Skylark Alley
10 degrees C first thing. Blessedly cool. I celebrated by following the chalk track along St Aldhelm's Head to the sea.
Although there are fields of wheat and barley to either side of the track, the fields have broad weedy margins, full of tall grasses, wild flowers and songbirds.
The elder bushes in flower.
The track lined with Black Mustard six feet tall, Mallows and Mayweed, Bristly Oxtongue, Poppies and Agrimony.
Whitethroats singing from wiry perches in the Black Mustard.
And all along the way, the skylarks are singing. Where the track ends, by the old coastguard cottages and St Aldhelm's Chapel, on days when the wind is gentle, the larksong drowns out everything else.
Swallows were swooping in through the open doorway of St Aldhelm's Chapel, so I didn't go in as I passed. Just walked a little way along the cliffs. But it was too hazy a day for landscape photography, so I sat for a while on one of the memorial benches along the coast path, and watched small sailing boats making way out at sea.
Sea Carrot flowering along the cliffs.
The path carries on down, steeply, to Chapman's Pool. But I couldn't face the Many Steps, so turned and headed back the way I came.
The path not taken, from Chapman's Pool along the valley bottom to Renscombe.
The swallows seemed to have finished their pilgrimage to St Aldhelm's Chapel, so I went in to sit for a while in the silence and the darkness.
Light spilling through the door highlights the graffiti on the central piers. 1665. The Civil War is over, and the monarchy has been restored.
H Corben, his backwards use of the letter N immortalized for all time. (Well, N is a very tricky letter. Ask any 17th century stone mason.)
(For other pictures of the chapel interior, here's a visit I paid back in 2014).
Leaving behind the chapel, back out into the sunshine and the larksong.
Back along Skylark Alley. Young skylarks rise up from fence posts, flutter a little way, settle on a fence post a little further down the track. (Photography fail. High key shot. Guess who forgot to change the camera settings after coming out of the darkness of the chapel...)
Blue skies. Faint wisps of cloud. The half moon lingering to enjoy the skylark song.
The day had grown warm while I was out, and there was a long hot trudge back along the chalk track to the car park.
***
Coming back through Worth Matravers, the Tea Room had just opened, and there was a fortunate parking spot on the road right outside. So I stopped off for coffee to take out. Sat on a little stone wall on the village green in the warm sunshine, sharing my croissant crumbs with a tame female blackbird and some cheeky sparrows.
The village of Worth Matravers has one of the highest proportions of holiday homes of any British Village. The attractive stone cottages sell for millions. When I returned to my car, I found it parked between two Porsches. Needless to say, I was extremely careful in extricating it.
Although there are fields of wheat and barley to either side of the track, the fields have broad weedy margins, full of tall grasses, wild flowers and songbirds.
The elder bushes in flower.
The track lined with Black Mustard six feet tall, Mallows and Mayweed, Bristly Oxtongue, Poppies and Agrimony.
Whitethroats singing from wiry perches in the Black Mustard.
And all along the way, the skylarks are singing. Where the track ends, by the old coastguard cottages and St Aldhelm's Chapel, on days when the wind is gentle, the larksong drowns out everything else.
Swallows were swooping in through the open doorway of St Aldhelm's Chapel, so I didn't go in as I passed. Just walked a little way along the cliffs. But it was too hazy a day for landscape photography, so I sat for a while on one of the memorial benches along the coast path, and watched small sailing boats making way out at sea.
Sea Carrot flowering along the cliffs.
The path carries on down, steeply, to Chapman's Pool. But I couldn't face the Many Steps, so turned and headed back the way I came.
The path not taken, from Chapman's Pool along the valley bottom to Renscombe.
The swallows seemed to have finished their pilgrimage to St Aldhelm's Chapel, so I went in to sit for a while in the silence and the darkness.
Light spilling through the door highlights the graffiti on the central piers. 1665. The Civil War is over, and the monarchy has been restored.
H Corben, his backwards use of the letter N immortalized for all time. (Well, N is a very tricky letter. Ask any 17th century stone mason.)
(For other pictures of the chapel interior, here's a visit I paid back in 2014).
Leaving behind the chapel, back out into the sunshine and the larksong.
Back along Skylark Alley. Young skylarks rise up from fence posts, flutter a little way, settle on a fence post a little further down the track. (Photography fail. High key shot. Guess who forgot to change the camera settings after coming out of the darkness of the chapel...)
Blue skies. Faint wisps of cloud. The half moon lingering to enjoy the skylark song.
The day had grown warm while I was out, and there was a long hot trudge back along the chalk track to the car park.
***
Coming back through Worth Matravers, the Tea Room had just opened, and there was a fortunate parking spot on the road right outside. So I stopped off for coffee to take out. Sat on a little stone wall on the village green in the warm sunshine, sharing my croissant crumbs with a tame female blackbird and some cheeky sparrows.
The village of Worth Matravers has one of the highest proportions of holiday homes of any British Village. The attractive stone cottages sell for millions. When I returned to my car, I found it parked between two Porsches. Needless to say, I was extremely careful in extricating it.