Obviously the most dramatic event while researching (if that is the right word for what we do) this book was finding where Maudie lived. In real life it is a rather depressing and swampy area of woodland down the side of which runs the River Bovey. Not a pretty picture so we will move on.
Bovey Tracey: disused railway bridge
Here is the remains of the old railway bridge through which you pass just before you cross the bridge over the river by the junction that heads off north to the village of Lustleigh.
Bovey Tracey
Bovey Tracey itself is a charming town with a fairly unspoiled main street . . .
. . . and some areas which beg to be printed on picture postcards.
Bovey Tracey: Mill
The old town mill plays a very important part in this book. The bird feeders hang in the trees on the opposite side of the river from the mill wheel.
Bovey Tracey
The window at which Melissa and Posy shared a table is the one immediately above the wheel.
Meanwhile, down in Cornwall, this was to be a very important ford. There is usually one particular spot where Marcia would find it easiest to listen to her characters (in some books there would be two) and it was when parked up beside this ford with a kettle bubbling in the background that much of this story came to her.
We were walking along the lane where Marcia envisaged the house she called Moorgate (it being not far from one of the cattle grids that separate the moor from the enclosed farmland around it) when we noticed that there was a busy rookery in the trees on the other side of the lane.
Meanwhile, when you looked in a different direction there were some of the wind turbines that have caused so much controversy. I am tempted to feel that relying on a source of power which depends on the wind blowing at the right speed (too slow and they don’t work – too fast and they have to be ‘feathered’ and held so that they don’t break) is not obviously sensible. However, I cannot honestly say that I find they ruin the landscape. There is something rather grand about them and when they are rotating something ethereal and beautiful.
However, we must not forget the title of the book. Under snow everything takes on a completely new feel.
