Dorset 2022

Saturday 28th May

Yay, holiday!

This is a much-belated week away for my stepdad's 50th with his side of the family, after we were all meant to go to Spain in 2020. It's a two-hour drive down to the Bridport area, and we arrived in the town with a bit of time to spare before we could check into the cottage a few miles away, so stopped at a petrol station to get some Magnums and ate them there in the forecourt, haha. I made a mental note of the local independent farm shop and bakery opposite.

The cottage is lovely, part of an old farmhouse out in the winding single-track lanes near a village called West Milton. The building has three cottages: one for the owners, and two holiday rentals. It's chilly indoors, but outside there's a little terrace that catches the afternoon sun, and a lovely big garden area the other side of the drive that's just for our use. That'll be lovely to visit early in the morning when people aren't up yet, or at night to look at the stars. From one spot on the driveway you can even see the sea in the distance. I'm looking forward to trying the cider in the fridge, a complimentary bottle of local stuff from a farm up the road. I spent a few hours working on my final college assignment before dinner (and thankfully the house warms up once the heating comes on) then the six of us who have arrived so far enjoy dinner outside. I didn't like the cider, haha, but at least it won't go to waste with so many people here. Later I wander over to the garden and stroll through the adjoined meadow as dusk falls. I don't stay up late enough to see the stars fully out, but gaze at them for a few minutes through my window when I wake up in the middle of the night.

Sunday

Despite leaving the blinds of the roof windows open - there are no streetlights out here - it's not till an hour and a half after sunrise that I wake up. I'd like to leave the windows open more than they are, too, to hear the near-silence and birdsong of a country morning, but it's too cold.

Others are due to arrive in the afternoon so four of us set off in the morning on a 7.5-mile walk from the cottage around the local countryside. I noticed a couple of orchids - common spotted orchid and pyramidal orchid. Lots of long grass, stiles, and some steep hills. We stopped for a rest and lunch at a spot overlooking a road and a hedgelayer I follow on Instagram drove past in his shepherd's-hut van, haha. We had to shelter under a tree for a few minutes during a shower, but got back to the cottage just in time, five minutes before the rain really hit.

Too tired to do much in the afternoon. Cast Away was on telly so we watched that. Had chicken and ham with salad and warm crusty baguette for dinner. Weather cleared later on so I went out to the garden. Saw some bats, yay! No hedgehogs or foxes or owls, though.

Monday

Spent a few hours in West Bay. After an initial walk along the pier, I went off on my own and made my way to the Discovery Centre, which sadly was closed. But behind it is the fossil shop, which sells ones found by a local expert in nearby Charmouth, and I gave into temptation and bought one, hehe. Then I decided to go for a walk, up and along the East Cliffs. There are so many 'desire lines' worn into the steep slope up from the beach, criss-crossing all over it, I'm surprised there aren't any proper maintained steps, although there must be a reason for that I suppose. One day all the little paths up will be eroded down together and there won't be any turf left for a foothold.

I walked along to where the cliffs next slope down to the beach at Burton Freshwater. Only about a kilometre, 15 minutes or so, but there are a few steep hills to climb up and down. It's the third time I've been to West Bay and walked that short fragment of South West Coast Path in the last year, haha. Took my shoes off and went back along the beach. Spent too much time looking down at the pebbles for fossils! Had to make myself look up and around. It's gorgeous there. And I just love stopping to look up at the cliffs, impressively tall and awe-inspiring with all their layers, layers that give hints about the distant past if you take the time to notice. I picked up a small piece of rock from a pile of collapsed cliff; it really is just compacted sand, it didn't take much effort to crumble it up in my fingers. Blew my mind that it had been a solid cohesive chunk for like 175 million years. I wondered what the blue-grey rocks at the very bottom of the cliffs were, how they were formed and when, but apparently they're the same stuff as the rest of the rest of the 45+ metres above it. The particular type of sandstone there contains something that oxidises when exposed to air, turning the cliffs that golden-browny-yellow colour - the blue-grey rocks are relatively recently exposed and therefore still un-oxidised.

I had a lovely time there, thoroughly enjoyed those few hours. And to top it all off, several minutes after making myself stop scanning the pebbles for fossils, I stopped to look at the waves for a minute, then looked down... and saw a fossil! Hahaha! What luck! Nowhere near as impressive as the one I'd bought from the shop, but still cool, and very exciting. Another rock to add to my growing windowsill collection, haha.

Tuesday

Mapperton House and Gardens. Well, just the gardens really, the house (home to the Earl and Countess of Sandwich) is only viewable on scheduled guided tours. It's a gorgeous exterior though, an L-shaped 17th century Jacobean mansion made of the lovely warm golden-yellow local stone, with ancient wood-framed gates set into the low wall surrounding the house, enclosing a small square of manicured lawn and flower borders full to bursting. The gardens are reached through another gate along the side of the house, leading to a rectangular lawn and more flower borders along the boundary wall. It started to rain shortly after we arrived; the others took cover in a stone gazebo of sorts a little further along, while I happily stood underneath a mature tree and didn't mind the odd drop reaching me. After about ten minutes the rain passed and we continued into the formal Italianate gardens, terraced into the steep little valley the house sits of the edge of. It was pretty. Large areas were paved but it was old so plants were growing through the cracks. There were more flowers, and topiary, and trees and shrubs, and a fountain, and two rectangular ponds one of which is now used as a swimming pool.

I wandered off to explore the wooded part of the grounds for a while, then rejoined the others for lunch in the restaurant; the carrot and coriander soup was nice, but everything took quite a while to arrive.

The final two members of the party arrived late afternoon. After dinner we all sat in the living room and listened to everyone's favourite songs; there were 11 of us so it took a while, but was a nice way to spend the evening :)

Wednesday

Lyme Regis :) I went off on my own again. Decided to visit the museum, which I enjoyed. They had lots of info about Mary Anning and her contemporary fossil hunters, as well as lots of fossils, and other things on the history of the town. My favourite thing in there was the Cabinet of Curiosities. A History of Earth Time Line wraps around the four sides of the box; it contains our planet's history in a single calendar year, with 1cm representing 12.5 million years. You may have heard it before: when geological history is represented as a single year, Homo sapiens appear in the last few minutes of December 31st. It's mind-boggling. I quite like that we are, in this way, utterly insignificant. My favourite thing in the Cabinet of Curiosities were the small rock samples you could look at through hand lenses placed inside the glass. I was literally looking at them open-mouthed, going "Wow!" like a child, especially at the Oolitic Limestone - made up of tiny grains of calcium carbonate - and the tiny fossil of a freshwater snail in the Purbeck Marble.

After a couple of hours in the busy museum, I returned to the fresh air and sunshine and bought a honey and ginger ice-cream from a kiosk on the beachfront, and sat on the shingle to enjoy it. Then I made my way past the half-term crowds on the sandy beach over to Monmouth Beach on the other side of the Cobb. I wanted to see the fossil beach and Ammonite Pavement, a limestone ledge containing large ammonite fossils, but didn't realise how far down it was, so I didn't get to see it before having to turn back to meet my family to go back to the house. I did find, though, a tiny piece of crystal geode inside a rock that someone had broken open; most of it had been taken but the end had snapped off and been left behind. Fossil-hunting is encouraged there, to prevent many being lost to the sea, but there are guidelines. I'd like to go back one day, and go on a guided fossil-hunting walk.

Oolitic limestone viewed through a hand lens

We had a dinner reservation at the restaurant at nearby Bredy Farm. It's a working farm that's diversified with a campsite and restaurant and events, etc. I had stayed there one night on the camping trip last year, and by complete coincidence it's where my grandad decided to book to stay in his campervan on this holiday, and where my stepbrother-in-law's dad works. On my camping trip we arrived there late at night so didn't get to see the restaurant - so I was expecting a casual woodfired pizza place... but no, it's a proper Italian restaurant with pricey dishes, and is so popular that you have to book weeks in advance. We sat outside and it was very rustic and pretty, with wooden tables decorated simply with white pillar candles and tankards filled with herbs and wildflowers, and to my delight there were swallows and house martins darting about to and from their nests on the old farm buildings, the yellow stone lit warmly by the sunset. The menu was puzzling though, with dish names largely in Italian so that the waiting staff are obliged to explain to probably every table what half the dishes are. And there were no carbs with most of them; there was just one pasta option, and that a spicy one. For carbs and the relatively low cost I ordered one of the woodfired pizzas with fennel salami on, which was nice.  I also ordered a half-pint of one of their own ciders but didn't like it, haha, but that's just me, I'm very picky when it comes to alcohol. For dessert I had a rhubarb and strawberry crumble, which was yummy! 

Thursday

I took my sister and stepbrother on a 7-mile walk along the coast path from Charmouth to West Bay. I did that section last summer on the camping trip with my friend and it's challenging with lots of steep hills, but that means the views are stunning. It was sunny and warm and we took it at a leisurely pace, pausind when we needed to, and thankfully there was a nice breeze. After about an hour and a half we reached Golden Cap, the highest point on the south coast, and lingered there a while taking in the views stretching down the coast, all the way to Portland in the east and - just visible in the haze - the headlands of Torbay and hills of Dartmoor in the west. 

Less than an hour later we reached the just-over-halfway point of Seatown, where, as we were just about to head off again after a quick loo stop, a text message informed us the whole family was down there at the beach! So we went to find them and sat down for a while. We were quite conflicted, partly wanting to stay and enjoy a family day at the beach, but also feeling like we wanted to finish what we set out to do. So we stayed a while and then set off on the second half of the walk. The walk up the hill from Seatown was the steepest one yet.And at one point I looked up to see the path I was following fell off the edge of a cliff a short way ahead! Quickly moved left away from it, thankfully it was an open piece of land so another route had started to be worn into the grass. I don't remember seeing that cliff fall last year, with the fence literally hanging off the edge and still connected at both ends. We reached West Bay around 3pm, about 4 hours and 20 minutes after setting off in Charmouth, and sat down to enjoy some well-earned food! I finally got some fish'n'chips and Dorset apple cake :)

As the sun sets I go to sit outside on the terrace. After a while a white bird flies overhead from behind the house and I just assume it's a gull - until it glides low and continues into the orchard and over to the meadow. BARN OWL!!!!!! I've never seen a wild one. I stand up, jaw dropping, and quickly tiptoe over to the orchard where I sit down to keep watch. To my delight it does appear again, several times as it moves around the fields in the area, hunting. Interestingly it doesn't cross the middle of the meadow, but always flies around the edges - which meant it flew within ten metres of me a few times, which was wonderful. What an awesome experience :)

Friday

Three more of the party left in the morning. We would be dropping my sister off at Weymouth train station later in the afternoon so four of us went east to Abbotsbury Beach (part of Chesil Beach) to spend a few hours there before she left. It was quite busy and the people next to us had music on, which bothered me, so along with the uncertainty of what to do with myself that I always feel at the beach, I quickly grew restless and decided to go for a walk to see the nature reserve. Only it turned out you can't. The South West Coast Path turns inland, so after following that for a few minutes I turned around, wanting to stay near the sea especially in the warm, stuffy weather. I thought I might be able to walk along the beach so I could see the lagoon, but didn't want to risk it after seeing signs saying it was private land. So I sat down in an empty spot where I couldn't hear the people I could see, finished my book and watched and listened to the waves. The empty, lifeless, shingle bank stretching out into the distance looked very lunar, if that can be an acceptable description for a place by the sea, or like it belonged to some remote desert-bordered coastline. After being gone a couple of hours I rejoined my family, and we stayed about half an hour longer before leaving for Weymouth - and just in time too, for it started to rain shortly after we left.

The rest of us departed on Saturday morning.

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It was lovely to get away for a week to somewhere so gorgeous. I love it down there and really want to go back. I even bought an annual membership to the Lyme Regis Museum as it was just £1 more than a day ticket, haha, and I know I can get the Jurassic Coaster bus down there from Weymouth or Exmouth during the summer months. I do have a few adventures planned over the next few months to look forward to though, starting with North Yorkshire with my friend next month! :)

Exmouth 2021 - part 1

Yay, time for a travel post at long last! Two weeks ago I took myself off down to Exmouth for a few days; my first little trip away since late 2019. I'd booked it a couple of months earlier, and was looking forward to getting away and spending some time on the coast.

Monday 5th July

There were delays on my train journey so I arrived in Exmouth about an hour later than expected, around 2:30pm. I bought a coronation chicken sandwich as a late lunch from the M&S next to the station and found my way to the house where I was staying; my Airbnb was a local resident's spare room. (She was a Verified Superhost and had loads of good reviews, so I was pretty confident it would be safe and comfortable.) She was nice and had a gorgeous calm-tempered greyhound, her home was lovely and quirky and very clean, and the room was quiet and cosy. I always tend to linger in my room for an hour or two whenever I arrive somewhere, I guess to sort of work myself up to going out and finding my way around a new place. The weather was miserable and if I'd been in a hotel or B&B I would have stayed in, but as I was in someone's home (and on holiday) I felt like I should spend as much time as possible not there (though I'm sure she wouldn't have minded) - so I went out again around 4:30.

To avoid the heavy grey clouds, rain, and strong and chilly breeze, I decided to go to the cinema; Supernova, a drama starring the greats that are Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci and set in the Lake District, was showing at 5:45. The cinema was an independent one, which is really cool. I had the screen to myself, and want to see all the films they showed trailers for (the Marvel trailer for not just Black Widow but announcing all their films for the next few years was particularly exciting, haha). The film was very good; quiet, modest, understated, with a moving story and brilliant performances. I don't usually get snacks at the cinema but bought a small popcorn, and that along with the other snacks I had with me ended up being my tea, my evening meal, even though I was out again by 7pm and could have found somewhere for dinner. Afterwards I went to the seafront and sat in a shelter on the Esplanade, out of the wind and rain, watching the headlands at Berry Head, Torquay, Teignmouth, and Dawlish slowly disappear in the worsening weather.

Tuesday 6th

My host provided a range of options for breakfast and I opted to try some posh Kelloggs protein cereal that turned out to be cinnamon-y and very yummy. She also had a jar of dried cranberries the likes of which I've never seen before - they were whole, and huge, and gorgeous, and I'm kicking myself that I didn't go to the town's zero-waste shop, where I think she said she got them from, to see if they had any. Being a guest in the home of someone I didn't know and sitting in their kitchen trying to make conversation over breakfast wasn't the most relaxing experience; as always I was very conscious of not having questions to ask her about herself or many comments to make in response to things she was saying, especially because she was an interesting person and we had a lot of interests in common. But I'm always harder on myself than I need to be, there wasn't actually very much awkward silence so it wasn't too bad. I loved her home - an old terraced cottage full of books, houseplants, art, mismatched second-hand everything, and cherished items from near and far. She said it was nice to have someone stay for a few days as it's more relaxing, most of her guests are walkers who stay for just one night.

One of the reasons I chose Exmouth was for the walking - the town lies on the South West Coast Path, and is one end of the 26-mile Exe Estuary Trail that loops around the estuary linking together Exmouth, Exeter, and Dawlish Warren. I decided to spend my first full day doing the coast path to Budleigh Salterton, a route of just over five miles/eight kilometres. The first two miles is just along Exmouth Beach. Towards the far end, where the red sandstone cliffs which mark the western end of the Jurassic Coast start to rise, you have to be careful not to get cut off by the incoming tide, especially if you walk around into Sandy Bay at low tide. The cliffs are amazing to look at, and a little daunting to stand under even if they're not as high as elsewhere along the coast. The Jurassic Coast - the 95 miles between Orcombe Point at Exmouth and Old Harry Rocks at Swanage - is England's only natural UNESCO World Heritage Site. Why is it so special (apart from being stunningly beautiful)? You know what, I cannot possibly come up with a better explanation than the experts at the Jurassic Coast Trust:

Imagine your favourite film trilogy. Now imagine that the first film is only ever shown in Scotland, the second only shown in France and the third only shown in Brazil. Annoying right? Now imagine that you stumble across a little cinema on the south coast of England that shows the entire trilogy, all three films back to back with extra scenes and everything. That’s what the Jurassic Coast is like for three geological time Periods called the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous.

Those three time periods of Earth history collectively make up the Mesozoic Era, running from around 250 to 65 million years ago. Rocks that offer an almost complete record of that entire time are spread out along the Jurassic Coast, a bit like the pages of a book.

How literally awesome is that?! I've always had an interest in physical Earth sciences like geology and should actually study it a bit at some point. The red rocks in East Devon are Triassic, the oldest, formed from layers of sand in a vast desert 250-200 million years ago - and there were other, older, grey rocks underneath those. The website linked above has more easy-to-understand information if you're interested, including an image showing which areas of the coastline have which rocks.

Anyway, back to the walk. At Orcombe Point you leave the beach and take the steps up the cliff, then a short walk through some National Trust clifftop grasslands brings you to the Geoneedle, an obelisk showing the different rocks along the Jurassic Coast. There's also a large compass thing in the ground pointing towards landmarks along the coast, which makes you realise how much the coastline curves around. Less than a mile further on was the Devon Cliffs Holiday Park - the halfway point of this route - and the South Beach Cafe, where I stopped for lunch. I ordered a raspberry lemonade and the shredded beef mac and cheese, the latter of which was yummy (especially as it came with a caramelised onion chutney) and satisfying, although the tablespoon's worth of beef was disappointingly more of a garnish than an ingredient. There were steps down into Sandy Bay, which I've heard is nice, but I wasn't in a great mood and just wanted to carry on.

It took me just over an hour to cover the remaining two and a half miles to Budleigh Salterton. The weather stayed good, a mix of cloud and sun with a breeze. The rain falling over the land and sea on the horizon didn't come my way, thankfully. The path was unnervingly close to the cliff edge in places, but I loved looking out over the countryside to my left and the sea to my right; the waves rolling in, the white horses, the shifting colours under sunshine and cloud shadow. Once at Budleigh and on the beach, the astonishing rusty red colour of the water, created by runoff from the cliffs after the recent rains, became more obvious and prominent against the pale pebbles of the beach. The beach itself was impressive too, sculpted by the forces of the waves in a way I hadn't seen before, into a pair of waves itself with steep banks and deep troughs. And oh, I loved the pebbles, the pebbles were gorgeous. Huge, round, oval, smooth, a variety of colours - pinks, purples, yellows, oranges, greys, blacks, stripey ones, spotty ones. I was ever so tempted to take one away with me, but I didn't, one single lone pebble would look out of place in my room, I wouldn't know what to do with it, and it's just generally better to not take things, to leave them and let other people enjoy them too. 

I spent about an hour on the beach, trying to be present and improve my low mood by concentrating on watching the waves, but frustration took over as I struggled with indecision over whether to get the bus back or walk, and what to do when I got back. Eventually, at about 5pm, I decided to walk back, via the 'Exmouth to Budleigh Salterton Old Railway Line', a flat paved route through the countryside. You have to walk through the town to reach it, so I took what I thought was a more direct route from my starting point at the beach but it turned out to be an unpleasant footpath-less on-road route, which put me in a bad mood, so I was very glad to finally reach the path after 45 minutes. Being back among woodland and farmland - and other walkers - was soothing and made me feel slightly better, and I stopped at a bench to rest, have a snack, and just look and listen to what was around me. Cows were mooing comfortingly in one of the fields, clustering in one corner where the farmer was probably putting some food out for them, birds were singing and flitting about, including some kind of martins, a kestrel hovered nearby, and once I set off again a black cat crossed the path way ahead and sat in the vegetation to one side, staring at me as I walked past, which made me smile. 

Eventually I got back to Exmouth Beach, after a long day of walking around 15 miles. I bought a pack of bread rolls from the convenience store on the seafront and went back to the same shelter I'd sat in the evening before, to put together a tuna mayo roll with the can of said filling and cutlery from home I'd brought with me. Once again my evening meal was snacks, more of a lunch, but at least I'd had the mac and cheese earlier. Grey clouds and a slightly chilly breeze were still about but several locals were playing volleyball on the beach, and some kitesurfers and sailboaters were out on the water. I looked through my binoculars at the three cruise ships anchored off the distant headlands. What looked to the naked eye to be some sort of cargo ship turned out to be an ugly hulking Virgin Voyages liner, haha. I headed back to the house, located just one street behind the seafront, around 9pm.

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Thanks for reading all that if you have! I think when I'm writing these things that I often focus on certain aspects I enjoyed or things I noticed, and I sound enthusiastic and maybe it comes across that I had a good time. Which is why I've mentioned my low moods and not actually having a good time. Sometimes solo travel is like that, for a variety of reasons, and I like to be honest and not pretend. This trip could have been improved by better planning, as I hadn't really planned at all. Anyway, part two about the Wednesday and Thursday to follow soon!

130 days of daily walks

Thursday 30th July was the 130th day in a row that I went for my daily walk! Yay!

I started counting on Monday 23rd March - the day when lockdown was announced in the evening. I know that 130 days - 18 and a half weeks, just over four months - is nothing for people who have dogs, or who are already in the habit of going for a walk every single day. But it's something of an achievement for me, and I'm quite proud of myself for keeping at it.

Working office jobs over the last four and a half years got me going out for walks at lunchtime to stretch my legs, get some fresh air, and get my eyes away from walls and a computer screen, but sometimes that was only 20 minutes, and it was very easy to just say "Eh, I won't go out today" because it was too rainy or too cold or too hot or I just didn't feel like it. I love walking, but unless I'm meeting friends it's always been very hard to motivate myself to catch a bus and train to get myself out to the countryside at weekends, so taking long leisurely walks or hikes has generally only been something I've done on a few trips, or the odd occasion with family or friends. But, as we in the UK were allowed to go outside for one form of exercise each day during lockdown, I've had the opportunity over the last four months to intentionally go for a walk every day, and in nature instead of along concrete streets.

Bluebells in the wood

I'm very fortunate that I live on the edge of the city and am a five-minute walk away from a mile-long shingle beach. Despite having lived here since August 2018, until this last February I'd only been there a handful of times and only once or twice gone beyond the far end of the beach, where the coast path continues on towards Royal Victoria Country Park. Behind the promenade is a mown-grass field where people can walk their dogs, kick a ball around, have picnics, sunbathe etc.; a bit further along is another grassy area left to go wilder, trodden paths winding through long grasses; and at the far end of that, behind the road behind the beach, is a 150-acre nature reserve with woodland and grasslands. So, having discovered the latter only a few months ago, I've been able to get out into open spaces with water, birds and other wildlife, grass, trees, flowers, and lots of plants and greenery.

I've really loved being able to get out and spend an hour and a half or more outside in the fresh air every day. Nature has always been one of my greatest loves, and for the first time in my life I've been able to let that come to the surface and be part of my daily life. I go slowly, looking, noticing, observing. I don't take a notebook, but take lots of photos and use those as memory prompts, visual notes rather than written, and occasionally make a note on my phone if a picture won't do. I've taken hundreds of photos, uploading some to Facebook to share with family and friends. (And Instagram - the link to that is on the right-hand side of this page.) I kind of wish, though, that I had created a habit of taking a notebook and making notes every day as well, just a short summary and key points, a daily log; they'd be interesting to look back on.

The beach at low tide

On the beach I watch and listen to the waves, and gaze out at the light glinting on the water, glittery and pretty. I watch the swells and how the surface shifts, smooth and glossy like silk or rippling and shivering, rolling and undulating, the waves meeting the shore gently lapping, or stretching up, or crashing with a rush and roar and a tumble of pebbles as they fall back. When the sun's low and the sky blue, the water looks like satin and the softly-breaking waves like molten silver. I've gone paddling in the water several times, which is good fun and helps me to focus on where I am and tune out my thoughts for a while so I'm in the present moment. The beach is prettier when the tide's in, but when the tide's out there are wading birds on the mud flats; gulls and oyster-catchers mainly, plus the occasional egret and some smallish brown birds that were too far away to identify. There was a great crested grebe or two that liked to hang around sometimes when the tide was in, but I haven't seen them for a couple of months, and the swans which made an appearance every now and then in the first few weeks have now reappeared with six fluffy cygnets in tow!

One of my favourite days was 30th April because it was really stormy, with heavy dark clouds and pelting rain. I ventured out that afternoon during a break in the rain, dressed in wellies and waterproof trousers as well as a raincoat. I just reached the shore when it started raining again and lightning flashed a few miles away on the other side of Southampton Water, so I hid against the wall under a balcony at the sailing clubhouse until I was sure that wasn't heading my way. It moved on quickly and some sunlight broke through to shine on the beach and the water, creating an awesome contrast with the slate-dark clouds. I decided it would be fun to walk in the rain, so carried on, and sure enough ten minutes later the water darkened further and the rain moved towards me in sheets. For a minute I didn't put my hood up, just stood there giggling with joy, letting the raindrops land on me and listening to them hit the water and the pebbles and the tarmac and the trees on the path behind. Everything was quiet except for the rain, the wind, the waves, and the birds. It was awesome, so much fun!

Stormy skies

In the woods, I'll stop and watch a bee buzz around, look up and around at the canopy and how the sunlight plays on everything, the contrast with the shadows, or sit on one of the old building foundations for a while and listen to the birds singing, the squirrels scuttling about, and the wind in the leaves. If I catch a nice scent then I take deep breaths, trying to smell as much of it as I can for as long as I can. I've started to learn to identify birds by sight and sound, and flowers and trees. I've seen song thrushes, nuthatches, tree-creepers, and great spotted woodpeckers all for the first time, and jay fledglings. I often hear small creatures squeak and scurry about unseen in the undergrowth, saw a couple of rats once scampering back into the nettles, and two little mice or voles once crossed the path just a few feet in front of me. I was excited to see a kestrel one day, hovering over the little grassland between the road and the tower blocks, and buzzards gliding over the nature reserve.

One joy has been hearing and seeing a fox. There may be and probably is more than one in those woods, but I have no way of knowing. I've heard it twice - a single bark in the first week, and then a month ago I had the amazing experience of listening to it repeatedly barking like 10 metres away for a full 10 minutes. And I've caught a fleeting glimpse of it twice. One day in May I was just sat in my favoured spot as usual and was still and silent for long enough that it thought nobody was around and went wandering, and I caught the movement just in time to look and see its back and tail slip through a gap in the undergrowth five metres away. Then more recently I was walking along one of the paths and heard a sudden scurrying in the dry leaves of the area of wood to my left, looked and saw it bounding away! Amazing.

Magnificent beech trees

I've been able to see the seasons gradually shift from almost-spring to late summer. Wood anemone and lesser celandine gave way to bluebells and blackthorn blossom and dandelions, then to apple and hawthorn blossoms, buttercups, and the forget-me-nots and other wildflowers planted on the verge by the car park, then elderflower, dog roses, honeysuckle, foxglove, and all the wild carrot family. Now even lady's bedstraw, the pea family, and bright yellow ragwort are fading, and blackberries and hazelnuts are starting to ripen. Fuzzy buds on the trees turned into soft, tender, translucent leaves, which took on a glorious almost neon vibrancy for just a couple of days before maturing into thick, dark, heavy foliage. As the sunlight grew stronger and brighter, the woods darkened as the canopy thickened, providing a cool, shadowy refuge from the hot sun. Birdsong increased, then peaked, then lessened again as they found mates and started nesting, and now most of the birds are very quiet as they hide away for molting. A pair of great spotted woodpeckers made a nest in a dead tree right next to the path, so I got some great views of them and the chick. I've seen butterflies in the wood and in the grasslands - speckled wood, orange tip, small heath, marbled white, small white, red admirals, a comma, a small skipper, a gatekeeper, a white admiral, a pale blue/white one on the beach, and some yellowy ones. I've also seen a couple of damselflies by the stream in the woods, and an enormous beetle flying and land on a tree (likely a stag beetle, that's the largest one we have over here). (Did you know that ladybirds are a type of beetle? It hadn't occurred to me before, but of course they are.) I think my favourite types of tree in this wood are the ash and birch, purely because they make a particularly lovely rustle in the wind.

Germander speedwell

As lockdown restrictions eased and we were allowed to drive to different places and see family and friends again, some walks have been elsewhere. A couple, to be honest, weren't walks, but rather afternoons spent in gardens. I counted them because part of the purpose of going for a walk is to get out into nature, be surrounded by it, look at it, notice and observe, and I did those things on those days. I was surrounded by trees and flowers and birds, watched and listened to them, and went round looking closely at the flowers, and the bees and butterflies feeding on them.

I feel very lucky that over the last four months I've been able to spend more time outdoors in nature, delve into it more, learn a bit more about it, and encounter other people who love it too (albeit online, and being an observer rather than joining in by interacting through the comments etc.). It's spurred me to apply for a full-time college course covering ecology, conservation, habitat management, wildlife surveys, etc., something part of me wishes I'd done years ago, so fingers crossed I get accepted onto that. And so many other people have benefited from this opportunity to notice, experience, and connect to nature more, either in more depth, or in new ways, or even for the first time. Long-time nature lovers have been joined by new enthusiasts.

Great spotted woodpecker

The lessened presence, disturbance, and dominance of humans during full lockdown, before restrictions started to be eased, meant that Nature and wildlife had a chance to breathe and relax. For the first few weeks of lockdown the beach was almost empty, I'd pass only a handful of people there and in the woods. No litter. No dog poo. Roads were empty. The sky was empty of aircraft and their contrails. Air and noise pollution levels went right down. Birdsong was more audible. Ground-nesting birds and mammals in places usually only reachable by car were left undisturbed by dogs and walkers while we weren't allowed to drive to take exercise. Grass verges were left un-mown and roadside trees and shrubs un-strimmed (I hate seeing those splintered remains), providing fantastic habitats for wildlife. The building site opposite my flat was empty, and the harsh white safety lights not turned on at night, which was nice for me in that my room was much darker than usual, but it would have also been good for nocturnal flyers like bats and moths. Animals wandered around more, roamed further, felt safer: mountain goats in the streets of Llandudno, seabirds and dolphins in the Venetian canals, fallow deer grazing on the lawns of a London housing estate. The benefit of human lockdown to the natural environment and wildlife has been so obvious that, wonderfully, Thailand's government announced in May that they will be closing all of their national parks for two months every year from now on.

Fairy door

Of course, people have gradually returned. The beach and promenade are busy, with oyster-diggers, fishermen, kite-surfers, jet-skiers, the ice-cream and burger vans, runners, roller-skaters, dog-walkers, families, friends, and people having a nice time. The sounds and smells are just Summer all over so it's quite nice in a way. But with the positives have also returned the negatives. Cars. Pollution. Roadkill. Dog poo. Litter. Litter. Litter.

Nature has been here for many of us over the last few months. As we start to return to "normal", it is time for us to be there for nature, the natural world, the earth, our planet - to show up for it, fight for it. Create a new normal, a better one, not just in terms of our relationship with the natural world but with each other too.

Person sitting on the beach by an oak tree

I'm finishing this post off a week later. We moved over the weekend, out of the city to our mum and stepdad's place in a town more inland, so I'll be taking walks elsewhere from now on. While I'll miss the beach and the nature reserve, and how quick and easy it is to get to them, I'm looking forward to finding some new places and getting to know the countryside around here a bit.

Selfie in the woods

Cornwall, October 2019 - days 1 to 3

Tuesday 22nd - Southampton to Bodmin

I went down to Cornwall to visit one of my friends, who now lives near Tintagel (of King Arthur legend) on the county's north coast. It took five hours to travel down on the train, with three changes at Westbury, Taunton, and Plymouth, and I spent pretty much the whole time gazing out of the window at the sunlit countryside. There weren't many other passengers so it was nice and quiet for the whole journey, and the trains themselves, Great Western Railway ones, were fairly new so were nice and clean and comfortable. I liked that they had little lights above the seats, lit red or green to show which were reserved or available, which you could see along the whole length of the carriage from the door, so you could see at a glance instead of wandering up and down looking at each individual seat. At GWR stations, they also announce over the tannoys which carriages are the reserved ones. I wish South Western Railway and Cross Country would do both those things, it makes it so much quicker and easier to find somewhere to sit.

...Well that was a boring first paragraph, I'm sure, hahaha!

The stretch between Dawlish and Teignmouth was particularly lovely; the track goes right along the seafront so you're just looking out at the sea, in this case flat calm sea and blue sky :) I arrived at Bodmin Parkway just before five-thirty and my friend's dad picked me up from the station, as she was still at work. The drive through the Cornish countryside to where they live near Camelford was lovely, the setting sun throwing an absolutely stunning and beautiful copper-gold light on everything. Sausage casserole and mash for dinner was very welcome, and my friend got home from work late evening.

Looking out the train window at the Cornish countryside

Wednesday 23rd - The Camel Trail and Padstow

My friend was working on the Wednesday and Thursday so I'd planned some things to do. The Wednesday was forecast to be the nicer day weather-wise, so I decided to do the Camel Trail that day - a 17-mile / 28km recreational path (walking, cycling, horse-riding) on the route of a former railway line between Wenfordbridge, Bodmin, Wadebridge, and Padstow. The name is from the Camel River (kammel is Cornish for "crooked") which it follows, though the Camel Valley between Bodmin and Wadebridge, and then the Camel Estuary between Wadebridge and Padstow. I was dropped off at a point on the trail near Bodmin and spent about an hour and a half walking happily to Wadebridge. It was dry and sunny and the perfect blend of warmth and autumnal coolness. The valley is wooded and of course the leaves were gorgeous colours, and I picked up a handful of fallen sweet chestnuts to take home and roast, using my boots to pry apart the prickly cases. Many of the former station platforms along the route are still there, but the only one still in use is Boscarne Junction, from which runs a small heritage line; there was a lovely old steam train just turning around when I passed it. It was half term week, so although it wasn't super busy and I spent most of my time without anyone else in sight, it was never too long before you'd see someone else briefly.

An old station in the lovely wooded Camel Valley section

The entire length of the path was paved and completely flat, so I decided to hire a bike in Wadebridge. I haven't cycled in years, because going up the slightest incline is really tough when you're not used to it and don't practice. But I enjoy it when it's flat or downhill. It was so lovely! The waters of the estuary reflected the blue of the sky, the fluffy clouds, and the gently rolling low hills and harvested fields stretching either side. And it only took about 40 minutes to reach Padstow, I got there about quarter to three. I left my bike at a special cycle-park area at the end of the trail, and wandered along the waterfront towards the harbour. There were some retail units in a converted warehouse and I had a look in the shoe shop, which was a mistake because I found a really nice (and actually comfortable) pair of navy blue heeled ankle boots which I didn't let myself buy because I don't know how often I'd wear them. Just along from the shoe shop was was Rick Stein's Fish & Chips, from which I got a late lunch of battered cod and chips. I wish I'd got the grilled mackerel instead, though, as you can get battered cod anywhere. There was a deli too but I didn't really have time to go in - plus, I would have been tempted by things in there, too, haha. I got the fish 'n' chips to take away and ate it while walking round the harbour and up through the park overlooking the estuary to the WWI memorial at St Saviours Point. I sat on a bench there to finish eating but it was in the shade and a bit chilly, so I was glad to get back out in the sunshine again.

The Camel Estuary from the Camel Trail

The Camel Estuary from St Saviour's Point in Padstow

I only had time to go a little bit further along the path before having to turn back, as I needed to get the bike back to Wadebridge no later than 5:30pm. I'll have to look up flat cycle routes and bike hire, both locally and on future trips, as I really enjoyed it. While I was disappointed to not be able to stay in Padstow a bit longer - I hadn't been able to look round the little cobbled streets of the town at all, or go further along the coast path - it turned out to be a good thing as the last bus from Wadebridge back was shortly after 5:30, which I hadn't realised. Maybe they go on a bit later during the summer. It was dark by the time the bus reached Camelford, and my friend lives a little way outside the village on a country lane, but thankfully the bus stops there too. Nobody was in but the little annex had been left unlocked for me so I watched telly in there, and flicked through some of my friend's witchy books, while waiting for my hosts to return from their dog walk. We had cheese on toast for dinner, and again my friend got back late evening.

Thursday 24th - Bude

My friend didn't start work till 12, so in the morning she took me and the dogs to Trebarwith Strand, a small beach nestled between steep cliffs at the end of a narrow valley. The tide was in and I'm not confident walking over slippery rocks so I mostly just stood in one spot watching the awesome Atlantic waves, and the few brave people trying to surf, while the dogs got some exercise. We didn't stay too long before heading back to the house to get ready to go back out, she to work and me up to the seaside resort town of Bude. When a bus comes only every two hours and is late, you begin to question whether you might have missed it, even if you were at the bus stop several minutes before it was due. But thankfully it did arrive, and I enjoyed an hour's trip looking out at the windblown and largely treeless coastal countryside. We got stuck for 10 or so minutes coming out of Boscastle, though, the bus coming face-to-face with several cars going the other way on a single-track road with no passing place within easy reach.

The canal at Bude

I went first to Bude's Tourist Information Centre to have a quick look at what I might be able to do with my few hours there, and bought myself a little box of shortbread, then went across the road to get some lunch. The town has a canal going down to the sea, and there were some retail and eatery units in the old wharf buildings; one of the places I'd seen recommended online, The Olive Tree, was one of them, so I went there. It was sunny and warm enough that I sat outside, and ordered their Superfood Buddha Bowl of quinoa, smoky roasted cauliflower, carrot, edamame beans, pickled cabbage, Chinese leaf, toasted almonds, and a lemon and tahini dressing, with some smoked mackerel. Yum! :)

Superfood Buddha Bowl at The Olive Tree in Bude

Bude Canal and Summerleaze Beach

After lunch I followed the canal down to the end, where it met the sea. The beach was on the opposite shore, and I would have needed to go back up to the road by the TIC and back down the other side to reach it. There were quite a few people on it, a few dozen maybe, half of them surfing. The tide was in and it had clouded over more by this point so the water looked dark and cold and uninviting, and the wind was chilly. I put my scarf and beanie on, crossed the canal's sea lock and walked out a little way onto the breakwater, but its gently-sloping sides meant that the breaking surf was easily stretching up to reach the path and, well, I didn't want to get my shoes wet, haha. Being only a few metres away from and on a level with the pounding waves - as opposed to on a clifftop overlooking it from a distance - was a little unnerving, a reminder of how small we humans are in the face of the raw energy and power of the ocean. And this was probably a pretty calm day compared to what it can be like. I'd love to see it in a storm. I do have an admiration (and a little envy) of those who have salt in their veins - the lifeboat crews, fishermen, sailors, surfers: their deep understanding of, connection to, and ability to work with the forces of nature that are the sea and the wind, the tides and the weather.

I went back and turned to go up onto the cliff path, and reached the little tower a few minutes later. Clearly Victorian and made of local sandstone, it was octagonal and had the directions/compass points carved into the top of each side. I've tried to find out what it was, but it seems nobody's completely sure; it's referred to as both Compass Point and the Storm Tower, and some people think it was just an ornamental folly, while others think it was a coastguard watchtower. I'm inclined to go with the former. You could also see lots of big satellite dishes on the clifftops a few miles north. Turns out that's a government satellite ground station and eavesdropping centre, haha...

On the breakwater

I didn't get particularly far in my clifftop walk, maybe only a few hundred metres; I kept stopping and gazing out at the views - the shifting light over land and sea, the steel-blue and slate-grey waters of the Atlantic, the waves rolling in with a roar, the shadowy silhouettes of the cliffs stretching away to the southwest, the sunlit ones to the north, the double rainbow that appeared over the town. I have no interest in people-watching, but nature-watching I can happily do for a long while.

Looking southwest from the clifftop

A rainbow over the view to the north

I could have gone a bit further and possibly reached a point where I could see over Widemouth Bay, the large beach a few miles south of the town, but I wasn't sure how long it would take me to get back to the bus stop, so I turned around a little sooner than I wished. The tide had receded when I got back down to the sea-lock, and the little footbridge that connected it to the beach was no longer underwater. I wandered back up the canal and continued along it past the TIC for a few minutes, before the path branched off in different directions and I turned back to make my way to the bus stop.

I had the song Cousin Jack by Show of Hands in my head on the journey back. It's a beautiful but sad tribute to the Cornish miners who emigrated because there was no more work in their own land, their ways of life and language were disappearing. In many ways, especially away from the tourist hubs, Cornwall is still a very deprived region. Give it a listen: https://youtu.be/wgyRWKLkxvE

...

Days four, five, and six to follow later this week :)