Home • Latest mystery • Goodbyes • Time for tea • Blackbirds • Border collies
Mary Tant's latest Rossington mystery – Don’t Tell Tales – was published on 4th November 2025.
Visit your independent bookshop or friendly crime specialist for a copy – or order it from the local library.
Tuesday 30 September 2025
Spiders had created what looked like miniature tented encampment in rough ground beside the field. All of the cobwebs glittered as the dew drops clinging to them caught the sun. Upright cobwebs hung from the fence in front of the encampment, like sentinels, while draped thistles stood in a phalanx on one side.
Saturday 27th September 2025
A small herd of chocolate brown Dartmoor ponies were outlined on the topmost ridge of the Black Hill. They stood with their rumps into the wind, grazing on the bleached grass. Only one stood alone, in the middle of the track, facing into to the wind, tail and mane, both slightly lighter in colour, blowing in the wind. She turned to look at me as we paused to admire her, then resumed her gaze down over the long-deserted stone quarry on the flanks of Haytor.
Further round, behind the rock pinnacle that is Haytor, it was mainly cattle that have congregated here in larger numbers than usual to graze on the grass too, greener here now after long-awaited rain. They were spread out, black cows and the traditional Devon Red Rubies, and one solitary, white-banded ginger Galloway. The more traditional Galloways, white belted black, grazed in a tight group a distance away.
Friday 26 September 2025
Fenn and I stood for a while on the bank of the River Dart, where beech and hazel branches framed a view over water that sparkled in sunlight, with the only sounds the rushing of the water and the occasional snatch of birdsong. Drifts of fallen autumn leaves floated smoothly and rapidly downstream, their progress not at all impeded by the rings that spread out towards them as drips fell from the overhanging branches.
Monday 22 September 2025
After a very dry summer when cows on the moor stood on the dry cracked mud of empty pools, their calves crying pitifully beside them, these cows are enjoying the return of water after the recent rains. A flock of migrating swallows were swooping and diving low over the bushes after insects, and the birds’ shadows danced around my legs on the sunlit grass.
Saturday 20 September 2025
Seasonal fungi among the fallen leaves beside the river.
Thursday 18 September 2025
Tree bracts in the woodland.
Wednesday 17 September 2025
On the Black Hill this morning, I met a trio of women searching the ground. When I saw the baskets they carried, I realised they were collecting mushrooms. Chatting to one of them, I found that this year ceps, like Penny Buns, and parasol mushrooms were very prolific, and when picked they were placed in the open-work baskets so that their spores could drop through as the women walked along.
Tuesday 16 September 2025
Autumn rainbow over the woodland below the moor.
Friday 12 September 2025
Bracken’s autumn colour in the woods.
Tuesday 9 September 2025
Sheep in the mist.
Thursday 4 September 2025
Early morning light over the sea at Teignmouth, seen from Dartmoor.
Tuesday 2 September 2025
The mists of autumn rising out of the valleys below the moor.
Monday 1 September 2025
The summer colour on the moor is less vivid, but still enough to make the gullies of the old Haytor granite works look beautiful. And the foals who were born here in the spring are growing up.