Tumbling ivy, berries burning

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!

Aug 14 2011

Who says sailing’s not a spectator sport?

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!

Jul 31 2011

Wild strawberries and summer showers

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.

Jul 4 2011

Frog in a bog, and other stories

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.

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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.

Jun 19 2011

Is Dorset the new Tuscany?

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.

May 1 2011

Under the table at the Powerstock Cider Festival

THIS is Kitty, queen of the cydermakers. The Somerset lass, who works for Nigel Stewart of Bridge Farm Cider, celebrated winning two second prizes at the Powerstock Cider Festival by whirling and stamping to Dr Stomp, before gently retiring under the table.

Reeling to the stink of wild garlic, 500 cider drinkers descend on this West Dorset hideaway village to gulp down nectar from at least 20 different makers hailing from France to Frampton, Frome and other frontiers.

It turns out to be a wild old night in the good old-fashioned way. Lay on a load of decent home brews, pizzas from the Bridport jalopy van, a couple of manic fiddlers, and we’re all away.

It’s laid-back, uncomplicated, home-made hedonism. Not much more to say. We start by tanking our way through Mill House cider from Owermoigne. Someone’s brought out mulled, spiced cider – yum! The nice Frenchman from Normandy has run out of booze, but whenever we need some more, there’s always another brew on tap – some dry enough to make you retch, some sweet enough to make you swoon into the arms of the nearest stranger (and we nearly do).

It’s dignified. No vomiters, and no-one begrudges Kitty her moment of glory under the table, just a shedload of people enjoying many medium, dry and sweet ciders.

Someone else has had the foresight to chuck out a load of cheddar, picked onions and chutney to complement his cider. It all tastes lush.

Stop and speak to most of the cider makers, and eventually they’ll whip out their best brew from under tables and behind demi-johns (if you ask them nicely enough).

And we all sup up…

Apr 19 2011

Forgive us our trespasses

IT’S looking like the end of the world. A road, cracked and turned up at the edges, as if pulled apart by an earthquake. Bent and broken signposts point uselessly to places we used to know. Trampled cats’ eyes skitter over blind tarmac pockets.

This is what’s left of the hairpin bend, nemesis of weary commuters and holidaymakers, sweltering through the endless traffic jams winding into Weymouth.

Motorists once knew every inch of the A354 as it crawled past their cars. Since the relief road opened last month, satnavs are confounded, sending car after car to the bottom of the Ridgeway Hill where large metal gates turn them all back.

Out with the old road, in with the new

Out of respect, and fascination, we turn up to say goodbye, before the redundant road is dug up and turfed over and gone forever. Like fishing families gathering at the carcass of a slain whale, we marvel at the scratched and scarred landscape. This is not Upwey as we who’ve lived here for three decades know it.

As a child, I would scamper up the steps of the railway bridge and hide in the top field to watch trains rocket past. As a Dorset Echo reporter, I would chronicle the fate of hapless lorries that got stuck under the bridge and held up traffic for hours on end.

There’s an eerie, uneasy silence on this balmy April evening. “Are we trespassing?” I ask my mother, suspiciously. “Absolutely not,” she replies.

Driverless diggers are frozen, giant Dinky toys.

What treasures are thrust forth by tumbling mounds of earth? The village grapevine is thrilling with talk of dinosaur bones and fossils.

We catch a glimpse of Bincombe, the tiny farming hamlet which seems to have been cut off from civilisation since work on the relief road started. The road tessellates into hillside.

At the brow of the hill are splendid views of train tracks running away from the new and the old roads.

A nettle-covered milestone counts down the distance to the ancient borough of Melcombe Regis. Cows, munching at a neighbouring field, are only mildly curious. I wonder if they miss the traffic.

We look for the stone-carved pineapples, twin-pillared symbols of Weymouth’s hospitality, but they’ve been moved to another site. Will the mystery joker who clothed them in silk robin suits at Christmastime still be able to dress them up?

A man in a white safety helmet shouts and waves. It’s a Skanska construction manager. He says we’re trespassing! I’m appalled at being caught red-handed committing a civil disobedience. The man warns us we could break our necks as the road is still considered a building site.

As we wander home, I watch nervously for patrolling policeman. “If this ends up in court, I’m blaming you,” I tell Mum. “OK, I’ll pay your fines,” she says cheerfully. I’ll hold her to that…!

Mar 20 2011

West Knighton: where the lambs will eat you for dinner

HELP! We’re being attacked by a flock of man-eating lambs!

Hot breaths rasp in my left ear as I crouch down to say hello. There’s a persistent tugging on my arm, where another little lamb has got hold of my cardi. A third butts me gently from behind. And is that a nip? “Get off my trousers,” we cry in unison.

It's a two-pronged attack!

These lambs are only two feet high, but they’re very quick. Seemingly stand-offish at first, they pause tearing up the green grass and trot over to inspect what edible clothing we might be wearing.

Luckily, their intentions are more affectionate than deadly, and in turn I realise I’m very fond of lamb (both on and off the plate). Maybe I should consider becoming a vegetarian.

We’re in a field between Broadmayne and West Knighton, two villages where a veritable zoo of English wildlife starts, sings and swims. (Well, there’s a fish farm).

A woodpecker taps away in a tangle of woodland. It sounds like teeth chattering. As we crash up a path, a Sika deer gallops away. A robin sits small and throatful in a bush, joining in the general twittering.

A bumblebee bounces past celandine-strewn walkways.

We feed bites of apple to a grazing horse (I’m sure the owner wouldn’t thank us for that), and stop to stroke a cat sat on wall next to an old churchyard. It tries to bite!

It’s hazy, but bright. We sit in the middle of a vast meadow, munching on fruit, listening to kids playing in the woods.

We trundle up a wheatfield past the muddy hoops of horses’ hooves.

To get this far, we have to hop over at least 15 stiles and turn through the same number of kissing gates.

Darling thatched cottages give rise to the usual refrain – could we live in West Knighton? No mobile signal. (That’s a no, then).

We tramp past the pink of cherry blossom…

…the happy splash of daffs…

Earlier, at my mum’s house in Upwey, we saw a marsh harrier (or was it a red kite?), soaring high above the back garden where we were planting a Golden Balls cider apple tree. It’s been a good day in Nature Corner.

Mar 6 2011

Chilling out at Chesil Cove

WE taste the salt on our lips as soon as we sit down.

Portland is a pale blonde streak of pebbles bleached by time and tide. The sea’s a deep and heart-stopping blue. This is Chesil Cove, although as the sun beats down, you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s an off-duty Maldive.

We sit under the sea wall, currently being shored up by Defra, munching an impromptu picnic of sandwiches and strawberries. We squint seawards – what we think is a seal turns out to be a cormorant, diving for fish.

The Cove House Inn, which hosts a raucous music festival (big cider fest) over the summer bank holiday, is one of our favourite watering holes. We last came here to watch the sun sink into Lyme Bay during the summer solstice.

We fall silent, drinking in the simple joys of sky, sea, and shore in all their stripey glory.

Oh, and gulls. Don’t forget the gulls – they revel in it almost as much as we do.

I think this is where I fell in love with the sea. My mum brought me and my brother here one stormy, stormy day. We were little, and it was well over two decades before the catchphrase ‘Jurassic Coast‘ was coined. We chased the waves and listened in awe to the undertow sucking the pebbles away – loud as a jet engine.

It seems quietly amazing to think we’re sat where the Chesil Beach starts, right here, on our doorstep.

To our right, it stretches out for 18 miles, past the Fleet Lagoon, Abbotsbury, Burton Bradstock, to West Bay.

The West Weares rise up to our left, terraced into the Chiswell Earthworks sculpture created by John Maine. Beach huts are studded into the hill.

Behind us hunches higgledy-piggledy Chiswell, rugged, secretive, strangely seductive. Not for the first time, we think we’d like to live here.

Lured by the chance to win a wedding with all the trimmings – flowers, photography, catering, civil ceremony – we’ve just been to scope out Portland Castle as a venue for our own upcoming nuptials. I wish we could get married here, on the beach, standing looking out to sea on the large flat pebbles, with the wind in our hair, hearing the gulls’ cries on the wind.

We bask in the sunlight and discuss ideas, in no great hurry. Like the song says, we have all the time in the world.

As we drive off Portland we see two riders and horses galloping, galloping half way up the island. It’s a wild and wonderful sight.

Mar 3 2011

Rollerblading on the Rodwell Trail

ROLLERBLADE on the Esplanade? You must be joking. It’s all dug up for the Weymouth Transport Package.

The Rodwell Trail, a two-mile-long stretch of tarmac, snakes along the coastline over what used to be the railway line linking Weymouth to Portland, from Asda to Ferrybridge.

I park at the new builds at Whitehead Drive, former site of a 19th-century torpedo factory. Through a gap in suburban shrubbery, the smell of salt hits me in the face. I step through onto the Rodwell Trail and next to it is Portland Harbour, hiding behind a curtain of rushes.

The skates have been wintering in the attic for six months. Tightening knee pads and wrist guards, I wobble off, hoping not to mow down any toddlers or dogs.

It’s tough taking photos on eight wheels, but I’m captivated by the Cornishware blue of the sea. The tide is low as I whizz down to the crumbling Sandsfoot Castle, built by Henry VIII to withstand attacks from the Continent. Below tinkle the masts of Castle Cove Sailing Club. I could wait forever for a seagull to fly into the frame.

The Rodwell Trail is ideal for skating – long, smooth stretches of tarmac, with only slight inclines. (Extremely tough on the thighs though, and hours later, my bum is still aching).

Soon, the railway arches hove into view, along with still recognisable platforms and halts.

Hedges give way to tree-lined verges, in fact it’s all getting rather foresty at the edges.

On the way back, I keep trying to snatch pictures of Portland brooding in the distance. It’s beautiful, but this being Weymouth, the path is studded with the occasional greenie, or abandoned pram.

Despite the early spring sunshine, there’s not many people about. Cyclists ping their bells, an old lady laughs ‘be careful’, and a dog whines, confused, then barks as I wheel past.

Finally, I get a photo of Portland looking grey and misty. Thankfully, I flop on a bench and unstrap the skates from my aching feet. Think I’ve just skated two miles. Ow.

Totallydorset

Adventures of a chick in the sticks