Under the Pier

Sometimes the only way to nip an obsession in the bud is to stop pussyfooting around it and go at it full tilt. So it is with diagonals. Not one or two but dozens, bracing, leaping, rusting, stretching, holding together the twin rows of columns that support the small pier at Teignmouth.

The county of Devon in South West England is a lush, green place. Why? Because it never, ever stops raining. It can do all known forms of precipitation including an excellent rendition of that peculiar, all-penetrating drizzly mist once thought only to exist on the Isle of Skye. It also conjures up fierce, wind-driven, scudding storms that force moisture into your last remaining dry bits, those odd pockets of warmth which the swirling miasma of damp of a few minutes before had left untouched.

There is only one defence against the Devonian climate - find a teashop. We did, it was grand and we steamed away until dry enough to go forth for another dowsing.