HOLD on to your hats, it’s gusty on Hambledon Hill! Icy pure air stabs our lungs. The sky’s blue above chunky chalk downs. Our boots are sticky with clay.

It’s bustling up here. Families, hikers and dog-walkers stream past the trig point. A retriever trots past, proudly carrying a massive fence post in his jaws.

The earth’s emerald, springy, dry. Kids on mountain bikes freewheel among the ramparts of the hilltop’s Iron Age fort. It’s bumpier than Maiden Castle, and nearly as gorgeous as Eggardon Hill. The whole of the Blackmore Vale is spread out before us. Mist clings gently to its edges.

The sheep are curious, but timid, even though we do our best to befriend them. We curl up on a bank and try to look unthreatening, wondering if they enjoy the views.

We can’t hear anything up here now the wind’s died down, apart from little rasps as they graze. It’s an ancient scene. Eventually they stampede off. We head down the hill, slightly worried we look like sheep botherers.

This is the Wessex Ridgeway footpath. We go past a Neolithic camp, towards Hod Hill, another Iron Age fort. Hairy, fluffy seeds are blown at us out of a wood. Old man’s beard?

We pass an iron barn, stuffed with haystacks. And back down into the village. Through listing iron railings and dense hedges, we catch tantalising glimpses of Ranston manor house, with the bright ribbon of the Iwerne River switching back and forth in front of it.

Confusingly, Iwerne Courtney is also called Shroton by locals. I suppose it depends whether you prefer to take your place names from the Domesday Book, or Old English derivatives. The village is about five miles north of Blandford Forum. ‘Wanted: new bellringers’ and ‘Lost: a riding crop’, proclaims the parish noticeboard.

We head for The Cricketers, a free house where we’ve had the foresight to reserve a table for lunch. It’s lovely. We’re knackered. But happy.

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.

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…

‘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.

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.

MAYBE I’m just getting old, but recently it seems to me that simple joys are the greatest of all.

Today is bathed in sunshine and the boss lets us skip off at 4pm. Hoorah! I motor from Bridport, swing through Martinstown and pull up in Upwey to meet my mum, niece and her grandparents for tea and cake at the Wishing Well.

There are large china teapots, enormous slabs of cake, and a sundae for Bethany. David is ‘Mother’. We happily chatter.

The Wishing Well garden’s looking a bit pre-Raphaelite – all tumbling ivy, burning berries, babbling brooks and odd follies.

Not to mention russet leaves, and emerald, creeping moss. Strange topiary – rabbit or teapot? – jostles for space around the ponds, with Japanese walkways and a dodgy salmon sculpture.

I squint in the half-light as I try to conjure up the history of the Wishing Well. I know there is a ‘well dressing’ every May. But what else? Holy well? Sacred spring? Source of the River Wey? Did King George III visit to drink of the waters? Did locals keep a gold cup for this purpose?

Bethany’s a girl after my own heart. She shows me a poem on a bench, photos of the sunset and listens to The Dandy Warhols on the way home. She likes Google Chrome, iPod Nanos and a boy called Johnny. Oh, to be a teen again!

Swishing with her through autumn leaf mould, I’m reminded of my own youth – running away from home to skulk in the bus stop (now a museum) until I got too cold and bored. Smoking Marlboros outside the drama club in Upwey Old School. Playing Sindy with Clare at Friar Wadden. Solitary walks up Cow Hill, falling in love with the views over all of Weymouth. Being naughty in church.

Bethany doesn’t turn a hair when the staff, eager to shut up shop, ever so politely shoo us out of the garden. Suddenly, I realise – I’m her giddy aunt!

SAILS snap and crash as the dinghies bounce off waves.

We’re with a few hundred other people watching the Weymouth and Portland international regatta 2011 – the test event for the Olympics.

Sat on the slopes of the Nothe peninsula – the official arena for spectators of next year’s Olympic and Paralympic sailing races – there are flags, and cheers, and binoculars, and picnics, and all sorts of nationalities.

In the British camp we spy Wyke Regis’ very own world champion windsurfer Nick Dempsey, Olympic bronze (Beijing) windsurfer Bryony Shaw, 470 sailor Saskia Clark, and world Number Two Laser sailor Paul Goodison It’s fair to say that all the sailing boys and girls are a very fit bunch indeed – tanned nutmeg brown from all those days spent skimming over the water, honed from all that yanking of sheets and sails, white of tooth and bouncy of hair.

There’s a great sense of excitement as changeable winds bring the medal races closer to dry land. Team GBR came 4th in the 49ers.

The Stars class is won by the Brits, who came second overall (we think). Sailing is pretty confusing to follow, as the person who crosses the finishing line first does not necessarily win gold – it depends on their overall placing over a number of races.

Luckily, there’s lots of well-informed spectators giving a running commentary, so we eavesdrop, unashamedly. There’s lots of fevered mutterings and straining of necks as the sailors round the marker buoys. Who knows – the Olympic teams might even be announced this afternoon.

Ahead of the Finn race, Ben Ainslie tacks to the foot of the Nothe to say hello to his supporters. He’s a triple gold and silver Olympic medallist. This is nothing less than sailing royalty up close. What I wouldn’t give for a long lens right now.

The race starts, and it’s incredible to watch such sportsmanship in action at such close quarters. Ben’s in 4th place, heading towards Lulworth. The wind is light, so, to pick up speed, he physically yanks the sheet backwards and forwards by throwing his whole body to and fro. His force is so strong that the boat rocks up and down, up and down, and magically he glides into first place in the space of 200 metres. No-one can catch him. No-one can match him. Now I see why these sailors are called athletes – their sheer strength is astonishing.

How amazing that watching this event is free, in a public place. Despite the furore surrounding Locog’s commandeering of the Nothe Gardens and charging people up to £50 to watch the Olympic Sailing races next summer, we are quietly chuffed that we managed to get tickets to the medal day of the Finn classes. Will we be there to watch Ben Ainslie win another gold for Great Britain?

This is only the second time in my life I have felt proud to be British. (The first time was last April, watching William and Kate get married). Wow. Go GBR!

THIS has to be the loveliest spot in Dorset. With chickens pecking round an old shepherd’s hut and wild strawberries growing at the roadside, it seems too perfect – as if it’s been designed by Cath Kidston.

It’s humid and hazy today atop Eggardon Hill, but that doesn’t stop the panoramic views taking our breath away.

Wildflowers stud the ramparts, and we think you can probably see the sea on a clear day. The undulating fields are like Robert Louis Stevenson’s poem, The Land of Counterpane. Sheep cling to the ramparts of the old hill fort.

At the far end of the ridge, we plunge to the bottom and jump over a fence. Giant butterflies flap past. We pass a large cow farm and the sky is split by a young buzzard’s cries. It shrieks at another bird in a neighbouring tree. They fly low and slow, calling to each other across the valley.

With Eggardon Hill to our left, the lane is splashed with scarlet lords and ladies. We turn right across a field stuffed with clover and run for cover under a large oak when a summer shower drizzles down. Suddenly, everything is greener.

The next field is sloping, golden corn. At the bottom, a young deer sits very still, with huge ears and a sad face.

It looks at one, then both of us, and suddenly twigs it should run.

The Spyway pub’s not open, so we turn back towards Eggardon Hill. Rabbits flank the hedgerows. The chequered green and yellow fields put me in mind of Alice’s chessboard journey in Through The Looking Glass. Looking over our shoulders, we can see that more rain is in pursuit.

We pass a large property that has gone to unusual lengths to keep out the deer. And crashing into the next field, we see why – we almost trip over one, tawnily tumbling away.

We go past North Eggardon Cart House and traipse upwards, past startlingly yellow barley fields.

Crickets are strumming and the cows lie down contentedly on the hillside. Another tawny shape bounces past. Deer? Or a Big Cat? We squint through the binoculars. It’s a fox! It pauses on the ridge, white brush pointing down. Then it’s gone.

By now we are slapping at horseflies and still trying to climb higher than the raincloud behind us. Sheep stand mournful sentry on the sides of a huge grassy crater.

A hare leaps on the chalky bit at the bottom. At the top, a herd of steers advance on us with intent. I squeal and we hotfoot it out of there, back to the car.

BOOTS still crusty with Glastonbury mud, we’re tramping through meadows of wildflowers shimmering and sizzling with grasshoppers’ calls.

Umpteen buzzy things bumble into us and we have to dodge the cow pats – crackly on top, like creme brulees. Daisies, buttercups and clover are strewn with wild abandon. We argue over sightings of orchids and cowslips.

The cows are curious, and gently follow us. At the top of a plateau, we find a series of terraced natural pools, beaming and winking back at the sun. A fisherman perches in splendid isolation. Round the corner is a milking parlour, and bellowing bovines are led back to pasture.

We’re somewhere between Lower Kingcombe and Hooke, in the shadow of the Rampisham masts, listening stations that spy on conversations being held on the other side of the world. We sit in a field and have a six o’clock supper of home-made quiche.

Oddly, our route starts taking us under electric fences, through nettle-filled ditches, past towering foxgloves, waist-deep in ferns, slapping at horseflies, squelching through bogs and ooh! there’s a frog! Who goes first? Hop, hop, and it’s gone.

</a>

We’re fighting through forest at this point and suddenly, we realise the masts must be scrambling our sat nav signal. Is it time to fish the paper map out the rucksack?

Sheep are shorn and silent. Hedges are brambly, flowering with honeysuckle. Hay meadows are studded with plastic-wrapped haystacks. It’s a perfect summer’s evening. The shadows lengthen. We come back to the big pile of horse manure in the road that marks the car park. We go home.

SOMEWHERE between Martinstown and Upwey lies a beautiful land. It’s peopled by terracotta cows, lime-green meadows, and squatting little trees that, if you squint, look like they might bear olives.

It’s the light that gives rise to such fancy – low, golden, pouring itself over fields, like honey. The scene is so delicious that despite the disapproving stares of cows, you want to fling yourself right at it and roll amongst the waving grass.

It feels as though I’ve drunk from a cup of joy. And yes, it feels lazy, hazy and lusty, like a film set, like that bit out of A Room With A View when Lucy Honeychurch is briefly clutched to the breast of George Emerson, in a field, in Florence.

You can’t enjoy the countryside without getting a little dirty, quoth another film, the determinedly English comedy Tamara Drewe, which last year stole the hearts of city dwellers for its backdrop of lush green rolling hills. The director, Stephen Frears, described our Dorset countryside (wot stole the show) as ‘the new Tuscany’. (He ruffled a few feathers. Locals didn’t want him to encourage even more rich townies to come down here and buy our houses and marry our women and steal our jobs. Not that they need to work, but anyway.)

Frears didn’t film here. As far as I can make out, the nearest he got was the cows and woods at Larkham Farm, Holywell, near Dorchester.

It’s just as well. We don’t want any Thomasina, dickhead or Harriet soiling our idyll. One of the best-kept secrets of Dorset countryside is that more often than not, it’s a solitary joy. You can keep it to yourself, with never a soul to bother you – perhaps a dog walker or two, but they’re quickly gone.

Anyway, the Tuscany metaphor has well and truly fizzled out now. I can’t convince myself that these are vineyards. And above a gently rearing tumulus, our quicksilver coastal skies have really given the game away. They’re looming in more of a Turner grey fashion, rather than Tuscan blue. I’ve forgotten my umbrella. It’s time to go.