Dorchester 

Be it ever so humble....

Yes, we are at home. We decided not to spend the night in Vancouver last night, because we wanted our own pillows; we got home some time after 7:00 p.m. and managed to stay up until 9:00. That was 22.5 hours after we got up, so we figured we had done our best.

I woke up at 1:00 a.m. and watched television for a while; then went back to sleep, only to wake up at 5:00 a.m., absolutely famished. I headed for the kitchen, figuring there might be something edible there, even though we had been gone for a month: and there was Robin, out in the back room, gathering up some tomatoes that he had left to ripen. They had indeed ripened, so both of us carried tomatoes to the kitchen, made sandwiches, ate them, and went back to bed. I finally surfaced at 9:00 a.m., and I've had a great day.  Robin's jet lag is worse than mine, this time. Maybe that's because instead of trying to take a nap this afternoon, I went for a pedicure. I can wholeheartedly recommend the pedicure (with foot and calf massage, of course) as the perfect post-flight experience. It is after 6:00 p.m. and I am just starting to feel sleepy.

I've already been online, looking at cottages to rent next year. We probably won't do another narrowboat trip this coming fall, or stay in a hotel. I did not enjoy being without a kitchen during our hotel stay, and Robin is thinking that if we were to have weather next year like what we had this time, he'd just as soon not be standing outside, steering a boat. I'm excited at the prospect of having a home of our own for the month and taking our usual day trips.

Meanwhile, we will be heading to Texas in January, and before that, there's NaNoWriMo to keep me busy. And work, of course.

Thank you for following my English adventure story. I hope you'll come back to hear about the Turtle's next voyage.

Far from the Madding Crowd

We were indeed far from the madding crowd, at least for a little while. Our journey today: Lyndhurst to Burley to Picket Post to Verwood to Three-Legged Cross to Bere Regis to Tolpuddle to Puddletown to Higher Bockhampton.....

And here we had a respite from our travels, because here, at last, we found the Hardy Monument -- not the huge monument on the hill. We found that several years ago, and I wrote about it here. I said then that I would make a pilgrimage to the Real Thomas Hardy's monument on my next visit, but that was three years ago, and it took until today for me to realize my ambition. When we got to Higher Bockhampton, we made our way to the car park and saw that we could walk through the woods to the cottage in which Thomas Hardy was born. We did that; the path led uphill through a lovely, serene [if muddy] wood, then down, down to the cottage -- and, across the lane from the cottage, the monument I'd been seeking. This monument is about a tenth the size of the one honouring Captain Hardy, but it is tasteful, and when you've been looking for it for years, it looks pretty good.

As we walked through the woods, I thought about the fact that this was where Hardy wrote Far from the Madding Crowd, and where, I imagine, his world-view developed. This was the landscape that formed him. I found a tree that I dubbed the greenwood tree, though that was my own fancy. I don't know what particular tree, if any, Hardy had in mind -- or Shakespeare, either. I kept thinking: Hardy walked here; Hardy stopped and took in this view.

When we got back to the car, we drove just a few minutes to Dorchester, in search of the elusive Costa Coffee. We found it with no trouble at all, actually. The trick is to go to a town big enough to have one.

My next pilgrimage will be to Max Gate, the house that Hardy designed. We were probably a couple of blocks from it today, but by the time we got to Dorchester, we were beginning to look at our watches. We wanted to get to Portland Bill, just for the view, and time was short -- so off we went. Max Gate will have to wait until next year.

Okay, then. Our trip continued: Dorchester to Winterborne to Weymouth to Portland. Up the hill and out to the point, from which, since the day was indeed clear, we could see forever.

We couldn't stay long, but we just had to see this view once before our holiday was over. After Portland, we retraced our steps as far as Bere Regis, then veered off through Wimborne Minster, Ferndown, Ringwood, Burley, and finally home to Lyndhurst.

I do love English place names.

Tomorrow, we'll turn in our rental car and take the train to Richmond, where we will spend the night with a friend who will take us to the airport on Monday. There might be a bit of silence here at the Turtle tomorrow, because our friend doesn't have a computer. (!) On the other hand, maybe I'll find my way to a Costa Coffee and post from there.

Gliding through the Cotswolds

It did not rain today. Well, it sprinkled for a few minutes, late this afternoon, but for the most part we had bright sunshine. When David got the word that his glider flight was on, he called us; picked us up in Lyndhurst; and drove us all the way (about two hours) to Shenington in  Oxfordshire, where we found  Shenington Gliding Club.  There was a brisk wind, but apparently that wasn't a problem. People had been gliding happily all morning, and now it was David's turn.

I half suspected that Robin would want to fly, but he was happy to stand with me and watch. David was given very thorough pre-flight instructions; then he donned a parachute, climbed into a glider with his instructor, and leapt into the sky. This club uses a powerful winch to get its gliders airborne. I had never seen that before, and I found it both exhilarating and a bit shocking to watch.

We understood that they would probably be in the air for about seven minutes, but in fact they stayed aloft for seventeen minutes, time enough to get a splendid view of the Oxfordshire countryside. I was shivering, so I went into the bus that serves as an office/waiting room, and I watched the glider wafting overhead. A few minutes later, I was still watching the glider when I happened to glance over to the field, and there was David, walking along, helping to guide the plane back into its parking place. I had been mistakenly watching the glider that took off a few minutes after David's did -- so I missed photographing his landing.

The photos I took, however, were definitely of David's plane. I was still standing outside at that time.

While I was waiting for the flight, I took a few photos of the surrounding countryside. David must have had a fabulous view from up in the sky.

When David landed, we drove back to the village of Wroxton and stopped at the hotel there to have a snack before we drove back to Hampshire. David and Sheila spent a couple of nights there back in the spring, when David tried unsuccessfully to take his glider flight. This was not the best of years for gliding -- until today.

Wroxton Best Western

Believe it or not, this is a Best Western  Hotel. We sat in a quiet lounge there;  I drank green tea, ate a salad sandwich, and warmed up. Then we walked across the road to visit a thatched church -- the first of those I remember seeing, ever. It was a Roman Catholic church called St. Thomas of Canterbury, and its front door was open; so we went in.

It turned out to have beautiful stained glass windows; something that wasn't obvious from the outside.

Finally, we headed for home, rather dreading the Friday afternoon rush hour traffic. As it turned out, the traffic wasn't too bad, and we got back to Lyndhurst by dinnertime.

Tomorrow, we're expecting more good weather, so there may well be a trip to Dorset and another local football in our personal forecast.