Ox Drove
The Met Office had promised us a rare treasure - a chance of seeing the sun in December - so I headed over the border into Wiltshire, for a walk along the Ox Drove, an ancient drove road along the downs.
On the Blandford to Salisbury road, took the turning to Tollard Royal. The lane through the village narrow and twisty, and you keep having to pull over into driveways to let cars coming the other way pass. Once through the village the lane widens again, snakes up onto the downs.
The lane carries on downhill to the Donhead villages, but I turned off onto the stone track marked 'Public Byway', which leads to a little National Trust car park. From there, a walk up through the fields to Win Green, the highest point on Cranborne Chase.
A great flock of rooks and jackdaws making their noisy morning patrol over the valley.
The Win Green beeches - a small circular copse. What it lacks in size, it makes up for in eeriness. I'm always worried that if I venture in among the beeches, I won't come out again.
A grey, hazy start to the morning, and a very cold wind blowing, up on Win Green.
But once I set off down the hill from Win Green, I was over the shoulder of the hill, and the way was more sheltered. Not a bad day for following a snaking chalk track along the downs.
Down in the valley, hazy views of Ferne Park, which looks Palladian. "In 2001 the third and present Ferne House (known as Ferne Park) was built to the design of the architect Quinlan Terry, in Palladian style and at a reported cost of £40m. The north front is a simplified copy of Came House, Dorset." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferne_House
Looking back to Win Green. Hard to get lost on this walk, even for me, with the Win Green beeches watching over me. Not a circular walk today. (There is a circular walk from Win Green, but it involves descending from the downs, coming back along the valley bottom, and then climbing back up to The Highest Point on Cranborne Chase. And my motto is "A walk that ends with a steep climb is a walk to be avoided.")
Looking down on Ashcombe, the "valley of the ash trees", where all the ash trees are dying. Soon enough, only the name will remain. So many dead and half-fallen trees - like walking through one of Paul Nash's First World War landscapes.
But there are already areas of newly planted trees on the hillside. Even if Ashcombe no longer has its ashes, there will be other trees one day.
There is six-foot deer fencing all along one side of this stretch of Ox Drove. I suppose it's necessary to stop the deer getting in and eating the newly planted trees... But the thing about following the ridgeway paths along the downs is that they are high exhilarating paths across the open ground, exposed to wind and weather. So it's a bit sad to be penned onto the path by a deer fence. It makes for a very claustrophobic walking companion.
Found a sheltered spot and sat on a fallen ash trunk to drink coffee from my flask. Holding the cup warmed my hands up nicely, but when I stopped moving my feet began to freeze. You can either have warm hands or warm feet, but not both.
But as I turned for home, the December sun that we had been promised appeared, and the chalk track was bright white, and the puddles shone. And suddenly I was walking through an Eric Ravilious landscape.
Ferne Park looking a lot less Gothic in the sunshine. It's still disconcerting to see a Palladian pile built that was built in 2001.
Back at the car park, four quad-bikers had gathered. Although Ox Drove is a public byway, and it is legal for motor vehicles to use it, there are notices of "Voluntary Restraint" beside it asking people to refrain from driving motor vehicles along it, to prevent damaging the track. I wondered whether the quad-bikers would exercise Voluntary Restraint...
Nope. Off they go.
As I drove back along the stone track to rejoin the road, a Red Kite soared by - feathers glowing chestnut red in the sunlight, with shining black wingtips. How glorious! I've never seen one so close.