More to Dorset than meets the eye!

Spring is here! On the sunny road to Swanage, daffodils were in bloom today. A good time to go the seaside. Few holiday makers and the going was easy.

We didn't actually stop at Swanage. Went on to Durlston Castle which is only just up the road and stands on Durlston Head, here in the foreground while Swanage is on the larger of the two bays beyond.
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We always meet people with "saved" dogs: here are the latest, another whippet/greyhound named Treacle and his mate Sam. Don't know much about their owner, other than he comes orignally from Abingdon and he is a volunteer dolphin searcher: note the binoculars. This is what he often finds off the headland; but not while we were there!














This is the castle. Doesn't look like Warwick, but then nothing does round here.







 A very pleasant place to wander through with great sea views and other delights including the Seventh Wave Cafe, Bar and Restaurant.
Sorry about the quality of the picture: you will have to take my word the the sea is through the railings.
   

 



Very thoughtful people here; even have sprung chairs for the birds to sit on!  The two in there when I took this picture were too busy to sit down



You may walk down to the giant globe. Another problem photograph: sea must always be level in pictures, otherwise it will drain away, in this case to the left.  

Must be the fault of these fellers who were building it in 1877.











After all this walking about the weather began to change. And so we began to wend our way homewards, but not before we had our picture taken to remind us of a great day out.

Want to see more?
Go to Flotsam & Jetsam Lal Hitchcock website. Read about her in the Marshwood Vale Magazine 01.05.2011 on the www.marshwoodvale.com website - really interesting.
See great picures on www.benosbornephotography.co.uk. Ben was Shell Wildlife Photographer of the year in 2007.

Might go in for that myself now I have got the sea straight!

There's Markovic - and there's Mitrovic!

Bournemouth Pavilion Theatre yesterday evening to the Johann Stauss Viennese Gala.
Die Fledermaus Overture, Delirium Waltz, Tritsch-Tratsch Polka, The Blue Danube and much more.

Thought you would like a picture of the lights, as we were nearer to them than the floor!

"Get the rest of the Band in" said Conductor Aleksandar Markovic from Belgrade: "Phil's here, and you know he doesn't like us hanging about".

Searched for a better picture and came up with this Aleksandar Mitrovic who plays for Newcastle United: no wonder Watford knocked them out of the FA Cup yesterday!
Can you imagine manager Steve McClaren saying: "Get me Markovic! I hear he's very good up front organsing the players!"

You can tell from his expression he is wondering why Markovic is running about in white tie and tails with a white stick. Then again, I did wonder at Mitrovic's knowledge of Strauss when I copied and posted the following link!

 YouTube  Bottle Musicians in Sweden playing I'm Walking on Sunshine.

What Rain?

A year on and the sun is still shining on the Rec where we walked last January and today.


Had I known it always shines up here I would have come every day!






 Not much has changed.
Still got the same clothes!









And as the man in the picture said, there are still walkers who take their dogs for a walk and dogs taking their walkers for a walk. He reckons that two thirds of all dogs here are adopted "rescued" dogs, the majority of which seem to be of the whippet/greyhound variety.

This is the great benefit of walking round here; dogs by the dozen and much stopping with consequential talk, mainly about the attributes of the various breeds; although I was accosted by a 73 year old man today who wanted to know if my limping with a walking stick was the result of knee trouble and who had recently had a new knee in a private hospital in Southampton although they also do National Health operations and it is worth getting it done while you are fit enough to recover quickly and was out with two dogs walking like Usain Bolt. Come to think of it he was walking like Usain Bolt too!

Believe it or not, people walk along here on their way to and from the shops because that's how they get their shopping. Can you imagine carrying two pints of milk, half a dozen eggs, two duck breasts and a bag of potatoes in the pouring rain along here.
But I forgot; it doesn't rain here.

Sharing a Christmas gift with D.J.N.

This is the cover of a book my daughter found for me at Christmas.

Paul Barker's picture is of the pavilion of the Oxford University Cricket Club in The Parks at Oxford, one of over 80 similar illustrations of a great variety of cricket pavilions great and small throughout the U.K. with wonderful descriptions by the author Jonathan Rice. 

The book, published in 1991, bears an original inscription:

"Ron,

To someone who likes good architecture & particularly associated with cricket

Fred" 

Added in 2015 was another message of some thought:

"Dad - sounds as if you would've got on with Ron, Happy Christmas, Alison"

Had my father been alive in 1991 he would have also shared Fred's message. This picture of him, second from right middle row, in front of printers Hazell, Watson and Viney's cricket ground pavilion in Aylesbury needs no words to explain why.

When I was four I was in love with Lesley Hollings who I knew until we were in our teens and beyond. Her Dad is on the left end of the middle row. That I have a picture of her dad but not of her says something for cricket I suppose.

One of my first joys on coming to Dorset a year ago was the discovery of this cricket pavilion in Broadstone Recreation Ground; a truly English setting, like many others undiscovered by Jonathan Rice, but well worthy of inclusion in such a book as his.  

I remember your love of cricket. If you have never seen this book you may still discover copies available through Amazon and other sources.With every page a source of delight to look at and read. I can recommend it to you. How can it be otherwise with such an introductory sentence as this:

"CRICKET PAVILIONS, like jockstraps, can be large, medium or small and, like jockstraps, their size is no real guage of the pleasures that lurk within".

 I shall not be surprised of course to learn you already have a copy in your library of cricket memorabilia!

    

A Christmas Quiz - some answers

The first reply: too good to keep it to myself. 

Then again, it shows what disreputable characters I have mixed with during my life!

Quiz :

                   1. Some French geezer after eating too many escargots -

                        then asking for a paper bag - quick !

                   2. The 4 Stooges.

                   3. A Devizes market trader.

                    4. Jose Mourinho, all dressed up for a night out - after being sacked.

                    5. Another market trader in Devizes wishing me a Merry Christmas

         By the way the farmers around here are very confident, and looking forward to a really good rice crop .The view from our back window is similar to yours - except it looks over acres of paddy fields.

         So it is not all bad news.

                    Best Wishes  

                                    John

               Sorry no cake left !

A Christmas Quiz

Everyone has a quiz at Christmas.   Here's mine!

                                                                                                             Have a look at these.

           

If you are a man you are allowed to look at this one more than once!

Now have a glance out of my window at the weather today: or yesterday. or the day before yesterday, or the day before that, and that, and that, and that . . . . . . . . . . 

..
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If they are all so clever at running our world, how is it that these small flowers stand out in the open day after day and week after week and just get more beautiful, when if you gave the same treatment to politicians they would all be dead within a couple of days?

Perhaps he's right after all.

First one with eight names on a piece of Christmas Cake wins a prize.

Christmas Tree Festival

This is St Aldhelm who was Bishop of Sherborne in about 705AD.

On the Purbecks in Dorset is St. Aldhelm's Head, named in his honour.

In Poole is St Aldhelm's Church: not a particularly beautiful church, but worth going to at Christmas for their celebrations, particularly with the Christmas Tree Festival.

The trees are arranged around the inside of the church, decorated among others by children, associations of volunteers who care for disabled and people who need help and comfort, and those who wish to remember friends and family members.

Even dogs get a look in!  

And just see what can be done with milk bottle tops.

Here along this wall are trees on which anyone can hang a small card for those who have left memories to us.