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Tag Archives: Durdle Door
Mud and stuff
Posted by on April 7, 2010
These are the last few photographs from my sister’s visit to Dorset, the weather ranges from wet and windy through misty and cold and on the last day – the sun came out. I thought I would try out the new WordPress slideshow option – quite nice.
My #2 son arrived home on Friday for the weekend. I wanted to show him the fossils at Monmouth Beach so on Easter Sunday, we set out to visit Lyme Regis which was a VERY BAD IDEA. I drove us there at around 11.30am. We drove around and around but couldn’t find anywhere to park, Lyme Regis was full to bursting. We hadn’t reckoned on it being a) the first sunny day for a while and b) a holiday and c) lunchtime so we eventually gave up and headed for Charmouth instead. Same deal, only this time we ended up stuck in a traffic jam along a narrow lane leading down to the car park and the whole queue ended up having to reverse back down the lane to get out as there was no room to turn around at the bottom. Nightmare. So we came home :-(
We tried again the next day at 3.30 as it was Easter Monday and we figured most people would be setting off for home. It was still busy but much better and we had a great time walking along the beach with Milo. We found an area of rock on the beach known as the Ammonite Graveyard. (Click all images to enlarge)
It is quite astonishing and extends for a huge area of the beach.
This my son walking across it…
The cliffs along this stretch of beach are really unstable after the heavy rain we have had over the last few weeks and we could see water streaming off the clay and also watched large chunks of cliff falling onto the beach – which was a little disconcerting to say the least. I read in the local paper that 3 separate lots of children have had to rescued from the mud recently.
In the second image, if you click on it to enlarge it you can see an large ammonite lying amongst the rocks…
Of course all the muddy clay from the cliffs and the wet sandy rock pools were irresistible to Milo who had a whale of a time…
His day didn’t end quite so happily though, as soon as we arrived home he was dumped unceremoniously into the bath…
Have you ever seen a sorrier sight?
My son went back to London on Tuesday morning and Milo has been sulking ever since. He normally spends his days lying at my feet while I work but I am obviously a very poor substitute for his best friend, my son, and right now, he is lying downstairs on the sofa in the kitchen sighing and looks at me very dolefully when I walk in. Even a walk hasn’t cheered him up. Poor pooch.
Spring has sprung!
Posted by on March 31, 2008
Well, the sun is shining, the clocks were turned forward an hour over the weekend and so the evenings are suddenly lighter and the sun has come out – an altogether more optimistic feeling is in the air. So to celebrate this happy state of affairs, here is a my Spring book.
It was a lovely weekend. I went to a private view at a local gallery on Friday night with some friends and we had supper afterwards which was very pleasant. All day Saturday, it bucketed down with rain and it was accompanied by very strong winds, so I stayed holed up at home but did venture out for dinner with a friend in Weymouth on Saturday night. The diet was shot to pieces as we had some amazingly nice food and wine (and lots of it!) It ended being a very late night, lots of talking and forgetting the time and as the clocks went forward on Saturday night, we effectively lost an hour’s sleep too.
On Sunday, we awoke, feeling surprisingly chipper, to find wall-to-wall sunshine and decided to go for a long walk with some friends. It was a glorious day, warm and sunny all day so our walk to the coast was spectacular. We drove to a village called Chaldon Herring and walked to the coast at a place called Daggers Gate, so called because
“The gateway ‘Daggers Gate’ is believed to mark a witch’s grave, and is said to be haunted by her ghost. It acquired its unusual name in 1789, after farmer Sam Varnell was stabbed and killed at the spot by the daughter of the supposed witch.”
Here are some photographs I took yesterday.
I took this shot of the road sign because we all had a very childish giggle at ‘Scratchy Bottom’ which is actually a swathe of farmland which has been in use for over 4000 years, just above Durdle Door. Here are a couple of photographs I took last year of Durdle Door, one taken from the beach and the other from the sea.
This is the stretch of coastline we were walking above – we didn’t walk to the path which runs closer to the cliff edge as it is VERY steep and we only wanted a gentle(ish) walk :-)
I did take another road sign shot which also caused much merriment. What goes on down this bridleway is anyone’s guess. I’ll leave it to your imagination…..
As with all good walks, we ended at a pub and had a lovely Sunday roast dinner. Marvellous! When I got home, I crashed out and had a ‘Lost’-athon – I watched three episodes that I had recorded while I was away in Switzerland, back to back. It was as inpenetrable as ever but very enjoyable nonetheless.
Much of a muchness 