Postcard From Dorset
I thought that I would while away a few minutes creating a Postcard from Dorset. In light of being away from Norfolk, we have come to another county with no motorways and only a few dual carriageways - great for practicing your driving skills but no good if you are trying to haul 20 tonnes of steel on the back of a truck. House prices are silly. The house two doors down from us is on four stories, has great sea views, but is a good walk to where you can park your car, and was up for sale. The vendors were looking for offers in the region of £500K. Someone must have the money as it is now sold. Now what were Little Johnny England and Emily Slade singing about local people being priced out of the local housing market the other day in Kettering.
Well here we are in sunny Dorset - Lyme Regis to be precise. French Lieutenants Woman was filmed here so Meryl Streep was filmed at the end of 'The Cobb' - that is harbour wall to the rest of us. For those of you who like going to the places where television programmes are filmed, Harbour Lights was filmed just down the road in West Bay. Personally I am more enthused by going to Bridport the home of Palmers Brewery. They do a god tour round the brewery, which we did last time we were down this way. This time we just went and stocked up on their own special blend of Gin. They also do a scotch but it is a waste on me - each to their own.
Lyme Regis has a rare pub in that it is where the river meets the sea. It also has a working flour mill. There has been one on the same site since the 1300's. It is now run by a charity so you can still get flour but it is not sold. You get it on a donation basis We are staying in a great flat. Once you have gone down the steps to the road you cross it and the parade and down some more steps onto the beach. Yes we are lulled to sleep to the sound of the waves lapping onto the beach. A couple of evenings we have taken our glass of wine down to the sea wall and watch the sun, sailing boats and written a few poetic postcards.
We have ended up with a bit of a walking holiday - well there is Dorset Apple cake and clotted cream to have so I don't want to end up with too much of a waddle! We have walked from Lulworth Cove to Durdle Dor - two noted geographic features of what is now branded as 'Jurrasic Coastline' now that it is classed as a SSSI and a World Heritage Site [© UNESCO]. The next big walk was to the top of Golden Cap the highest point on the south coast. Fortunately there is a pub by the car park in Seatown so you can have a good pint of Palmers when you have finished the walk.
Another highlight has been a trip to Abbotsbury. It is home of the Tropical Gardens where Show of Hands play (July 12th) and the Swannery. It is a really good time to go to the Swannery as there are all these cygnets that are under a month old. We managed to be around when some were being given a health check. Needless to say they had to have a stroke and are really soft to the touch. Although the swans are wild they are fed and so don't move off the site that much and are used to people. It does not pay to get in-between both parents and the cygnets though as the hiss they give is quite enough of a warning! Carrying on the wildlife theme there is a gull nest on the chimney opposite one of the sitting room windows. There are 3 chicks who are growing by the day. They are a horrible brown colour at the moment but will no doubt be growing their white flight feathers before long. I am sure that some of the local people would prefer the gulls not to nest there as there are signs all around saying 'Do not feed the gullls' as they are seen as a pest in the town.
We have been to Wareham a delightful little town. It has Dorset's oldest church with ancient fresco's. Another feature of the church is that there is a life-size stone effigy of a 'great motorcyclist of the last century'. No not Barry Sheen but T E Laurence. We had tea overlooking the wonderfully named River Piddle :-) .
Another place that we visited was Forde Abbey. They said tell your friends about us, so - www.fordeabbey.co.uk is their website. It was founded by monks over 800 years ago and has "One of the finest gardens in the West Country" A Titchmarsh. I do not know about that but they had some of that special soil - the weed free sort that we have heard about. There were also a few lakes in the gardens which were flowing into each other creating a lovely sound. They also have an arboretum which really does take some planning. This is not your weekend garden make over. Not only are the usual things to think of such as leave colour, texture, plant shape, flower colour and smell etc. there is the shade to be considered. Do you want deep shade, dappled shade and where do you want the areas of strong sunlight as contrast. Add on to that you have to imagine how it is going to look in a few hundred years time. Looking up I saw a bird of prey. One of the gardeners said that it was one of the many buzzards in the area. Now that is something that Norfolk doesn't go in for.
Well that is it. A weeks holiday has gone too quickly. I have a feeling that this will not be the last time that we come and stay in this flat. All that there is left to do is finish of the last of the wine and clean the flat for the people next week, and prepare ourselves for the M25 sometime tomorrow.
