There is probably so much I have skipped. Top of mind: tranquility at Talland Bay, Dartmoor and chips, Bedruthan jackets and English wines, clubhouse iso, that really hip cafe on Mutley Plain, Mount Edgecumbe, Whitsand and the rest. More pasties in Looe (naturally), Tavistock ambles with coffee and walnut cake, blood tests, Tamerton Foliot creekside discoveries with Ernesettle reminisces, and just those sunny morning cuppas in the garden.
But time moves far more quickly than I can write and there comes a point (sat in a campground in Kangaroo Valley, NSW, for instance) where you simply have to draw a line under it all. Not to consign it to history but as something to live on in your mind and to seep into your heart, as opposed to a memorial of mere letters on a screen. Oh, also: London, crowded Northern Line wearing no mask, train delays to frigid Preston station, Ansdell walks with surprise sunshine and delicious Fairhaven ice cream. But I digress.
I stayed a long time in the United Kingdom, but not as long as it takes to appoint an even more diabolical Prime Minister. And that includes extra time, which was not so much a gift but a sad consequence of the turning of the world, the passage of life. Thank you for all the happy memories, memories that don’t need to be written here but live on at random moments, in places and patterns, in smells and sounds, or simply when a certain light shines through the trees.
Back in Kangaroo Valley, I could’ve had a beer this evening at the Friendly Inn (and with this stream of consciousness you may think this the case). But I didn’t. I had a takeaway pizza and thought I could wile away that black period before it was acceptable to go to bed by catching up with this blog. Occasionally I hear cheers in the distance from the pub, the eels are playing the dingoes or something in a semi-preliminary final or some such. I’ve been away too long.
The pub looked enticing, and far more enticing than where Dad and I ended up in Swanage. However, the first pub we went to was always going to be tough to beat. The Bridge Inn on the River Avon a little out of Amesbury, sparkling in Sunday afternoon sunshine. How good a cider tastes in such surroundings. Swiftly polished off to get away from that guy.
Having started here in June it was interesting to witness how two months had progressed. Upon the Pewsey Downs a landscape of golden grass, sweeping along ridges and hummocks and down into the Vale. A combine below creating a cloud of dust as it sets about its work under a searing sun. On the horizon, more dust, or is it a fire? And just around the corner, maybe Gundagai.
I guess these could be those much vaunted sunlit uplands but to extend the metaphor let me tell you they took a great deal of bashing through prickly, unruly, needless crap to reach. The Ordnance Survey is something great and British but even they cannot always steer us upon the right path (probably, I imagine, because they had their funding cut). The wrong kind of hedge fund.
I always like to have intimate encounters with the English countryside but this was taking it a little too far. A touch more sedentary (and bramble-free) were walks within the Wiltshire villages and towns. Salisbury, with its markets and bunting and majestic cathedral, admired the world over. And Bradford-on-Avon, melding that gracious, Brunel-era industrial heritage with wooded riverside walks and resident kingfishers.
The kingfishers have a following and you catch people lingering for a glance; some simply pausing with the kids on their way to the Co-op, others equipped with shiny lenses and tripods on their way to the Countryfile calendar competition. While the kingfishers remained hidden in town, teasing their audience, Dad and I made our way to Avoncliff, bought a cider each to cool down by the river, and enjoyed the accompaniment of several blurs of vivid blue darting from bank to bank. This is the way to bird.
They were hot days – another plume of continental airmass – and there was appeal in sedentary nature-watching. Like sitting on the sofa and being alerted to the presence of a Hummingbird Hawk-Moth. And another. And another. And, what, how many is that today? And eventually, even though you know it will be a pale imitation of the master’s work, sitting there waiting with your camera to capture this amazing little creature.
The heat didn’t quite last; in fact it inevitably disappeared when we went away to the Dorset coast for a few days. Standing ankle-deep in the water in Devon, I had a feeling I would see the sea again. And, of course, encounter the South West Coast Path.
We were practically straight out onto it, reaching Durlston Country Park on the southern side of Swanage. From here a jaunt along the south coast on a placid nothing kind of day – occasional haze interrupting a bluey-grey sky as small boats on the horizon inch westward toward Portland Bill. With its crumbling chalky cliffs and thicketed combes, the coast path here is a different beast from the western edge of Cornwall. But always, there is ocean.
We ended up walking a fair distance in the end, overlooking the rock formations at Dancing Ledge. These were heavily peopled by those having a ball: bathing, picnicking and, for the most part, engaging in adventure pursuits that require a wetsuit and fluorescent vest. Perhaps the vests aid discovery when they get lost in the brambles and gorse as they make their way up to the ridge away from the coast. Another foray through the rubbish to reach those uplands which, today, were not even sunlit.
We worked up appetite for an ice cream in Swanage and possibly the fish and chips that followed a little later. They were enjoyable enough beside the water, shared with hundreds of other people doing likewise. Yet despite this abundance there are not enough fish and chip eaters to go around to satisfy the voracious seagulls espying any remote opportunity to ruin a moment. Effectively, for protection, we were eating fish and chips from a bag and that somewhat diluted the ambience.
The ambience went further downhill in the only pub in town with seating. And then again the next morning thanks to some persistent rain. I mean I shouldn’t complain, we need the rain, but I will complain anyway. Why don’t you wait one more week when I am far, far away persistent rain? Still, um good weather for golf. If you can call it that.
Victorious on the first play-off ‘hole’ I went to celebrate with coffee and cake, and Dad was all too happy to tag along. Mine was some tiramisu concoction which I feel was born from baking an odd number of chocolate and coffee sponges and deciding the best way to use them up is to slather them with cream and dust with cocoa to entice passing Anglo-Australians on two month holidays who cherish the Britishness of escaping woes with a slice of cake. It was perfect.
Like the gigantic crumbs falling upon on my plate, the dazzling formations of Old Harry Rocks are deserving of attention. Proving almost as busy as the cake shop, a procession of visitors walk the fairly tame path to witness iconic chalk piles crumbling into the sea. On a cloudy, drizzly day, there is a welcome brightness to the rocks and a jollity in communal gathering, with some rather unique TikTok takes and selfie set ups.
Over the ridge from Swanage Bay, we were now in Studland, which is a rather alarming or invigorating prospect depending on whatever floats your boat. I had visions of Dad and I leaning wearily on the ‘Welcome to Studland’ sign in our sexy waterproofs, each sporting a large package. On our back. Unfortunately ladies it never materialised and you may be better off making the trek to Penistone instead.
Thankfully though, finally, some brightness materialised at the end of our walk, which was conveniently next to a pub. I can’t say it was the best ale but the setting was exemplary and ambience was back on the way up. So much so that the sun came out, Dad went into the water, and I watched on at these Englanders embracing chilly water and a green algae fringe.
It felt more like summer holidays again. An alfresco pizza as the sun sets over Swanage and a morning breakfast bap as it heads up into the sky again. There was, of course, a tinge of Australia in this beachside kind of morning. Something I was all too quick to use as an excuse as to why I wouldn’t take a loyalty card for more awful machine-generated coffee in an otherwise lovely spot. Sorry mate, I’ll be in Australia next week.
Indeed time, extra time, was drawing to a close. Swanage was in the rear view mirror, as was Corfe Castle, as was Dorset and Devon and Cornwall. A Prime Minister was still not appointed but they were now down to two. The sun shone again and there were a few days remaining to walk among golden hay-bales, eat another tub of clotted cream, be bombarded by Hummingbird hawk-moths and say farewells. It was time to move on but with farewells that are never really final. For you take with you all the people, places, pasties and they add up to constitute your very being and shape every step forward you take. Whether that is to a cake shop, a mountain top or sat in a glade in the forest, soaking in sun-dappled light.
Or it can be wonderful, arriving a little before rush-hour and just after the parking attendant has gone home. This yields a quiet fist pump of glee and a good mood in which to walk the parklands. Along the river, the tide is high and holding on, and clouds part to release the sun. Forget the roar of traffic along the Embankment, and the mould-tinged sails of Sainsburys, and focus instead on the flourishing green of the woods and bounteous swathes of wild garlic. Embrace the chirping birds and walk with the hope of encountering a deer.
Look down upon manicured fields and be thankful that this is indeed upon your doorstep. A doorstep in which the land and sea meets, producing conditions that are often frustrating but usually fruitful. Beyond the chav-filled potholes of the city, a land of strawberries and cream or raspberries and cream or just cream goddammit.
It was a more placid day departing the north, incrementally brightening on my journey towards London and then onward to Salisbury; the very heart of a conceptual south. Perhaps near here, somewhere within the borderlands of Wiltshire sits that romanticised version of England; of thatched cottages and village greens; of tinkling brooks and sun-dappled woods; of church fetes and coffee and walnut cake. Perhaps, indeed.
Praise the Lord for a pint outside in the open air, soaking up the sweetly chirping birds and the smell of the country. And thank the almighty for a gentle downhill totter back to the car, parked beside the marquee on the green next to the church in the contented village of East Knoyle. Everywhere around here is easy to suspect as a secret filming location for Bake Off.
“When I were a wee lad you didn’t see us lot wasting our time with Instagrams of food and posing for selfies,” Dad clearly didn’t say as I took a photo of some coffee and cake and indulged in a selfie. Because this wasn’t Yorkshire and neither was it the 1940s anymore, though you suspect some in Shaftesbury would be pleased to turn back time. At least to the years before that bloody advert sent people flocking to a hill to take Instagrams and selfies.
Back in a more reassuring south, a morning in Salisbury offered increasing photographic opportunities, marvelling at the famous Cathedral with its famous 123-metre spire and its famous clock, a renown reaching as far and wide as Russia. The water meadows glowing under the sunlight, it was briefly warm enough to amble in a T-shirt, a clear signal that things were still on an upward trend. The birds continued to tweet and to chirp and to wade and to pose in such land of growing abundance.
Bluebells really were in profusion across England at this time, evident everywhere during this sojourn in the south and among the storm-laden lands of the north. Spreading across the country like the philosophy of Nigel Farage, only exponentially more unifying and much easier on the eye. They would have been a clear highlight, if it were not for that slab of coffee and walnut cake in Honey Street before catching my train west. A very perfect bookend to this haphazard instalment of North and South. And preparation for the tea and scones still to come.
gbpilgrim 