May 17 2012

Bluebells in the Bottom

MAYBE it’s too late for bluebells. Maybe there’s been too much rain. Anyway, we’re following a four-mile bluebell yomp, as outlined on page 62 of this month’s Dorset magazine.

Instead of bluebells, we’re ankle deep in cow pats. Weeks of torrential rain have left the bridleways of Fishpond Bottom resembling, well, the bottom of a fishpond.

We’ve been here before but this time, we start off in Champernhayes Wood, thrusting forth an impressive battery of tree trunks and stumps. Hazelnut shells crunch underfoot. But no bluebells.

Some are scattered sparsely round the gorse in the neighbouring meadow, and a few prop up the pretty hedgerows.

But nothing like the hazy violet carpets we’d rather hoped for. Still, there’s plenty of other splashes of spring colour for us to marvel at.

Trees froth and foam over with new leaves and acid green buds shooting into the sky. Lilac spumes from a hedge. We see buttercups, cow parsley, the air smells sweetly of freshly cut grass. Fern fronds unfurl. Nettles flower, as tiny pink and white stars decorate the roadside.

A one-eyed horse peers over a gate. Fields rise from the valley. We climb and descend in a gentle rhythm. Sometimes, we slosh through streams. We pass the barns of Sheepwash Farm. More horses watch us trip along.

Beyond a dairy farm is a field of Friesians with vast, swinging udders. ‘W/R’ (shorthand for Wessex Ridgeway) is scrawled on a piece of board by the gate. Silently, the cows regard us as we wade through boggy grass. The smell of manure is overpowering. Thinking of the trampling scene in Tamara Drewe, I start to feel nervous.

There’s a chill in the air as we skip over a stile and emerge into a field of long, lush, green grass. We sit down and munch on ham sandwiches. Below us, a flock of seagulls hover behind a tractor ploughing up fresh earth. Buzzards circle overhead. To our left, we can see the bright blue wedge of the sea at Charmouth.

Picnic over, we trot down through another farm into Wootton Fitzpaine, a tranquil and neatly manicured village. One of West Dorset’s quaint white fingerposts directs us to the Monkton Wylde and Fishpond road. Then we follow the track into Knapp Farm.

The last mile is uphill and I’m panting all the way. Not for nothing does the magazine describe this walk as ‘challenging’ and ‘very strenuous’.

We splash through more boggy meadows, struggle back into the woods and gasp with delight. ‘Bluebells!’ we hoot in unison, startling some dog walkers. Yes, here they are, a soft mist of purply-blue whispering round the tree trunks.

True, they’re past their best, but they still look magical to us. I lie down to photograph them. We try not to tread on them. We definitely don’t pick them.

Too soon, they thin out, and are gone. But we’re deliriously happy to have caught them at all. What a treat! Springtime’s here at last.

[This blog was written on Sunday, 13 May 2012]

May 13 2012

Piano playing on Portland

‘WHO’D want to live anywhere else, eh?’ asks my friend Nick, as I drive up, up onto Portland.

I’m worrying about how to get to Tout Quarry, so I don’t have much chance to glance down, where the yellow curve of Chesil Beach spoons with Lyme Bay.

But he’s right. And I’m awestruck. It’s Mediterranean. It’s Jurassic. It’s fantastic.

We’re off to grab a piece of the Cultural Olympiad. This afternoon, some dude has dragged a piano up to the clifftop and plans to serenade islanders with strains of Schubert and Chopin.

I pull on my wellies and trot after Nick, who knows these parts of old. I vaguely remember that Tout Quarry is haunted by a circle of Dutch artists who sculpt weird and wonderful shapes out of the masonry.

I’m not prepared for how wild and beautiful it is. We walk under an archway and out onto the edge of the island. The sky’s an eye-popping blue and the sun beats down on the shimmering sea.

A skylark squeaks and zooms upwards. Heaps of fallen stone crag and jut in dangerous piles. And there, dancing on a patch of grass like dryads of old, are a group of Royal Manor Art College pupils.

They’re accompanied by concert pianist Anthony Hewitt, aka the olymPianist. He’s cycling from Land’s End to John O’Groats, with his piano following in the BeethoVAN, doing 27 al fresco recitals in 21 days.

It’s a strangely sweet spectacle, here in the open air, listening to the tinkling of ivories and admiring the dancers. I move to the edge of the cliff and peer over.

The water is indigo and translucent down below, lapping at pebbles and falling rock.

Chesil Beach and the sides of the island form a sweeping ‘S’ shape, swathes of yellow and green and blue.

Cotton wool clouds scud past mossy mounds. Amazing. This could be Cyprus.

Typical Kimberlins (that’s what Portlanders call us mainlanders), we manage to get lost on the way back. Nick heroically scales a hill to see where we are, while I hang back, worried we’ll get crushed in a cliff fall.

A big rabbit – or is it a hare? – leaps and bounds up ahead. “Look! Rabbit!” I squeal. “Ssh, don’t say that!” reprimands Nick. I forgot – legend has it, back in quarrying days, that rabbits only surfaced just before a rockfall. (Considered a sign of bad luck, the R-word is still banned today. If you must mention them, say ‘bunnies’ instead).

Back in the quarry, faces loom and jut out of stone. There’s an elephant, a chair, sharks, whales, Aztec-like cairns, there’s an ammonite – is it sculpted, or is it a fossil? And what looks like a very nice pair of lady lumps.

Nick says there’s loads more to see – sculptures of a man falling down the cliff, and even the whole of somebody’s front room, with a fireplace and everything. I must come back and explore. For now, my iPhone battery has run down. No more photos. End of story.

Mar 25 2012

Diving off Dancing Ledge

GREY and roiling, the sea pours off Dancing Ledge, sucked down as another wash hurls over the top.

Geologists call this flat and black-cratered outcrop ’prickle bed J‘ or ‘puffin ledge’. Locals call it Dancing Ledge, because tides swirling over giant ammonites make it look like the rock is dancing. (They also call it Hollywood).

On the lower ledge, a swimming pool’s been blasted out. In the last century, it was used by the pupils of Durnford Prep School, including Ian Fleming. Today, two chaps in wetsuits dive into the spume, over and over again.

Above is an old quarry, where Portland stone was hewn and hauled to Ramsgate, to build the harbour wall.

The boom and roar is ceaseless. Basking in sunshine, we picnic above Dancing Ledge and watch the rock climbers. A family barbecues sausages on a fallen piece of stone. Children scramble in the sunshine. A couples read novels on the clifftop, with a can of cider and a dog.

Above us towers Spy Hill, named for the excise officers who snooped on brandy smugglers in the 1800s. It’s said a man could see French ships from there. Well, it seems the French can see us – our mobiles bleep with greetings from Bouygues Telecom. We quickly switch off international data roaming, to avoid racking up huge phone bills. 

What a wonderful walk. We park at St George’s Church in Langton Matravers. Behind The Ship Inn, we follow a path across National Trust fields. A friendly horse nudges our backpacks in search of treats. There are bees, and butterflies. It could be summertime. The ground is cracked and baking. A skylark is singing its heart out. Through holes in the hedges topping dry stoned walls, we see the great sweep of Swanage cliffs.

In front of us, a mile away, lies the sea.

At first, it’s indistinguishable from the sky. Although hazy, the light sparkles on the water. I’ve heard that for artists, the Isle of Purbeck is the new St Ives.

On my belly, I inch towards the cliff edge to snatch a photo of what lies beneath. It’s spectacular.

Along the cliff, some climbers are all togged up and braver than me.

Our faces are pink from the sun. We stagger back up Spy Hill and stop in Dorset’s best pub garden – The Scott Arms at Kingston, overlooking Corfe Castle. They’ve run out of the local scrumpy – Joe’s Cider – so I try a bottle of Perronelle’s Blush – Suffolk cyder with a hint of blackberry liqueur. Ah, this is the life.

Feb 25 2012

Giant gingerbread cliffs at Burton Bradstock

The sun’s warming up cliffs on Burton Bradstock beach. This is the Jurassic Coast. It feels like heaven.

The blue of the sky and the brown of the beach makes me stop, sigh, feel so glad to be alive. The sun’s low, throwing golden gleams on the ribbed cliffs. They’re rearing, crumbling like giant gingerbread.

Families cluster round a recent cliff fall.

Black labs gambol on the shards and shingle.

Fizzing sea salt rubs out arcs of dashing pawprints. Shadows of sibling cliffs shimmer in the distance. The tide’s hurling itself closer and closer. Screams and laughter carry across the still air as it catches our heels. Shapes made by the surf mirror the crenellated clifftops, tufted with grey and green.

The sun’s well and truly out. I unfurl, thaw, dream of summer, catching the X53 and splashing out with a champagne picnic. The waves chime off Chesil with a soothing, booming din. Shoes sink into crunchy sand. Time stands still, and so do we.

Someone’s playing the drums. A guitar clangs in too. There must be a band practice at Billy Bragg‘s house on the hill. (Might explain the odd city types fooling around on the beach?)

The Hive Beach Cafe is buzzing. We’ve been here before, but somehow I’ve never been captivated like this. A cup of coffee, and regretfully, we’re off, moseying home down the coast road. Portland’s shrouded in mist. We’ll come back soon.

Feb 12 2012

Walking in wellies at Winterborne Stickland

BREAKING in Barbours involves stamping through piles of satisfying squelchy mud, sheep dung, mouldy hazelnuts, rotting leaves and icy puddles.

The point to point at Milborne St Andrew’s been cancelled ’cause the ground’s too hard for the horses. We’ve got brand new wellies that must be muddied up, so we’ve come to Winterborne Stickland, a remote but pleasingly pretty village in North Dorset. It’s quiet but for birdsong and whinnies, and close to freezing. A horserider trots past, the animal’s hot breath steaming the air. Bags of manure are on sale for 50p.

The low skies are grey as we tramp through thin patches of snow, past villagers’ back gardens, over a hill and down a windy lane. Aha! Here’s our first glimpse of the Winterborne, Dorset’s elusive chalk stream, swollen by winter rain.

There’s a coal tit in the hedge, calling out merry little ditties. Across the bridge we trot down more lanes, past more gardens, across more fields until suddenly, we stumble on the Jubilee Trail.

Not far above a coppice, a buzzard circles, lazily. It doesn’t know we’re standing beneath the trees and we watch, spellbound, as it draws a long, low loop around us. We stop for a picnic in some more woodland, naked and shivering knee-deep in mouldering beech leaves (the tree trunks, not us!)

We perch on a log and munch on random items harvested from the fridge: bread, chicken, egg, pickled onions. Some dog walkers shuffle past. One man’s got the same guidebook as us: Pub Strolls in Dorset, by Anne-Marie Edwards.

Soon it’s too chilly to stay still, so we pack up and wander on through the woods. We find some ancient old trees throwing up a tunnel of branches above us. I can see gnarled faces furrowed and sunk into the knotty trunks.

Huge puddles are frozen over like skating rinks. We push at them with the toes of our wellies. The ice creaks, and water bubbles up. The ground’s rock hard. We stumble up snowy pathways.

Then we’re trotting down a very steep slope. After pausing to watch two more buzzards soaring on updrafts, we see a solitary white alpaca in a field next to a dairy farm. The smell of silage is heavy in the air. The cows are hungry, and move towards us expectantly.

Some poor moorhens huddle gamely on a frozen pond. Up another hill, and a warm amber suffuses the damp earth underfoot as the sun rapidly sinks, golden, behind us. Melting snow is making its own winterbornes down the slope.

We come out at Winterborne Houghton, where the River Winterborne (or North Winterborne) rises. We follow the chalk stream on its way towards several villages before flowing into the River Stour at Sturminster Marshall. Sometimes it’s chuckling away, with watercress choking its edges. Sometimes it’s not much more than a mucky pool. Sometimes, it disappears altogether.

Now you see it...

...now you don't!

A little egret is pecking in the shallows. We’re thrilled when a yellow wagtail flashes his dazzling jacket. So vivid, at first I think he’s a kingfisher. We pass a fish farm. Trout spawn in the river in winter time, apparently.

We’ve arrived back in Winterborne Stickland. Smoke drifts out of chimneys, and we drift into the pub. We pore over the Blackmore Vale Magazine and the excellent Valley News (covering the various Winterborne villages of Whitechurch, Whatcombe, Clenston, Stickland, Houghton, Turnworth and Milton Abbas). From the pages of this, we learn that some ferrets and a hutch was stolen from a home in Bryanston. Life’s not fair. And then you get your boots dirty.

Feb 4 2012

She tells of seashells

THIS is what it looks like at the bottom of the sea.

It’s low tide in Weymouth harbour on this quiet, clear Saturday. The water’s green and glassy on top. Today, it lets us glimpse what lies beneath – sand smeared over pearly shells, glistening black weeds clinging to rock.

Cormorants bully the gulls, holding court on the moorings.

I’m thrilled by scores of scallop shells, shucked on the harbourside by fishermen, then chucked back in the sea. I climb down a metal ladder to the surface to see if I can pick one up – the water’s only a couple of feet deep, but the shells are out of reach. I buy a square net and bucket from the Old Harbour Dive Centre and head back down the ladder. Bingo! I scoop up a shell from the seabed. It looks pretty manky.

Earlier, on the beach, I found a large cockle shell, mottled and frilled. All sort’s been tossed up today. The tang of salt is in the air and frozen sea foam wriggles away up the sand.

We stroll past men varnishing their boats, past the Cornish pilot gig being hauled into Weymouth Rowing Club‘s hut, and climb up the steep incline to the Nothe Fort.

At the top of the Nothe, squirrels are scrambling round tree trunks. They’re very tame – one drinks out of a puddle, and another climbs up Duncan’s leg. I’ve never been so close to one of these creatures, so quick they’re just a blur in a photograph. (So I upload a short video to YouTube). Why are they called grey squirrels? They’ve got startling fox-red splashes down their back and tails, and sweet little white bibs. Have we discovered an entirely new species?

We stroll down towards Hope Square and suddenly, there’s something new everywhere I look. Fouled anchors painted on drainpipes, Weymouth Peace Garden – never been there! – a heritage plaque on Wellington Court, an old pub frontage, wrought-iron fish adorning the Cefas gates, not to mention the fossils mounted on its walls.

And now for cake. We head for Time For Tea, a darling little bistro run by a Frenchman called Pascal (who can be heard exclaiming and battering pans in the kitchen). Cake, and Earl Grey served in a white china teapot. Yum.

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Jan 11 2012

Sun and sea in the Happy Valley

SUNSHINE blazes down on Magnolia Avenue. A Red Admiral flutters past. Azaleas and rhododendrons are in bloom, and green daffodil spikes scissor the banks. It’s January, but not as we know it.

This is Abbotsbury Subtropical Gardens, a happy valley folded into the most breathtaking stretch of the Jurassic Coast, next to the Fleet Lagoon and the wide blue glory of Lyme Bay.

It’s blessed with its own micro-climate, which means it rarely gets a frost. So the flora and fauna are throwing a party in this, one of the mildest winters on record.

I can’t believe I’m getting paid to be here. (I work for Watershed PR, promoting Abbotsbury Subtropical Gardens, among other clients, and today I get a guided tour from Curator Steve Griffith.)

Steve breeds pheasants, and scatters down breakfast seeds for them to squabble over. We pass the kookaburra enclosure. One’s hunched in the nesting box.

He points out red, pink and white camellias. We pause beneath the famous Caucasian Wingnut tree.

We sniff appreciatively at a big pile of dung, spread over one of the flower beds to help them retain moisture in the summer. (Lorryloads of manure get dropped off from the Ilchester Estates).

The views of the coast take my breath away. I can see from St Aldhem’s Head, all the way to Start Point. Sheep regard us impassively. St Catherine’s Chapel is framed by the winter branches, thanks to some skilled tree surgery every two years (a trick borrowed from Capability Brown).

Japanese birches thrust white limbs up to the blue sky. Close relatives of plants that grew 200 million years ago swamp the Jurassic Pond Garden.

These used to be the kitchen gardens for a castle, holiday home of Dorset noblemen, that fell down long ago. Steve shows me a catalogue of plants from the gardens in 1899, beautifully bound and privately printed. He’s working on his own database, and has listed around 2,500 species, but has only just scratched the surface.

I drink in the beauty, and drive back up the coast road to the office, my soul singing.

Nov 27 2011

Straggle Tree in Tarrant Monkton

A STAGING post for shrieking buzzards, the blind old tree gropes up from the ridge. Whipped by wind, sparse grass pixellates to fields of green stretching as far as the eye can see.

This is Cranborne Chase, spilling out before us like a promised land. It’s hard to convey just how much space is out here – a pleasing patchwork of earth and sky and hedges and banks of grasses.

We’re miles inland, yet I think I hear the sea, as the wind strokes the birches. Several gulls swoop over ploughed fields, and then we meet a reservoir. At Strawberry Copse, enormous mushrooms loom at the entrance of a fairy avenue. We’re trying to work out what the crops are – beet, brassica, potato?

Berries reach up to rub old man’s beard. Teazles muscle in on the party. Apples still cling to trees. One leaf tumbles slowly down. Is there a footpaths officer at the council whose job it is to walk the length of this county’s glorious byways? Nice work if you can get it.

The Langton Arms is decorated with vintage scenes of life at Tarrant Rawston Farm from the ’40s and ’50s. We’re in the midst of a torrent of Tarrants – Tarrant Keynestone, Tarrant Hinton, Tarrant Gunville, Tarrant Rawston, Tarrant Rushton, Tarrant Launceston.

Here, a ford can swell up five feet high when it floods. No wonder the locals are cruising round in 4x4s.

A clutch of friendly hens keep placid sheep company. Horses poke their heads over gates. This village is gorgeous. Oh my God – there’s a cottage for sale! Built in the 18th century, it used to be the village bakery. We check it out on RightMove. It’s on the market at a heartbreaking £595,000. Better buy a Lottery ticket…

Nov 20 2011

Butterflies and beech leaves

‘NOVEMBER’, says the calendar. But the Red Admirals and Tortoiseshells beg to differ.

Umber leaves scratch at boughs and spiral from blue sky. Great handfuls are scooped up by laughing children. Fan-shaped, ferns firework skyward to burning beeches.

Blooming berries are sprayed across hedges – yet the fields sprawl green and lush. We even discover a lonely dandelion.

Leaves and lumpen earth mulch underfoot. Muddy puddles hog the footpaths. Bold brassicas march on the sidelines. Weirdly, it’s warm. Dazzled by the sun, we pant past prancing Labradors. Even a hollyhock flowers, outside a shepherd’s cottage. Catkins dangle.

The Winterborne valley’s an elegant vale. The trees in Cliff Wood vault and arch. The shrivelled stream waits for winter, before bubbling back to life. A beetle staggers past. A ladybird hugs a stinging nettle. Holly jostles for supremacy with ivy-clad trunks. Whatcombe House is flanked by red-topped trees. In the neighbouring field, we meet Blobby the horse.

We see mysterious pink berries – does anyone know what these are called?

We repair to The Milton Arms. A haven for travellers between Dorchester and Blandford since the 1600s, it welcomes us too – with a lovely late lunch.

Nov 14 2011

Wandering in Weymouth

IT’S WINDY in Weymouth. Egged on by the easterly, high tide’s left the beach frothing with weed. Seduced by swirls of cockles, clams and sea snails, I pocket a gritty few.

We climb up to the Pavilion and follow the high wall. The boxy seafront stretches away, turquoise and pink and beige. We head for the building site where the Weymouth Eye is taking shape. A huge pile driver stands over scratched-out foundations. The pier railings are rusty blue and white. The tea rooms are shuttered and blind. A cloud of shrieking gulls hover for fisherman’s scraps.

The Condor revs up, the Pelican raises her gangplank. Tumbled lobster pots stink as our friend, the gull with the withered foot, hops on a yacht.

A family is crabbing, determinedly armed with lines and buckets and wellies. The Weymouth Sailing Club pontoon is mostly empty – all the boats have been hauled out for winter. We pass the long, low roof of the Rowing Club. The Nothe Fort walls grow out of piles of damp leaves.

On the stone pier, a couple of fishermen huddle behind rods. The great grey seething of sea heaves away, flinging salt spray in our faces. A dead-eyed mackerel lies in our path. A cormorant bobs and dives. Portland stands silently at our side.

On the other side, the water’s so low I brave slippery steps down to where drenched black bladderwrack writhes over the long-lost stony shore.

In the shadow of the Nothe, a fearless squirrel scatters and skitters under our feet. We squint as it melts into dusk. Time to go home.