Dorset, and Rather a Lot of Dogs

Life's going on fine here, Sometimes you need a fallow period. I've been busy with other things, and was pleased when an old friend from art school days offered us the chance to stay in her late mother's house near Dorchester, Dorset. I used to know her mum so it was lovely to go back and think about her from time to time as we climbed the rather steep hill to her house. (No - that's not her house above, it's the Hardy Monument, which commemorates Vice Admiral Sir Thomas Hardy, to whom Nelson addressed his rather odd dying words of "Kiss me, Hardy,")

I know Dorset well but it's a while since I visited the Piddle Valley,(the river really is called the Piddle  And, as my friend Lee has noted, it reaches the sea at Poole!)  To me, the area no longer has the cut-off feel that I used to rather appreciate. In fact, some areas are now awash with brand new fake thatched cottages.  These look nicer than modern styles if you want to build new houses in picturesque old villages, but they become monotonous after a while. Their windows are bigger, their rooms are higher and they're obviously more comfortable and infinitely nicer to live in than the older variety.

Fake thatched cottages don't need to be dull. This one is I think a Victorian "estate house" built in a village designed in the early years of the last century.

We were staying near the Tolpuddle Martyrs Museum, which commemorates the six farm labourers who began the trade union movement in England. having passed it dozens of times, we finally decided to call in.

The Martyrs got into trouble in the 1830s after daring to mention that they couldn't live on wages cut by 40 percent, they were stitched up for crimes they hadn't committed and transported to Australia.  One of them, George Loveless, a most interesting man, wrote a short book telling of the appalling ill treatment which they (and other convicts) endured - it's very interesting.

Miraculously all the martyrs survived and came back, but then all except one emigrated to Canada, perhaps understandably. Not sure I'd have wanted to stay in England either.. Much of the exhibition consists of interesting banners. Here you see the martyrs gathering under the ancient sycamore tree that still stands in Tolpuddle.

Sadly there was some trouble at t'mill recently when the longtime warden of the museum was thrown out by the Trades Union Congress, which owns the cottages. Perhaps they had a point, but it wasn't the greatest of publicity for them.

We took the chance to go to a village fete and dog show; events which you rarely find in London. I could spend hours watching dog shows - so much human and canine life.

  This little boy's pet was, I think, partly blind, a lovely dog which he proudly paraded. 

This dog would have won my first prize if there had been a class for the dog with the best ears.

Noticed some more dogs in the back of a nifty electric vehicle belonging to a modern shepherd.  This little truck was jolting over the pastures above Abbotsbury, and the dogs seemed to be enjoying it, although since it was bright and sunny, I much preferred to be outdoors and on foot.   

The sheep toned so well with the parts of the landscape covered in dry thistles. 

And I noticed yet another dog off for a canoe ride at Wareham as we made our way to our inlaws at Wimborne, about half an hour away. 

 By coincidence, one of our daughters happened to be at Wimborne and we watched her and our son in law perform at Sting in the Tale, the town's annual festival of stories.  It was a wonderful peaceful evening in a natural performance space in a local park. The late sun lit them like a spotlight, and the audience reacted really well, thoroughly entering into the spirit of the music and words. 

On another day we looked at Blandford Fashion Museum,  It's found in a large house from the early 1730s, built not long after a gigantic fire had destroyed much of medieval Blandford.  Maintained by volunteers, the museum is really nice.  

   It evolved from a large private collection, and it aims to show how fashion reflects social history.  The captions were comprehensive and interestingly written,and my eye was caught by so many details. I noticed, for instance, these long ruched net gloves. They were worn in the 1950s but, though elegant, they look just a  bit creepy to me. 

I also learned some things I hadn't known before, such as that Victorian brides in mourning wore grey or lilac wedding dresses - and I also discovered  how a crinoline is constructed, and how easy it is to catch legs in them if you dare to walk with long, unladylike strides. Apparently there was also a significant risk of being blown off high places in strong winds, but the good news was that often the crinoline would act like a parachute and waft the lady safely to the ground.

I was glad we had a fair day to visit Durlston, on the Isle of Purbeck, high above the seaside town of Swanage. When I was a teenager I did a holiday job as a warden in Swanage Youth Hostel.  I was seriously lazy in those days and as the car laboured up the hill I felt rather ashamed to know that I would never have dragged myself up on foot to take a look around at the time I actually lived there. 

Durlston is now a country park and Site of Special Scientific Interest.  This is the main building on the site  - Durlston Castle, consisting mostly of a restaurant and display area. The entire estate was created by a Victorian stonemason called George Burt, who had made a lot of money and wanted to give something back to his home town.  

The estate went through ups and downs and I learned that when I lived in Swanage I probably wouldn't have been able to visit it, because it might have been derelict. Phew - so that's OK! I mean, I was still terminally lazy but it didn't matter. :)  

Now, the castle has been really well modernised with the aid of a lottery grant and the estate has been restored and is managed as a huge wildlife site.  There are useful and ever-changing displays of information about all the plants, birds, animals and insects inside the Castle. 

Here are some photographs. I really was impressed. 

As befits a stonemason, George Burt left many carved slabs along the paths and created  a big globe of the world as it was in Victorian times. Many of the slabs contain snatches of appropriate poetry, which is rather nice as it helps you see how he saw the place himself.

 He clearly had a good understanding of human nature, too. Two slabs of stone stand near the globe. On each is is quaintly written PERSONS ANXIOUS TO WRITE THEIR NAMES WILL PLEASE DO SO ON THIS STONE.   And so they have. Here's a picture of one of the stones - and the globe and other inscriptions are free of graffiti.

It is is open all year, it's beautiful, you can walk along the coast for miles, and it has a nice restaurant. My friend says it is also a super place to go with dogs. For some reason, though, Durlston doesn't appear in most of the tourist information I picked up in the area. 

Oh,and one final picture, to prove you can see the Isle of Wight when you sit outside and have your tea. There it is in the distance,  although I don't think this little girl was interested! 

One evening we took a walk on National Trust land a little further up the coast, at Ringstead Bay.  The windswept trees below looked oddly like breaking wave and I wished I had seenthe whole scene on a stormy day.  

So we had a good trip to Dorset, and each day we were glad to come back to our friend's mum's cottage and admire the sunsets.   

PS. Just to say that Star Men (the film about astronomy) now has a UK distributor, so if you want to see it, write and ask your local cinema to offer it a screening.  It's also on at the Cambridge Film Festival on 3 and 4 September. 

Catching Up With Wimborne

Today I saw that the tree outside my window is starting to go yellow, and I am way behind. I meant to blog  about staying with our inlaws in Dorset. It was one of our best trips for ages, the weather was great and it was such a restful and carefree time - so it really deserves a post. 

Our inlaws live in Wimborne, a small country town which feels dominated by its large and imposing minster church, as you see.   Click here if you'd like to read more about Wimborne Minster.

Wimborne's a good place to shop, a good mix of locals and independents, including a bookshop and a record shop - the latter a real rarity these days. I specially liked the greengrocer in the square, too.

Our inlaws have a season ticket to Wimborne's Priest's House museum, one of the oldest buildings in town, so of course they took us there.   At one stage in its varied career, part of the Priest's House became a  "Miss Havisham" style Victorian stationers which was boarded up complete with all its stock in 1872 and only rediscovered decades later. There's a display in one of the rooms showing part of the stationer's as it was when open - except that all the shutters were closed and the room was lit only by lamplight.  Spooky!

Other rooms in the rambling old house show it in other periods. I fell in love with these painted cloth walls of the 17th century room. A cheaper alternative to tapestries, they were insulation for chilly rooms. If I ever have time, I'd like to do something like this myself. It's better than wallpaper because you can unroll the fabric and put it away for a while when you are tired of it.



Outside, there's a long, well stocked garden,  tended by local volunteers, with lawns, fruit trees, shrubs, flowers and plants, all centred on a first class tea room.

As I mentioned in this recent  post, we visited the National Trust's Kingston Lacy House, and on another day we packed a picnic and headed for the Blue Pool, near Wareham.

Decades ago, it was a clay pit, and its bright turquoise waters seem un-English somehow.  The once-industrial area has now reverted to nature and has been unobtrusively laid out with woodland paths, benches, etc. as well as plenty of places to scramble over hills and down dales.  Just the place for kids, of course.  We liked the cafe, designed in appealingly retro fifties style with turquoise touches to match the water, and enjoyed the little museum. There was also a large display of teddy bears, known as the Wareham Bears. Bears are not my cup of tea to be honest, but it was ingenious and the bear-loving visitors were entranced.

We spent most of the day at Blue Pool idling about, sitting around, talking and looking at the wildlife. At one point, we were joined for about half an hour by this robin which clearly had nothing else to do either...

We were also lucky enough to see a decorative dragonfly laying her eggs on a tree stump

Back in Wimborne, there was a small drama, with a chip pan fire not far from our inlaws' house.  Nobody was hurt, and normally I wouldn't have taken much notice, but one of their sons  happens to be a fireman, so we were able to see him and his colleagues at work.   I am only posting the picture because the affected place was insured and all was well - but it was impressive to see how well organised the firemen were, even for a small incident like this.

By the way, several of them told us they'd never have chip pans in their own homes!

We had a meal at the Anchor at Shapwick, a pub which seemed very popular and was quite hard to get in, even midweek.  Prices weren't high, and the food was good, so I recommend it if you are ever in the Wimborne area.

I also discovered rose lemonade. It is weird stuff, tasting of a mixture of lemons and roses - but it's perfect on a hot day.

This week I had a 2 hour interview about Lewis Carroll with CBC Toronto,  As I was a  journalist for many years, I still can't get over the slightly weird feeling of being on the other side of the mike, but the CBC interviewer, Cindy Bisaillon, was such a professional that it all seemed easy and fun.  There is talk of another translation of "The Mystery of Lewis Carroll" happening, so I'll be keeping my fingers crossed about that. 

At home, we had a house guest who is nuts about folk music and he introduced us to a whole new world which I will try to blog about soon.  We did some boat work, and since it was a real indian summer day today, it was a total pleasure to do it, even though some of it did involve emptying out bucketloads of bilge water and feeling like the Sorcerer's Apprentice.  

But the sun was shining down, swans were floating by and there were nice little boats all around, so who could really complain?