After another quiet few days. Karen pressed on with making bunting for Kirsty and Matt's wedding, and I helped with the cutting out. We also completed a couple of longer walks - passing through Corscombe one day, followed the next day (on 1st Feb) with the second section of the Liberty Trail.
We drove to Misterton three miles from us and parked up in the village. The walk took us over some very muddy fields towards Hazelbury Plucknett, a small village in apple orchard country. The trail at one point early on was completely water logged and a deep puddle soaked K's feet over her walking boots. We watched a tall tree being felled as we approached the village from the south in what used to be an orchard (according to the OS map.) We continued over farmland and a large cattle shed at Ruby Wood farm to finish our walk on the hill top adjacent to West Chinnock.
We returned via West Cross Hill where a very unhelpful farmer had set up the electric fences around the livestock field to hinder walkers as much as possible. It must be intentional - we had to straddle the electric fence to get to a kissing gate on the footpath and K received a couple of jolts from the fencein the process- quite painful! This was followed by very muddy crossing to the next field where the long grass cleaned our very muddy boots. We avoided the big puddle at Misterton by taking a parallel path back to the village.Læs mere
We continued our daily regime for exercise by walking in the countryside around us. We drove to West Bay so we could walk westwards along the South West Coastal path to Golden Cap. This section also falls on the Monarch Way. The forecast was for low cloud which may lift for a short period. Setting off we could not see the tops of the cliffs in front of us as they were covered in low cloud, the day was still and the sea very calm. Some fishermen were setting up on the beach under West Cliff. The campsites at Eype were in fabulous locations overlooking the sea high up on the cliff top - obviously all were empty. As we walked along, far from clearing, the cloud appeared to get thicker, by the time we reached the top of the cliff at Thorncombe Beacon visibility was very poor so we decided to retreat to complete the whole walk another day.
On Friday, we needed to visit Beaminster so we devised a short walk up to the top of the valley from there that would take us past Martin Clunes' farm. Leaving the village our way was barred by an impassable deep puddle on one of the lanes leading up the hill side - another walk curtailed.Læs mere
There are a number of national walking trails which pass through and around this area, not least the Monarchs Way, South West Coast Path, River Parrett Trail and the Liberty Trail. The Liberty Trail starts at Ham Hill in Somerset, just to the north of us, and crosses the countryside to finish at Lyme Regis in Dorset to the south and west of us. The trail follows the footsteps of people who, in 1685, walked to join the Protestant Monmouth rebellion. The entire trail is 28 miles, but as we will be doing it in both directions we will obviously be walking double that distance. We have broken it up into 5 or 6 sections, and are hoping we can complete the entire walk during our stay here.
Ham Hill stands proud above the surrounding landscape and is home to a war memorial and a quarry which supplied the stone to one of Alan's old clients (A very very large House in Weighbridge.)
A millenuim project adjacent the quarry completed a stone circle where the stones are aligned to the solar cycle. The views from the hill were far reaching across the landscape.
Coming off the hill we encountered more signs of Spring with a patch of snowdrops and emerging displays of daffodils.
We walked through to West Chinnock via some very wet footpaths, where K's boots were swamped by the mud, after which we plotted a return to Ham Hill using the dry country lanes. The villages in this part of South Somerset are all quite pretty. We enjoyed our walk under glorious winter sunshine.Læs mere
We awakened to find a film of snow across the landscape - not enough to make it magical but enough to settle in the fields. We completed one of our walks from the cottage, and it was a surprise to see the first signs of spring under the hedgerows where daffodils were beginning to emerge and bloom - all very nice in the partial snow scape.Læs mere
On Monday we travelled to Winchester for health related stuff and Tuesday the weather was bleak so we stayed inside. A helped K with cutting out bunting for decorations at Kirsty's wedding.
We managed to get out on Wednesday between weather fronts and competed a slightly shortened walk through Seaborough which cut out the muddiest part of one of our usual routes. We got back inside just as storm Kristoph began to pass through. The weather was quite wild for a while but by Thursday the morning all was calm.
We needed a minor stock up of fresh food and fruit so drove to Bridport to the supermarket taking in a jaunt to the nearby sea shore for a walk. We parked up next to Burton Beach just after high tide - the waves crashing into the shoreline were quite spectacular and the noise tremendous. We walked along the shingle beach as far as West Bexington where we turned inland hoping to find a less arduous walk back. We didn't fancy the main road though so after climbing out of W Bexington we returned to the coast path across the fields from Swyre. The views from the top of the hill were very pleasant - there is a lot of building work being done to houses on the hill side overlooking the coast line here.Læs mere
We had a relatively busy week in lockdown. We managed to get out for a long walk each day. On Monday we tried a new route which took us into Crewkerne to our north and west. The path was predominantly on quiet country roads with a bit of countryside thrown in. Crewkerne is a nice town with a small central area in which we found a Lidl and a Waitrose. We checked out the location of The Crooked Swan restaurant which had a good write up in The Telegraph before Christmas and will be on our visiting list for lunch when things open up again. A nice walk and quite hilly so good exercise 13k .
We enjoyed decent weather on Tuesday and Wednesday so we managed our 12k walks which take us past two farms with free range eggs on sale - we have tried both so far and have not been disappointed.
On Wednesday we had also arranged for the car to be picked up as the clutch was slipping - using the ClickMechanic web site the car was picked up fixed and returned to us in the evening by a garage in Weymouth - completely hassle free.
Thursday saw us needing a food top up so we drove to Bridport to visit the supermarkets. Not knowing what to expect we were relieved to see that the car parks were half empty and people were respecting the social distancing rules. We took the opportunity to walk along the coast path for a couple of miles at West Bay. It was great to be beside the sea once again. We took in some good views along Chesil Beach towards Portland Bill and back towards Lyme Regis.
Saturday was our usual lazy day with the Paper - in the afternoon A produced a nice Indian meal from the book Kirsty had delivered to us "Fresh India" -fully veggie and very tasty.
On Sunday we tried a new walk across the hills to the north and east of us taking in Corscombe where Mark Hix has opened his new restaurant in The Fox Inn - another one to be visited at the end of lock down.Læs mere
We had booked the small car in for a service at Halfords in Yeovil - we had booked it in for 8:00am so that it would be seen to first thing. Everthing is obviously shut, so we took our breakfast with us aiming to have a walk through the country park on the south east of the town. First stop after dropping the car off was an Aldi supermarket - just as we entered we received a couple of pictures on our phone from Jamie in Brisbane. The authorities there had discovered a Covid case there taking the community total in the city up to 1 which prompted the authorities to declare an immediate 72 hour lock down. The result was that all the food shops were immediately stripped bare by panicking shoppers - the photo's Jamie sent us were of the empty shelves - literally nothing to be seen on anyone of them, poor Renee had to queue for 70 minutes to get Summer her milk formula. The shelves in Aldi were quite a contrast - absolutely bursting, so we sent a photo back to show them how we are all coping.
We wandered through the country park stepping gingerly on very frozen ground and found the pathway to the nine springs which took us up through the Victorian Valley Gardens - all very pretty with ice covering the lower pool.
Car serviced by 10:30 - we returned in the cold mist to base for a lazy afternoon - Karen sewing and Alan with head in book.Læs mere
We have spent few quiet days walking in the surrounding countryside and have devised a good route which takes us along country lanes through Seaborough and Little Windsor - about 7.5 miles in length. Just one short section on a country footpath which as the week wore on became less waterlogged under foot.
The weather has become bitterly cold but dry which has helped with the drying out process.
On Tuesday and Wednesday we woke to very hard frosts and mist which took some time to clear - all very beautiful with the sun trying to break through the mist and the frost on the foliage. We took some snaps with our phone cameras as A felt it was too cold to be carting around the Canon - big mistake as the scenery was spectacular.Læs mere
Another walk from the cottage - this time we travelled eastwards across the fields behind the cottage. We had planned a walk of about 5 miles, but with the fields being so wet and the mud so deep in parts we thought we might have to cut it a bit short as it was taking longer than we had anticipated. In the event, as we rose higher up the valley, the route was much more passable so we completed our 5 miles in reasonable time. We passed through West and East Axnoller Farms on our way before rising up the valley side to Chedington, approaching this time from the south.
We enjoyed a quiet New Years Eve in the cottage watching the review of this strange year on the TV. We did not a stay up until midnight to wish the new year in.Læs mere
We completed another walk - starting at the cottage we again walked over the hill towards South Perrott then turned eastwards to follow the River Parrett Trial which took us up the valley to Chedington. The trail was very wet in parts after all the rain and parts of the pathway consisted of running water. Even the green fields at the top of the valley were water logged in part. The views of the countryside were, once again, quite splendid.Læs mere