Myself and W have just got back from spending a week in Dorset on the south coast of England, taking a much needed break from the world in general.
We stayed in a cottage in a small village called Abbotsbury. Basic activities such as reading, playing board games, listening to music, going for walks, visiting pubs, drinking tea and eating cake were pretty much the rule for the week.
If you are interested, you can take a look at a selection of the hundreds of photos we took while out and about via my Flickr account (click on the link below)…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonbeckett73/tags/dorset
We visited several well known places while down there - among them Lime Regis, where the first dinosaurs were discovered by Mary Anning in the 19th century. We walked the same beaches she had, and came home with some nice fossils for the bookshelves. Another full size Icthyosaur was found following a storm in 2001 - the coast is still giving up it’s secrets slowly.
While in Dorset, we were both mindful that we were treading the footsteps of Thomas Hardy, the author. He lived in Dorset for most of his life - Dorchester (the county town) was the basis for “Casterbridge” in his books, and much of the heath land in Dorset is “Eggdon Heath”, which doesn’t exist as one place in reality. We visited several of the Hardy landmarks - places like the Kings Arms in Dorchester, and the museum where they have preserved lots of his manuscripts and books.
The doorstep of our cottage opened up to a footpath leading to Chesil Beach, about 5 minutes walk away. For those outside the UK (or those in the UK who didn’t listen at school), Chesil Beach is a freak of nature. It’s a 20 mile long curving beach that acts as a natural stone grading machine. The tidal wave action deposits stones of different sizes along the length of the beach - with bigger stones to the east, getting smaller towards the west.
One day we walked a few miles along the beach to nearby West Bexington, and back along the top of a ridge of hills just inland, providing views for 30 miles both along the coast and back towards Dartmoor to the north.
Towards the end of our stay we visited Corfe Castle, on the Isle of Purbeck near Swanage. The Castle was built in the 9th century, and destroyed during the Civil war in 1645 following several years attempting to overcome it. I got a real sense of history walking around the shattered remains - walking across the grounds where noblemen, knights and royalty would once have walked.
So… here we are again. Home, with the washing machine going, and preparing to go back to work in the morning. All I have to do now is find somewhere to put our fossils.