Blogs from Dorset, England, United Kingdom, Europe - page 2

The last cat sitting that we agreed to while in the UK was for two lovely cats, Jess and Tabs, owned by Patricia and Chris. They live in Parkstone which is a suburb of Poole. We learned that as the strike days for the train were scheduled for the day before and the day after, there might be changes to the schedule on the day in between which is when we were traveling. Fortunately, we found that even though some others were cancelled or delayed, ours was only a few minutes late. We were glad as Patricia had offered to pick us up at the train station so we could meet them, the cats and get a tour of the house before they left on their vacation. Always a nice bonus for us all to meet ... read more

Christchurch was a lovely surprise today. Several people had recommended going there, but I wish they were more adamant about how much history and British charm there is at the site. Once you walk past the regular high street, you enter the church and quay historic section…all very lovely. The large church was one of the nicest I have visited. The volunteer told me the reason why English churches are so plain. King Henry dismantled monasteries, and then Oliver Cromwell ordered every church wall to be white washed and all the excessive statues to be removed. He even used this church as a horse stable! Now it is an active church all year long. This explains why Canterbury cathedral is with out colours. After the church, I walked through the gardens to the quay and had ... read more

Today was a day at the beach, enjoying all things British. Bournemouthe is a beach resort town, and has been for many decades. Some parts of the town are showing their age; shop are closing because of online shopping. But there are still classic shops like candy stores, Cornish pasties, fish & chips, etc. There’s nice gardens and an active beach and pier with round observation wheel. The beach has lovely sand, as opposed to the regular pebbles on other English beaches. I was surprised that there were so many people in Bournemouth town, for a Monday. When I bought a ticket for the observation wheel (8 pounds) I noted how many people were around. This in nothing, I was told. The place is overflowing in summer because this is the best beach. Guess I am ... read more

Wonderful day today, our last before we leave for home tomorrow so even better that the weather so kindly rewarded us with another absolutely perfect blue sky day. We decided to drive round the country roads to see where they took us. Past quite a few stone quarries which produce the lovely golden Purbeck stone from which many of the houses in the area are built. Then we came to Worth Matravers, a stone village with a duck pond, a little village tearoom, thatched cottages and an obviously very popular pub.. We carried on along the road from there until we came to Renscombe carpark which was where the road stopped. We asked advice about the route to Chapman's Pool but were told the road to it was Really steep, even steeper probably than Durdle Door ... read more

A stunning day of blue sky, sea and wonderful scenic coastline. We were woken by the Swanage Steam train going past our windscreen while we were still in bed. Didn't wave as we hadn't shut the front blind and didn't want anyone looking in ! Headed west from the campsite first of all to Lulworth Cove. The route there took us past quite a large area of Army shooting ranges and we were warned of sudden Gunfire and not to venture into the flagged zones. We had heard some strange booming noises from the campsite the day before so concluded that it was indeed gunfire and we heard quite a lot again today when we were out and about. Lulworth Cove is beautiful. It is also extremely busy, the enormous carpark was pretty full. We tried ... read more