Wednesday we drove down to the Torquay area to see Greenway, Agatha Christie's holiday home with splendid views over the Dart estuary. The National Trust have spent over £5 million doing the place up. Agatha Christie and her family were great collectors, she was into boxes I noticed but without being sure that cast any insight into her as a writer. A recording played in the house of Christie saying that she just wrote her books by writing them.

Greenaway was requisitioned during the war for the American coastguard (Killerton housed a school in passing.) One American drew a frieze round the walls of one of the rooms which is now part of the attractions of the place. At the time was it just graffiti? Perhaps cave art was graffiti? We now ride on steam trains and trams for enjoyment, but in their day trains and trams were probably resented.

On the way back from Greenaway we dropped in on Kent's Caverns, or down would be more apt. Limestone caves, rock formations which with imagination are faces and organs and churches. Giant bears used to hibernate deep in the caves, in the true darkness one finds deep underground. But they were vegetarian happily. We also saw Babbacombe Model Village which was interesting as a snapshot of popular culture it miniaturized. So we had Fawlty Towers (based on a hotel in Torquay.) I had recently seen "Pitch Black" so I recognised a miniature of Riddick in a model exhibition. A tad well worn.