happy hols

Now ,back to Dorset .

One night in Emerald and 2 nights in a little hotel ..both overlooking the sea . We walked up and over Golden Cap . We walked down and up 180 steps to Ope Cove .We played scrabble – don’t like to say who won two out of the three games ,but suffice it to say it wasn’t John even though on night 1 he played the first move and used ALL 7 letters ..but the hi-lights were Lobster Wobster Night at the Hive Cafe and the near-death experience on the Abbotsbury walk – imagine the most beautiful windswept coastal walk , not a soul in sight and then on the horizon you spot an isolated old church high on a hill . Well this was us on day three. We walked along Chesil Beach ,cutting in at Abbotsbury to walk up the hill to St Catherine’s Chapel .It is a beautiful atmospheric 14th century Chapel , commanding a magnificent view over the fields and sea .It was built by the monks as a place of pilgrimage and retreat .Walking back down the hill ,I got in the zone and retreated back to my Kensington Avenue primary Schooldays and those assemblies that always started and ended with a hymn , and started singing

”He who would valiant be
‘gainst all disaster,
let him in constancy
follow the Master.
There’s no discouragement
shall make him once relent
his first avowed intent
to be a pilgrim. ”

At the time ( aged around 8 ) we thought it hysterical to end each verse with ” to be a pilchard” .The teachers never seemed to notice .

Suddenly a jeep took us on the inside ( back to the hillside NOT the assembly ) and shouted out something like ”you’d better had move over ” .By this time I’d launched into ”For those in peril on the Sea” ( which even at the time we found ironic as about two thirds of our class of 45 kids had never even seen the sea ) .So John and I looked behind to see a herd of about 200 cattle running down the hill directly at us ! I genuinely felt really scared and couldn’t even think of a hymn to fit the occasion . For the first time in my life i jumped (?) over a farm-gate.John stood firm and sort of inched his way backwards towards my gate .The cows just stopped and stared at us , then gradually got bored and slowly moved away .

Once my blood pressure had come down and I’d resumed a normal breathing pattern ,we walked on.

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