Amalfi Coast, Aug 2022 - Day 4

See previous posts for Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3.

Sunday 9th

My sister wasn't feeling well, so I went to Amalfi by myself. I got a seat by a window on the ferry so could look out at the coastline, which was certainly impressive and beautiful. At one point there was an enormous cave halfway up the hillside which dwarfed the huge block of a hotel in front of it. 

Amalfi is a slighty larger town than Positano, and of course very pretty. Finding myself in the Piazza del Duomo I climbed the 62 steps up to the cathedral complex to get out of the heat. The original 9th-century church adjoining the current 10th-century cathedral is now the diocesan museum, and of course both are architecturally lovely and varied, with elements from a range of styles like Norman and Byzantine.

The cloister was gorgeous, a little white-walled Arab-influenced oasis filled with palm trees and low topiary hedges. Ancient painted frescoes and decorative mosaics are still visible on the museum walls to varying degrees, stunningly colourful, and holes in walls and gratings in the floor offer glimpses of the changes over the centuries. In the nave of the 9th-century church is an exhibition of diocesan treasures including bejewelled gold chalices, mitres, crucifixes, reliquary heads, and creepy medieval wooden statues of holy figures. The cathedral's impressive crypt holds what is believed to be the relics of St Andrew.

After resting in the cool, peaceful cathedral for a while I left in search of lunch. Hunger, heat, and tiredness meant my already-poor decision-making skills were virtually non-existent and after wandering up and down the same street once or twice I ended up getting a pizza topped with smoked mozzarella, anchovies, capers, lemon peel, and olive oil. I was intrigued by the lemon, but it was a silly choice which I immediately regretted, both getting a takeaway pizza in a busy town where there was clearly nowhere to sit to eat it, and getting something with such strong flavours. I ate it crouched down in the shade at a street corner, balancing the pizza box on my knees. I quite liked the lemon zest on it. But I definitely should have got a cone of fried fish instead.

After that disappointment I treated myself to a giant lemon sorbet served inside a giant Amalfi lemon. Which was lovely and refreshing! (But a lot for one person, haha.) The crates of giant lemons everywhere and shops full of the same colourful lemon-decorated ceramics (which were very pretty and I regret not buying something) made me realise that although there's a quaint feel to these places and things, it's still all mass-produced on a huge scale. I also bought a pastry from a bakery before heading to the marina for the 3pm ferry back to Positano.

My sister was feeling a bit better and met me at the beach, where we stayed for a couple of hours. We were due to do a sunset boat trip for our last night, but an enormous thunderstorm hit shortly before departure so that was cancelled. We, along with a hundred other people taken by surprise on the beach, sheltered under an archway just behind the beach and waited for it to pass. It didn't. After probably an hour the lightning, wind, and rain eased off slightly and we decided to go. We were already soaked through and shivering from the wind, so climbing the steep steps back up the cliff to the hotel would at least warm us up.

When the rain stopped we went back to Caffe Positano for dinner. I wanted comfort food so ordered spaghetti and meatballs.

I left for Naples the next morning, too early for breakfast at the hotel so I bought a few pastries at the airport. My sister went to Amalfi for a few hours before an evening flight to continue her European adventure. The heat and busyness of a tourist hotspot in August meant the trip wasn't what we'd hoped, but it was still a really lovely gift and I enjoyed getting away to Italy for a few days with my sister, seeing all the beautiful scenery and picturesque towns, eating yummy food, and swimming in the sea.

Amalfi Coast, Aug 2022 - Day 3

See Italy August 2022 - Day 1, and Amalfi Coast, Aug 2022 - Day 2.

Monday 8th

Slightly different breakfast than ordered, got rusks and jam instead of muesli, and the orange juice was orange squash, but still got yoghurt and fruit. Left just after 8:30 to catch the ferry to Capri. No information at marina so we didn't know we were at the front of the wrong line until the ferry arrived. 

Got to Capri then got in line for the first available boat tour around the island. Really nice, good to be out on the water with the wind and to see the island that way, gorgeous place. Wished we could get off and swim in the lovely blue water. Was meant to be 2hrs but didn't stop at Blue Grotto so actually was only 1hr. Couldn't face idea of being on land and exploring in the heat so waited in the shade on the pier for next Blue Grotto trip.

The Blue Grotto is a sea cave, illuminated blue by sunlight passing through an underwater cavity. It's only accessible through a small gap just large enough for a rowing boat containing four passengers (who have to lie flat to get through the gap). So we waited outside for over an hour, along with a dozen other boats crammed with people. One passenger on our boat started having a go at the skipper demanding he take us back to port because we hadn't been informed of the long wait time and his girlfriend was becoming unwell from the heat. Parts of the boat were shaded, others not. The skipper argued back and refused to move but the couple and several other people who had had enough were eventually moved onto another boat that was heading back to port. We stayed as we'd rather be on water than on land. You have to pay to go into the Blue Grotto and when our turn finally came the skipper of that small 4-person boat would only accept cash, and we only had enough for one of us so my sister went in. Ten minutes later she was back out again and shortly afterwards we were on our way back to the marina.

After that experience we went to the first cafe we saw for some lunch. And then the one next door for some much-needed gelato before the ferry back to Positano. It's a shame it was so darn hot, as we didn't get to explore Capri at all.

For dinner we found Ristorante Mediterraneo, a short walk down the road. It didn't have much of a view, but did have a singing guitarist walking round entertaining diners with typical Italian music. The chefs in the open kitchen would occasionally join in. I ordered a dish of black-and-white pasta ribbons with fish and lemon zest, which was nice, and then a chocolate almond cake for dessert.

I ended up buying a gorgeous but expensive dress in a shop we passed on the way back. (It's too long and needs taking up so I haven't worn it since...) We had a little bit more of a wander and I bought a homemade lemon-orange-mandarin gelato from a little place down the street. Yum!

Amalfi Coast, Aug 2022 - Day 2

See Amalfi Coast, Aug 2022 - Day 1.

Sunday 7th

We have breakfast at the hotel then make the short walk to the train station for a shuttle service to Positano. The driver was intense. Lucky I checked my phone, as he wanted to leave earlier than the time on the instructions.

Good views on 2hr drive, including Vesuvio just outside the city and then the coast, Sorrento, and the hills. The four other people in the taxi were two couples who both happened to be from Pittsburgh and were going to the same wedding in Positano. 

Arrived, were a little early to check in but waited in hotel bar area for half an hour. Bar area was a lovely terrace/balcony with sea views - beautiful!

The hotel, as with most buildings along the Amalfi Coast, was cliffside, and so had stunning views. When we were let into our room it had a terrace/balcony looking out to sea, which was absolutely gorgeous.

After resting in our room/balcony a while we took a walk down to the beach. Steep cliffside path with lots of steps! The town looked pretty but it was too hot to want to explore away from the waterfront, even in the shade. We got caesar salads for lunch at a restaurant slightly back from the beach; the bread basket they brought out contained these delicious breadstick-like loops flavoured with fennel seeds, which I later found out are called tarallini (and you can get them in Waitrose, yay). After lunch we ended up going into another restaurant-bar at the other end of the beachfront to get out of the sun and try to cool down with a smoothie. Then decided to sit on the beach for a while and go for a swim. Most of it was private or covered in expensive sunloungers to rent, but there was a small area at one end open for free, which was of course very busy with people sitting on towels and in the sea cooling down. The sand was black from volcanic rock.

Cooling down was much needed in 30-degree heat. Even with a breeze off the water we quickly became grossly sweaty. The part of the beach we were on was right next to the marina, and the area of water available to swim in was a triangle between the boats and the private section of the beach. It was very busy and very noisy and very very hot, so not particularly relaxing, but having not sat on a beach or gone swimming (especially abroad) for a long time that aspect of it was nice.

Next door to our hotel was Ristorante Caffe Positano, which had a small terrace with one of the best views in town. Happily there was a table on the terrace available when we turned up, perfect. We both ordered fish, and a side of grilled vegetables, and enjoyed a tasty meal gazing out over the sea as the sun set and the lights of the town and the boats came on. For dessert I ordered a creamy lemon cake, and my sister ordered tiramisu.

Amalfi Coast, Aug 2022 - Day 1

For my 30th birthday last year, my sister and a few other members of my family paid for me to join her in Italy for a few days during her summer Interrail trip. I would fly to Naples where she would meet me, we would spend the rest of that day and the night there, and go down to Positano on the Amalfi Coast the following day. 

Some of this was written as notes during the trip, some of it many months later using photos to jog my memory. The notes written during the trip are in italics.

Saturday 6th

After a 5am breakfast at the hotel in Stansted and an 8am flight, I meet my sister outside Napoli Centrale train station and we get a taxi to our apartment.

I've been to Naples before, again just for a day, and I didn't leave the hostel. It felt like somewhere I didn't want to walk around at night. 

The taxi dropped us off on a fairly busy street, and the directions took us down another side street, this one too narrow to admit cars and much quieter. Not in a good way. We eventually found the address and stood outside thinking Nope. Our Airbnb was a squat concrete shed-like structure on the ground floor of a residential building. Looked like it once had a utilitarian use like housing a generator or something, though it had been nicely renovated outside. It was quite nice inside too, small but clean and bright, and had the essentials including a little kitchen, it was absolutely fine for sleeping in on a short trip. Except for the location. Even though we knew the locks worked and I felt mean for feeling like it was a dodgy area and not entirely trusting the local residents, it felt exposed and we weren't comfortable. So we left.

My sister booked a hotel a 15-minute walk away... which turns out to be next to the train station, where we'd originally come from. Thankfully it is indeed much nicer, a proper hotel, and there's even a balcony with sun loungers, an outdoor shower, and a cool view of the city with a tantalising glimpse of Vesuvio just visible around the corner. And there's a restaurant and pizzeria immediately opposite, so we won't need to go wandering around to find food. I had thought we could visit the catacombs after lunch, to get out the heat for a couple of hours, but we were quite content to stay at the hotel! Also - so many swifts!

We went over to the restaurant - Gautani Adamo - for a late lunch, and ended up having a Caprese salad each and sharing some bruschetta and some fettuccine alla bolognese. They do pizza too so we might go back and get one to share for dinner later.

10:45pm: Dinner was an experience! We decided to go to what is perhaps Napoli's most famous pizzeria - L'Antica Pizzeria da Michele - as it was just a 10-minute walk away. Naples is generally regarded as the home of pizza. There was a huge crowd of people outside and a long line stretching back up the street. We thought getting a takeaway pizza would be faster so joined the line, about 4 car lengths away from the door (there were cars parked there), at 7:50pm, expecting a half-hour wait to order.

We finally walk away with our pizza two hours and ten minutes later! We finally ordered after an hour and a half, then waited another 40 minutes for the pizza. When one customer got theirs just a few minutes after ordering, my sister noticed their system through the open door, they just grab any of the order receipts instead of in the order they were made. 

So was it worth it? Well the pizza was really good but nothing surprising or particularly 'wow'-inducing, but it was worth it just for the experience, it's funny, and I can now tick 'eat pizza in Naples' off the travel list. We wouldn't have done anything else this evening either, just stayed in the hotel room. 

Oh and apparently it's common knowledge in the city that gangs let off fireworks to signal a drug shipment has arrived. That explains the ones this afternoon during daylight. Hahaha.

Yorkshire July 2022 - part 1

Well, it's high time I finished this post - the trip was three and a half months ago! In early July I took a trip up to beautiful Yorkshire with my friend. We decided to spend two nights in York and two nights in Whitby, and get out into the North Yorkshire Moors National Park a bit. As usual, it's quite a long post, so I've split it into two - keep an eye out for the second one soon :) 

Saturday 9th

After a mildly stressful start to the trip due to a missed train and the worry of being charged for being on a different train than specified on the ticket (thankfully we weren't charged), the journey up to York was a pleasant couple of hours from London. We arrived in York around 3:30pm, were greeted outside the train station by a knitted Viking perched atop a postbox, went straight to the B&B to check in and leave our heavy backpacking rucksacks, then went out into the hot, sunny afternoon to look around the city.

I immediately loved it. The B&B was just outside Bootham Bar - the large fortified gateways of the city walls are called bars - so we entered the old city on High Petergate - the streets are called 'gate' from Old Norse 'gata' - which led straight to the Minster. It's all winding cobbled streets and centuries-old buildings looming overhead, very pretty. The minster was gorgeous, and the gardens, though busy, were quiet.

On Goodramgate (''guthrum-gata" - Guthrum was a king) we found a little gelato shop and cafe called Roberto. I got passion fruit sorbet and my friend got lemon and basil sorbet; both were delicious and we resolved to go back again before the end of our trip. It was right next to Monk Bar, so we went up the steps and onto the walls to walk the 2-mile city walls circuit. (A large proportion of the walls are intact, but there are some sections missing, with a trail all the way around where they would have been.)

It's a nice thing to do, and free. The intact sections of wall and grassy ramparts are medieval - the latter concealing the earlier Roman, Viking, and Norman defences - but the walkway on top is Victorian; before it was built, anyone manning the walls would have stood on wooden platforms. On the parts of the route where the walls no longer exist you're just walking next to a busy road next to an industrial estate / retail park - which was once a large marshy wetland area that the king used for fishing or something - but a lot of it is nice and quiet, often lined on one side by trees and the other by the grassy ramparts and more trees. You can also make a short detour to see Dick Turpin's grave, which we did, and York Castle which now contains the York Castle Museum and the Crown Court, as well as the medieval keep of Clifford's Tower. There's a timeline of the city's history set into the ground in front of the Tower, and a memorial stone to the massacre of the city's Jews in 1190.

After a couple of hours at a leisurely pace we reached the riverbank by the Museum Gardens, and decided to sit and rest on a bench for a while in the shade of a tree. It was in a small park and I was sad to see that the grass had all been walked over so much that there was no grass left and it was just dry earth - stick to the paths, people! Anyway, my friend got out the sandwiches he had brought from home for lunch (which had instead been Hainanese chicken rice bought at a food market near King's Cross) and we ate those as a makeshift picnic dinner. Eventually we continued on our way and passed through Bootham Bar and began the last section back to Monk Bar. There are great views of the Minster from there, so we ended up stopping to linger in one place and just watched the light change on the Minster as the sun set. As the warm golden light on the ancient building turned to shadow, we started walking again, but just a little further on we noticed the moon rising above one of the towers and stopped to look at that. When we finally started to move on again, we were ushered back the way we had come by two wardens in hi-vis as the walls close at dusk. We would have to go back and finish that section another time. 

It was nice just wandering around the town as it got darker and wonderfully cooler. There had obviously been some sort of event happening as most people were wearing formal outfits and out celebrating something. We stood for a few minutes amused by a large crowd of people gathered round a busker and singing along to Sweet Caroline and an Oasis hit. At one point a guy with a couple of his friends passed by and asked us if we were from York; when we replied in the negative he muttered something like oh that's why you're dressed boring and wandered off again. I found out the next morning it had been the York Races. We got a drink from a pizza place just off the Shambles Market and sat at an outdoor table to enjoy the summer evening before heading back to the B&B.

Sunday 10th

Breakfast at the B&B cost extra, so we went out to a nearby cafe where I had granola with yoghurt, and a disappointingly small number of berries. Then we made our way to Exhibition Square, opposite Bootham Bar, for a 10:30am guided group walking tour by the Association of Voluntary Guides.

"In York, the gates are called bars, the streets are called gates, and the bars are called pubs." - One of the first things our tour guide told us. After a brief introduction he led us through a little walkway out of the square past some of the old perimeter walls of St Mary's Abbey. In the Museum Gardens, a lovely park outside the Yorkshire Museum, a large section of one of the Abbey walls remains standing, which is cool to see. I can't remember a lot of the detail of what we were told over those two hours, but I did really like seeing the section of still-intact Roman wall and tower in the Museum Gardens. I mean how often do you get to see an intact Roman wall, 2000 years old?! Cool :) There's also a Roman column in the Minster Yard, which was found underneath it in the 1960s when, like Winchester Cathedral, it was discovered that the building was in danger of sinking/collapse and the foundations had to be reinforced.

We passed through the famous Shambles, which isn't named due to the shambolic appearance of the ancient buildings but because historically it was a street of butchers shops - the name comes from "shammels", the wooden shopfront shelves on which butchers displayed their products. Pretty and very quirky, the street is now a heaving tourist hotspot. The marketplace still has a daily market, and to one side there is still a row of old, low stalls with wooden shelves outside. 

Leaving the Shambles, we came to an old side street next to the Treasurer's House and Garden, and our guide told us one of the city's most famous ghost stories, which I recognised and must have read somewhere once. In the 1950s, after the National Trust had taken over the Treasurer's House, a teenage apprentice plumber was working on the boiler in the cellar when he heard trumpet sounds, which gradually grew louder as if getting closer. Suddenly a soldier in armour and a plumed helmet emerged from the wall, blowing a trumpet, and was followed by a horse and a dozen or so more soldiers marching in pairs, all looking dirty and worn out. They were only visible from the knees up, their lower legs and feet were below the floor. Despite his terror, it seems he was able to mentally note and remember such detail about what the soldiers had been wearing that an expert in Roman history was able to identify them. Our tour guide said it was the 9th Legion, which is famous for vanishing without trace from the historical record in the second century AD - what happened to them is a mystery, and the last record of them in Britain was of a battle in northern England. Other online sources say the green tunics and round shields the plumber described were in later decades revealed by new evidence to be of local reserve soldiers who took over the garrison when regular soldiers began returning to Rome in the 5th century. Later excavations also revealed a Roman road 18 inches below the floor level of the cellar.

The tour was excellent, I do recommend it if you visit York. After a morning of walking and taking in information, even though it was a hot sunny day I could think of nothing better than a sandwich overflowing with roast pork, stuffing, apple sauce, and crackling, from The York Roast Co. My friend got the same and we went back to the Treasurer's Garden, a beautiful little walled oasis where we could sit in the shade, listen to a water fountain, and look at the lovely flower borders and tall trees and the Minster.

One of the things I definitely wanted to do while we were there was visit Jorvik Viking Centre, so we went there after lunch. It's located in Coppergate ('koppari-gata' - street of the cup-makers), right on the site where Viking-age houses, yards, and workshops were discovered and excavated by archaeologists in the late 1970s and early 80s. The centre houses a reconstruction of the 10th-century city, which you travel through on a ride that immerses you in the sounds and smells of the scenes, with narration piped through the headrests. Everything is highly detailed and based on what was found during the excavations, from the species of plants and animals, to the splashes of natural dyes in a backyard, to the games being played. Animatronic characters with facial features and clothing based on meticulous research show what a multicultural hub the city was, welcoming trade from all over the Viking world, and you can hear at least three different ancient languages being spoken on the way around (recognising them or telling them apart is another matter). The ride through the Viking streets takes about half an hour, and then there's a museum gallery. It's cool, and interesting, I enjoyed it.

Leaving Jorvik, we bought ice-creams and joined the crowd watching the Wimbledon final on the big screen set up outside the shopping centre. It wasn't too long before it finished, and we made our way back to the river to take a stroll along the bank. The path on the Museum side is named the Dame Judy Dench Walk. We continued maybe about a mile and crossed the bridge to come back along the other side; it's a nice walk, there are lots of lovely big weeping willows and poplar trees (along with quite a bit of invasive non-native Himalayan Balsam - friendly reminder to Check, Clean, Dry your footwear to help stop the spread of invasive species!). We sat down on the bank to just enjoy the evening and watch the numerous greylag geese.

Around 8pm we decided we'd better not leave it too much longer to go and find some dinner, so we stood up and headed to Little Italy, opposite Roberto on Goodramgate. It was hot and stuffy inside, but the food was good. Afterwards we went back to the riverbank to watch the finale of the York Proms - complete with fireworks - through the fence of the Museum Gardens. There was an exhibition of landscape photos by the Royal Photographic Society Landscape Group on panels along other parts of the fence, so we looked at those too.

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.

---

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! :)

Weekend in London, March 2022

Last weekend was wonderful :) I spent it in London with my friend, on a weekend away we were originally meant to go on two years ago. On Friday evening I enjoyed a catch-up over pizza with my oldest friend - we've known each other since we were 5, and will both be turning 30 in the next few days! And then I spent Saturday and Sunday with another friend on this little trip, enjoying the sunny spring equinox weekend in a couple of the city's large green parks, and some great food, before a breathtaking concert on Sunday afternoon.

First - the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew!

Neither of us had been to Kew Gardens before so we were very excited! London traffic meant we arrived an hour later than planned but thankfully there were still parking spaces (just), and we got inside the gates quickly. And yaaay we're in a lovely green park full of grass and trees and flowers! Of course the trees are still mostly bare, but there were daffodils, and glorious pink magnolia, and marvellous cherry trees just bursting with beautiful blossom. It'd be a wonderful place to have on your doorstep as a local, somewhere to go and while away a few hours or a whole day, with a book and a picnic in good weather.

One of the first things we came to was The Hive, an interactive art installation that represented a beehive. From the outside it looked like an enormous roll of wire mesh, but from it emanated a low vibrating hum and orchestral music. Inside, a thousand LED lights flickered in time with the music and humming, which were created to mirror the fluctuating intensity of vibrations produced by bees communicating with each other, as recorded in one of Kew's own beehives. It was a bright sunny day so the lights weren't particularly obvious, but standing in the middle of the installation and being surrounded by that loud vibrating hum was quite impressive. It was a cool example of environmental interpretation, which we've been covering at college this year, something interactive and immersive that engages different senses. The Hive itself it was surrounded by a wildflower meadow (which obviously doesn't look like a wildflower meadow at the moment, but will be a visual and olfactory feast in a few months time) and little boards giving information on bees and the importance of wildflowers.

Wonderful big old trees. Victorian glasshouses full of exotic plants. (Both of us smiled as we entered the tropical section of the Princess of Wales Conservatory - the heat, humidity, plants, and smell of it all reminded my friend of home in India and me of visiting my aunt in tropical Queensland.) Carpets of daffodils and little purpley-blue flowers that weren't bluebells. A pagoda built in the 1760s. A treetop walkway with views over the park and all the way to the City. A lake. Woodland walks and open parkland. Ring-necked parakeets. Cherry blossom! Oh and a tasty lunch - I had a quiche made with mushrooms, spring onion, and nettle. (I must go forage some nettles and make something.)

I had a mooch around the gift shop, hoping to find a hand lens - small little things that anyone can use to look at plants and insects in greater detail (or rocks, or jewellery, or archaeological artefacts, etc.). But to my astonishment they didn't have any!? I thought that Kew Gardens, which must want to encourage people to have an interest in plants and studying botany, would sell the simple accessible tool that is the hand lens. They didn't even have magnifying glasses. Tut tut.

By 4pm we were pretty tired from all the walking around, so just sat on a bench for a while looking at the trees and daffodils in the sinking sunlight, and we left around 5pm. It was a really lovely day, and we only saw half the park. Definitely a place to go back to, especially at a slightly later time of year when the trees are in leaf and there's more growing.

Cherry blossom and the Palm House at Kew

For dinner, we went decidedly out of our way to Southall, to an authentic Punjabi restaurant called Raunka Punjab Diyan. There was an Indian sweets shop next door so we went in there first and my friend bought a selection. The restaurant was busy, and loud, and I was the only non-Indian person in there; my friend asked if I was happy to stay or if I wanted to go to the quieter Turkish place next door. Had I been on my own I probably wouldn't have been quite comfortable, but an Indian restaurant full of Indian people is a sign that it's good! As a food lover, going to a local, family-run restaurant where they serve authentic and delicious dishes, which you don't get in typical Indian (or any other) restaurants that cater to British/tourist tastes, is one of the best experiences.

My friend recommended several dishes, and ordered for us (the staff interacted with her as she speaks the language). To start we shared paneer shashlik - marinated paneer cheese chargrilled with green peppers, onion, and tomatoes. Then we shared two mains and sides: sarson da saag with makki di roti (cornbread roti), and daal makhani with garlic naan. All was delicious! Sarson de saag is a mixture of mustard leaves, spinach, and other greens, cooked down with spices then pureed and traditionally served with a makki di roti. Daal makhani - black lentils and kidney beans slow-cooked with tomatoes, butter, and spices - is one of my favourites anyway... but oh my goodness this one was incredible! In contrast to the chili heat of the saag, and other daal makhani's I've had, the daal was mild and had a lovely sweetness to it, and it just tasted wonderful. Yummmm :)

The sweets aka desserts sounded amazing, so of course we got some. I ordered ras malai, a chilled dish of a soft cheese dumpling in saffron milk, and my friend had dudh jalebi, coils of syrupy deep-fried batter served in a bowl of hot saffron milk. Both were utterly delicious! Mine was lovely and light and refreshing, the milk ever so subtly fragrant. We also ordered some aloo tikki chaat - potato patties with chickpeas in a spicy sauce, chutneys, and yoghurt - from the 'snack' part of the menu to take away with us in case I got hungry later in the evening... which of course I did not after the filling meal. We left it in the cold car overnight, and ended up having it for lunch the next day. And, for a change, I was enjoying myself so much that after the starter I forgot to take photos of the food! Haha.

It's sad we can't really get anything like that closer to home. In Southampton, my friend says Sanjha in Shirley is good, more authentic than most Indian restaurants, and there's an Indian sweets shop in St Mary's, but neither are as good as ones in London. I wondered if I would be able to try and make ras malai at home but my friend said Indian sweets all take a lot of time and effort to prepare. But I might still try and make something similar, perhaps with ricotta. And the sarson da saag has given me an idea of what to do with those big bags of spinach that I usually end up wasting half of because I can't use it all in time - I'll try cooking it down with onion, garlic, ginger, and spices, blend it to a coarse puree, and serve with a flatbread. Decent healthy snack or lunch :) 

Holm oak in Greenwich Park

We stayed in a Holiday Inn Express in Limehouse. Parking was £20 so the man at reception suggested parking in a nearby residential street instead - but after driving around my friend couldn't find such a place, at least that felt safe, so pay £20 we did. In the morning, breakfast was included so I enjoyed some scrambled eggs, baked beans, and a Cumberland sausage, plus a yoghurt and a croissant, though I was feeling quite dehydrated from not drinking enough the day before (there weren't any water refill stations at Kew that we could see), so was disappointed to find no bowls of fresh juicy fruit, or even canned fruit salad, to rehydrate with, though I had a few glasses of water of course.

Our plan for the morning was to go to Greenwich Park. Wandering down the avenue of trees towards the Royal Observatory I was very happy to see a magnificent holm oak - an evergreen species from the Mediterranean - its limbs spreading out in a wide circle around it, a real parkland oak. (Parkland trees grow outward as well as up because they are surrounded by open space, whereas the growth of trees in woodland is more upright. This can give you a clue as to the history of a place, e.g. if you see a parkland tree in a wood, or an upward-reaching tree in an open park.) 

The Royal Observatory, which has the Prime Meridian marker, was closed, but we could see the line through the gates and I noticed it went down a wall and onto another footpath - so we got to see and stand on it anyway :) One foot in the eastern hemisphere, one foot in the western hemisphere. We continued down the hill and went to see Cutty Sark - the world's last surviving tea clipper and one of the fastest ships of its time, built for the China tea trade and launched in 1870 - which was impressive to look at from the outside. I do admire the sailors, who had to clamber up the rigging in the middle of the deep dark ocean as the ship rolled about in the waves. Ambling back through the streets I was tempted by food several times - at the stalls in Greenwich Market (a cute little covered market), at a gelato shop, and at a bakery that filled the street with the scent of baking cinnamon buns. Alas the latter had only just come out the oven and weren't ready for sale yet, and the staff couldn't tell us how long it would be, so we didn't wait, and made our way back to the park. 

The reason for going to London in the first place was to see the matinee of 'Planet Earth II Live in Concert' at The O2 on Sunday afternoon. I had been given tickets as a birthday or Christmas gift in 2019, and the show was originally booked for March 2020, then for obvious reasons rescheduled twice. So it was great to finally go! I should have done some research beforehand and pre-booked parking, as we ended up paying an absurd £36 to park for the afternoon. We ate the aloo tikki chaat for lunch, which was of course very tasty, and had some of the Indian sweets my friend had bought, which were really nice. After the ridiculous stressful faff that was collecting the tickets and getting in, we could just sit back, relax, and enjoy the concert.

Planet Earth II, the TV series, was of course stunning. I think it was the first Attenborough series that I watched in full, so it's stayed with me and remains my favourite, though of course they're all amazing. I especially love the soundtrack - composed by Hans Zimmer, Jacob Shea, and Jasha Klebe - and the main theme is one of my favourite pieces of orchestral music, probably in part because of its association with the spectacular cinematography of the series; it always sends a shiver down my spine and brings a smile to my face. The concert was basically screenings of some of the more well-known clips from the series, on the big screen, without Attenborough's narration but with the soundtrack being played by a live orchestra. It was spine-tingling, breathtaking, and we both sat there in awe, absolutely loving it. Science presenter Liz Bonnin hosted, coming on stage in between clips and talking about them (and of course the importance of protecting the natural world), with the series' Executive Producer, Mike Gunton, who could tell us about how they made it, which was cool. While Sir David Attenborough is brilliant, the actual production teams are the ones who envision and create these spectacular documentaries. Each clip is a mammoth task and the teams do astonishing work.

After that fantastic concert, we went to find the gelato place within the O2 - I had been wanting some ever since passing the shop in Greenwich. It was of course going to be stupidly expensive, but oh well. I chose a scoop of hazelnut, and my friend got white chocolate-pistachio; we each tried a small spoonful of the other's and her's was amazing, I should have chosen that instead haha. Afterwards we got an early dinner in the Design Quarter's street food hub just outside the O2; I got an Indian naan wrap with minced lamb and salad, but sadly it was very spicy so I regretted my choice a bit. But once back at the car I thoroughly enjoyed finishing off the two Indian sweets I'd had half of at lunchtime. My favourite was a bright orange cardamon-flavoured syrup-drenched ball called a ladoo. 

And that was it, homeward we went. This weekend in London, enjoying so many great things with my friend, was just so lovely, really special, and was a great way to have an early birthday celebration :) I know this has been a long post, but it's more for my memories than for an entertaining read, haha. But thanks for reading if you have.

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.

-

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!

Cornwall, October 2019, day 5

Saturday 26th - Boscastle and the All Hallows Gathering

My friend had suggested this particular week for me to go down to visit her because at the end of it was a pagan-y, witchy event held nearby, and we're both into that sort of thing. It was the sixth annual All Hallow's Dark Gathering in Boscastle, home of the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic. I didn't really know what to expect, as the event's website didn't have much detail about the schedule, but was intrigued and looking forward to it. I didn't notice the archive of blog posts about all the previous events - those would have given me a much better idea, haha.

The morning was a lazy one - I stayed in bed and read my book while my friend and her parents watched the Rugby World Cup Semi-Final in the lounge; I did end up slightly regretting that, as it turned out to be a rather impressive and historic match, but oh well. In the afternoon we all drove up to Boscastle, just a few miles away, and met up with my friend's aunt and her family who were on holiday as well.

There had been storytelling sessions in the museum earlier in the day, but we arrived too late for that. The Morris dancing started at 3pm outside the museum so we walked down there to watch it amongst a good crowd of witches, pagans, folky folks and curious members of the general public. It was windy and cold! But thankfully, surprisingly - magically - the rain which had been falling all day stopped just 40 minutes beforehand and held off for the rest of the event. There were three Morris groups: Wreckers Border Morris, based locally in North Cornwall, Beltane Border Morris, based in Dartmoor, and raven-masked duo Huginn & Muninn, from London. The latter, named after Norse god Odin's two raven companions and inspired by Scandinavian myths and legends, were unique, funny, and a little bizarre, at one point replacing their raven masks with enormous black opaque balloons. There was an MC who explained the context before each dance, but the wind and the rushing river were too loud for me to hear him from where I stood. It was good to see some teenage members among the dancers, too.

Morris dancers outside the Museum of Witchcraft & Magic

I enjoyed all the dancing, but my favourite Morris side was definitely Beltane, I loved them immediately. Inspired by the myths, legends and wilds of Dartmoor, they're darker and have more intensity than most Morris I've seen (which isn't loads, I grant you); there are no bells or handkerchiefs or white outfits, it's sticks and drums and roaring voices and black tattered clothes and blackened faces, their fiery energy delving into something ancient, deep, and mysterious. I'd join them in a heartbeat if I could.

Some Morris sides, like Beltane, practice "blacking", blackening their faces, which causes controversy because many people assume it has something to do with race. It doesn't. In addition to being an ages-old disguise which brings a sense of anonymity, mystery, the supernatural, and the dark side, it's actually a way of remembering the oppression of working classes. In the past, poor land labourers used to perform dances or mummers plays to raise money for food or other necessities, and would blacken their faces so they wouldn't be recognised and punished or victimised for begging. More horrifically, following the activities of a couple of large, organised groups of poachers who blackened their faces to try and avoid identification, in 1723 the British government passed the "Black Act", introducing the death penalty for 50 criminal acts (bringing the total number of capital offences up to around 200, the highest number for any country, ever). From then on, people could be executed just for blacking their face or wearing a mask, among countless other small things like fishing in a private pond or damaging a hedge, and the legal rights of defendants were almost non-existent. While we in the UK thankfully no longer have the death penalty, dire poverty still exists, as do laws largely protecting the interests of comfortable property owners, and the poor are often victimised and powerless. So Morris dancers painting their faces black is a way of remembering, bearing witness, and standing in solidarity.

I felt bad for Cwmni Gwerin Pontypwl, the little group of traditional Welsh dancers who performed when the Morris dancing took a break at 4, as most of the audience dispersed. I'm sorry to say it just wasn't interesting enough to hold my attention in the chilly wind and I went with my friend and her family up the street to get something to eat, to tide us over till dinner. The chip shop had a little marker plaque on to indicate how high the 2004 floodwaters had reached; it was above everyone's heads. The Morris dancing resumed for a while before finishing around 5pm, and we went up to sit in the pub and warm up. Before the lantern procession at 6pm, we crossed the little river and walked down the length of the narrow harbour, past the two 16th-century harbour walls, to the inlet, and stood there for a while looking out at the glimpse of sunset on the horizon between the cliffs. A seal popped its head up a few times.

Boscastle's harbour inlet

Boscastle harbour

The procession would make its way down from the main car park at the top of the village to the museum, so we waited by the museum, where at 6pm there appeared Penkevyll the Lands End 'Oss and her Teazers. The 'Oss was a sort of hobby horse, a decorated and caped horse's skull carried on a stick or pole by someone hidden beneath the black, yellow-ribbonned cape, and the Teazers led her in a dance (https://youtu.be/hTt2h8vdA2s). I loved the drums, tribal and trance-like. Another 'Oss wandered around through the crowd dressed in a bright blue cape decorated with seashells and led by a Rider walking in front holding a rein. It was interesting. The dance and drumming continued as a sort of summons until the procession arrived, bringing Penkevyll's "bone sisters" the Mari Lwyds, from Wales, to join her. One was cloaked in white with red ribbons, but the other was the creepiest of the three - standing like seven feet tall, cloaked in black, the skull painted black and decorated with white swirls and dots, little red lights in the eye sockets, a fake pigeon also with red eyes perching on top of the skull, and dark blue fairy lights wrapped around the top of it like some sort of crown.

Penkevyll the 'Oss and her Teazers

The Pwnco Ceremony followed. Penkevyll and her Teazers went into the museum, and the Mari Lwyds stopped at the door to beseech entry. I was too far away to hear or see the goings-on, but the Welsh dancers accompanying the Mari Lwyds spoke traditional ritual verses in Welsh, which were responded to in Cornish. Eventually they were successful and joined Penkevyll in the museum to bless it for the coming year.

Outside in the twilight, lit only by a few flaming torches around the circle, next up was storytelling duo Stone Soup. They were good, energetic, but unfortunately the wind meant that I couldn't hear most of it so couldn't follow the story. It was something about a soldier who meets a stranger who convinces him to work for him for seven years, looking after his cooking pots but not being allowed to look inside them. All I can really remember is the repeated refrains of "Chop, chop, chop! Feed, feed, feed! Bubble, bubble, bubble! Sweep, sweep, sweep!"

The overcast sky meant that it was almost full dark by this point. When the story finished and the event's MC started to say something about a dark apparition sometimes seen in deepest Dorset, "an eerie, unholy rhythm involving drums, fiddle, and voice commenced" (quote from the event's blog - it's a cool description and I couldn't have put it any more interestingly). Glowing red smoke started billowing on the hillside above the performance area, from which rose up a huge head, human-featured but horned and otherworldly. The Darkest Ooser slowly made its way down the hill to the gathered crowd, led by a thick chain in the hand of a creepy attendant who was shrouded in black and carrying a skull-topped staff. After moving around the edge of the audience, its huge red eyes staring, the Ooser stepped back to watch the rest of the proceedings.

A beautiful prayer-like song was sung. Due to the strong wind and the un-amplified voice, I couldn't really hear it, but I've since discovered it was The Traveller's Prayer written by folk musician John Renbourne (https://youtu.be/BRxK6tl4-1M). Then one of the Beltane men stepped forward. Holding a staff at arms length, pointed towards the crowd, he moved slowly in a clockwise circle, piercing the night with an eerie, slow, two-note whistle - whistling being a largely forgotten way of calling the spirits. When he completed the circle, he stood facing the crowd and, in a strong voice which carried to those of us stood at the back, began to speak:

"Spirits of this place - spirits of land, of sky, spirits of sea, of cliff face and tree - spirits of this place, be our witness. Hear our hearts. Hear their quiet murmurs. On this day, at this time of the year, we stand on a cliff edge, on a precipice, looking into the dark..."

We were reminded that it is not just our ancestors who ask us to remember; so too do "the wise women, the witches, the cunning men, the keepers of the old ways" and the wild old gods of the land. We are called to acknowledge and remember not only our human ancestors but also our fellow creatures, "our wild cousins, our cousins who fly, our cousins who crawl, who are dying in their droves... those species who have breathed their last breath... and those who will not make it through this winter...". We were invited to make a simple ceremony of remembrance - whispering the name of a lost loved one, followed by the words "Ancestor, I honour you."

The speaker finished his moving address with a final few rousing cries of "Ancestors, we honour you!" and threw back his head in a ululation. The spell of silence was broken for a moment as many joined in with a cry or cheer, and then another spell was woven as the drumming and chanting began: "In my blood, in my bones, I hear your voice, I hear your call. Ancestors dance with me, ancestors chant with me, I hear your voice, I hear your call..."

That drumming and singing, pulsating and hypnotic, could have carried on for a long time, but after maybe five minutes someone managed to bring it to a close and the MC announced Beltane back into the circle for their Fire Dance. Each year they have a special guest stand in the middle of the circle during the dance; this time it was two young men who run an occult shop in New Orleans and had travelled all the way over here just for the Dark Gathering! Very cool. As was the dance.

Beltane rounded up the evening with a final dance called "Haccombe to Death" - in which they actually held aloft flaming torches, which was awesome - and then lined up to sing "Leave Her, Johnny", a sea shanty sung by crews prior to leaving a ship at the end of a voyage.

And that was it. Everyone dispersed, going indoors to get warm and eat. Somehow it felt so much later than 7pm. But the event had been wonderful, enjoyable, moving, meaningful, authentic and real, and I loved it!

---

At 9pm, after a very welcome dinner of beef stew, we walked back down one last time to the Museum of Witchcraft & Magic. While there were signs of life spilling out from the pubs and hotels in the main area of the village, the dark and deserted harbour-front was a little disconcerting, the only noise being the rushing waters of the river. But the museum was open till 10pm especially for the Gathering. It was really interesting, albeit - due to the age of the building, the late hour and darkness outside, the low lighting inside, and some of the exhibits/information - a little creepy. I haven't been in there before, so I'm glad I had a chance.

---

Weeeeell, I wasn't expecting to write so much about this, haha. Also, in case you were wondering, my memory is not this good. I've only been able to recall and write so much about the evening from reading the event organiser's blog post and looking at the photos and videos on there. If you'd like to see what some of it was like, someone put together a great video of the second half: https://youtu.be/4h7m-Ded1_g. It's long, but here are the start times for specific clips in the video if you want to look at any in particular:

• Procession: starts at the beginning
• Penkevyll, her Teazers, and the Mari Lwyds: starts at 05:00
• Pwnco Ceremony: starts at 06:20
• Stone Soup storytelling: starts at 08:15
• The Darkest Ooser: starts at 12:35 (skip to 14:55 to get a good close-up)
• Traveller's Prayer: starts at 15:40
• Calling the ancestors: starts at 17:15
• Ancestors chant: starts at 24:40
• Fire Dance: starts at 28:50
• Haccombe: starts at 33:20
• Leave Her Johnny: starts at 35:55

Alternatively, scroll through the two blog posts on the event website to see some good photos:
https://allhallowsgathering.com/2019/11/10/dark-gathering-2019-part-one/
https://allhallowsgathering.com/2019/11/18/dark-gathering-2019-part-two/

---

The Dark Gathering was a brilliant way to end my trip down to Kernow. On the Sunday morning I was on a train again, homeward bound.