All done and Dorseted.

Aside

Thank you all who crossed fingers for us. It’s been lovely. We had forgotten how beautiful Dorset is. It’s the bloomiest, blossomiest, lushiest, rosiest, and honeyiest of counties and only the narrow back-roads prohibit perfection.

We were renting Dairy Cottage on a farm, a mile from Whitchurch Canonicorum which itself was a mile from the A35. We stopped for lunch at the local pub – the Five Bells.

‘I’m Pat,’ said the friendly land- lady.

‘Snap!’ I said.

We agreed that certain names labelled you to a particular decade and remembered some famous British Pats – Kirkwood, a musical comedy star and Roc of film fame but we drove ourselves dotty trying to remember the third Pat – also musical comedy. Granny P may come up trumps.

Over a cattle grid we found the farm and cottage in a wonderful open space with views in all directions. There were beautiful flowers everywhere, a large lily- bedecked pond with rare ducks, guinea fowl and two miniature dachshunds. The surrounding fields had lambs and goats that talked all the time and watched our every move. We were free to wander everywhere but were warned that sometimes the heifers are in one of the fields and easily get freaked and stampede. Occasionally a young farm hand from a neighbouring farm would tear round on his tractor ye- haarring like an escapee from the Wild West – which tickled us.

I felt sorry for the slightly grumpy dachshund - older and larger than his honey coloured, puppy friend who was simply adorable. The week before the people renting the cottage had gone out and left the French windows open; so Little Sunshine went in and removed the ladies panties – drying on the bath, and presented them to her owner. The owner then had to decide what to do with them; if she returned then round the bath and got it wrong it would look weird. In the end she told the panties owner exactly what had happened. All the animals had personalities – they were kept as pets and their antics kept us amused for hours.

I wanted to visit the church – ‘The Cathedral of the Vale’ – the Church of Saint Candida and Holy Cross. It shares the distinction to which only Westminster Abbey can lay claim of having the relics of a patron saint in the shrine (Saint Candida in this instance) and was a major centre of pilgrimage in the Middle Ages.

Apart from Saint Candida, the famous journalist Sir Robin Day has his ashes buried outside the church door and Sir George Somers, who inspired Shakespeare to write ‘The Tempest.’ Sir George sailed with Raleigh and took part in the colonisation of Virginia and was ship wrecked on a coral island near Bermuda -Bermoothes in the play. He settled in Virginia but died in 1610, on returning to Bermuda for supplies. His heart was buried in Virginia but his body is buried in the church.

Some of you may remember a crime of the Cold War in 1978 when Georgi Markov was assassinated on Waterloo Bridge by a communist agent, using a gas gun disguised as an umbrella to inject the victim with a pin – sized pellet of the lethal toxin Ricin.

His grave is here and oddly on Friday June 20^th – last week- Richard Edwards in the Daily Telegraph writes that the crime is being reinvestigated by Scotland Yard – thirty years later. That’s enough excitement for now. More later - with pics.

If you wish to see more of the cottage click on www.helpfulholidays.com and put Whitchurch Canonicorum in Search slot.

COLERIDGE WAY PART 7

Aside.

This is a five mile walk from the pretty village of Luxborough to Wheddon Cross and crosses the highest part of the route at Lype Hill (423 metres - I realise this is peanuts to seasoned climbers like Randall but this is West Somerset ). There were four of us – son # 1, myself and two teen –age grand-children. My son had just given me a walking pole and he carefully adjusted it to the correct height. I don’t need a stick but on long walks I find it useful to have a third leg. The wrist strap makes it less cumbersome than a stick as I usually keep my camera in my hand.

It was a beautiful day; we left the car in the Village Hall car park. I wasn’t familiar with the west end of the village and as we passed a charming tea-garden with a stream I thought how my mother would have loved it. No time to linger - we had a long uphill slog to Newcombe Farm. We stopped to talk to the animals and then had another long haul up a track with deep tractor ruts. We were chatting and taking photos when we noticed the farmer waving to us from his tractor. We gave him a cheery wave back and then realised that his frantic waving meant get the hell out of it. He wanted to drive the cattle back down the track we were on - ushering them with his tractor and we were stopping him. Somewhat abashed we scuttled up the hill out of his way.

Looking back we got superb views and the visibility was excellent. At the top we had a brisk walk along Colly Hill, Lype Common and Lype Hill. It was Good Friday and I asked the children what significance it had for them. We felt as if we were on top of the world and imagined Jesus walking, carrying his Cross to the sound of the elusive skylarks. It felt ‘Nearer to Thee’ than in any church I must confess. We tried to identify the surrounding hills but Dunkery Beacon with its dark blue colouring, was the only one we were sure about. We saw a couple of burial mounds by the trig point dating back to the early Bronze Age.

Going back down to civilization we had been warned about the slippery surface even in dry weather. The rock surface is slate-like in pretty shades and we did have the odd slip. Past a kennels we continued down to Cutcombe Cross and the adults went to investigate Cutcombe Church. Eventually we all converged on the Rest and be Thankful Inn which was very busy. We had a rest and were thankful for a drink and sandwiches (The men were cooking steak in the evening) and made plans for the last two legs of the Coleridge Way – maybe in the autumn.