• Yellow Submarine

Here I am, just a couple of days back from my four-month walk through France, and I walk up to Minions for the paper.  But as I pass through Higher Stanbear, I begin to wonder whether the exhilaration of completing my trip has affected my sanity.  Because there, tucked in next to one of the cottages, is a bizarre yellow contraption that looks like a cross between a tank and a double-decked submarine.  In bright yellow.  On my way back with the paper, I find its inventor and his mate (inside the top section) giving it a once-over and they allow me to come in and inspect it, even letting me climb up the ladder and look through the floor-less top bubble into the lower one.  The vehicle – the MSV explorer – is the latest in a line of submersibles, some of which are in operation in waters around the USA.  Brilliant – but at 800 feet above sea-level it’s a bit small for Noah’s Ark.

[2015: the MSV explorer and its inventor have now relocated to Exeter]