful, I feel this would be a lovely area to live in, no motorways or noisy aircraft.

Dunkery Beacon beckoned so we checked Matilda (Sat Nav) and sure enough under points of interest she had an entry for Dunkery Beacon viewpoint. Great, I could look at the scenery while she did all the hard work. Bad, she didn’t take us to Dunkery, she left us high and dry on a narrow road at 1 in 4 gradient upwards and we had no choice but to continue. We landed on a green, grassy plateaux and had a cup of tea while we planned our next move. We oriented ourselves, took several pictures of the wild Exmoor ponies and well, here we are. The moon is full and shining down on us and it’s still, very still, too still. We had a chat with number one son over the phone and he has just advised us to ’stay on the road and not go onto the moor and we should be OK’ and now I’m wondering was it Exmoor? No surely it was Dartmoor where that hound lived?