A Californian's view of Budleigh Salterton

A permanently blue sky could bore you













After writing about Budleigh Babberton at http://budleighbrewsterunited.blogspot.com/2010/03/muggled-thinking-about-budleigh.html I took a second look at Los Angeles-based writer and photographer Benjamin Simpson's site at http://blog.hodomania.com/ and discovered yet another variation on our town's name. " Studly Balterton is what we called it as children," he writes.

Like that chaotic establishment in Torquay made famous by the antics of John Cleese, the name of our "sleepy seaside village" as Ben calls it does lend itself to playful alternatives. I always enjoyed spotting mischievous reworkings of 'Fawlty Towers' on the hotel sign which appeared for a few seconds at the beginning of each episode of that brilliant TV series.

It turns out that Ben's musings and pictures of East Devon were inspired by a recent visit to the area, when he returned to see his 93-year-old grandmother who lives here in Budleigh Salterton. Far from being depressed by our English weather he's captured some superbly moody scenes, particularly the panoramic shot of our pebble beach at http://blog.hodomania.com/?p=1214 He has an amusing theory about why the climates of Los Angeles and England are so different, which you can read in his description of a walk from Budleigh to Exmouth along the old railway line http://blog.hodomania.com/?p=1319

Picture credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/suzanneandsimon/1390547748/

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