puddleshark

The Manor House, Kingston Maurward.

Blue Plaque to George Singer, Kingston Maurward

Blue plaque to George Singer, on the garden wall of the Manor House.

The anticyclonic gloom continues. It feels like a century since we last saw the sun, but it is probably just over a week. Nights are starless, moonless, frost free.

Consulted the OS map to see if there was a way to walk from Kingston Maurward over to Thorncombe Wood across the fields, and there is indeed a footpath... but I lost it somewhere among the lecture halls and outbuildings and barns and paddocks of the agricultural college.

Passing the equestrian centre, with the scent of horse pee and fresh wood-shavings in the air, and the sound of a yard brush sweeping concrete. A brief pang of nostalgia: for days when I was younger and fitter, for the old stable-yard routine.

After I lost the footpath, I took a bit of an unofficial tour of the agricultural college - it is massive - but eventually found my way out onto a back lane, and from there found a footpath across a field towards Higher Bockhampton, before joining the bridleway I had originally meant to take. And what a very strange bridleway it was...

Path from Kingston Maurward to Higher Bockhampton

The bridleway is of astroturf, recycled from some sports field (with the line markings still on it). Springy underfoot. All the years I have been walking, and all the places I have walked, this is the first time I ever took a path that was carpeted. Though I have to say, it certainly worked to keep the mud shallow in the gateways.

Dull landscape photography on a dull November morning.

Along the lane to Higher Bockhampton, and into Thorncombe Wood.

Thorncombe Wood in November. It has been a few years since I last visited. It is the perfect place for hurtling through the fallen leaves in pursuit of squirrels: but I no longer have a spaniel, and I'm definitely not up for that activity myself. The squirrels are safe.

The old Roman road from Dorchester (Durnovaria), which runs through Thorncombe Wood and Puddletown Forest on its way to join up with Ackling Dyke at Badbury (Vindocladia).

Near the Roman road, Rushy Pond. Just up the hill from the cottage where Thomas Hardy was born. One of his poems has the footnote "By Rushy Pond."

Hard to take a photo these days, because it is surrounded by signs, and fences to stop people falling in, and overly arty benches.

Don't do it. Don't put unnecessary words in the landscape.

A cup of coffee from a flask, on the least ornate bench, sitting in silence: neither churring nor croaking, and certainly not warbling. It should be a peaceful place. You can hear the roar of traffic from the Puddletown Bypass, but it's very distant, and you can convince yourself it is just the white noise of the wind in the trees. But today someone was shooting pheasants nearby. Someone with a very big grudge against pheasants. Max would not have been happy.

The waters so very still without a spaniel to spread ripples.

Back through the woods, with their elegant beeches, and bright sweet chestnuts.

At Day-Close in November
Thomas Hardy

The ten hours' light is abating,
And a late bird wings across,
Where the pines, like waltzers waiting,
Give their black heads a toss.

Beech leaves, that yellow the noon-time,
Float past like specks in the eye;
I set every tree in my June time,
And now they obscure the sky.

And the children who ramble through here
Conceive that there never has been
A time when no tall trees grew here,
That none will in time be seen.

The cottage where Thomas Hardy was born. When I set off on the walk, I thought I would stop in on Hardy's Cottage on my way back. But I had forgotten that it is only open between March and October. I did visit back in 2017.

Retraced my steps back through the fields and back through the barns and buildings of the agricultural college. They seemed to be hosting an open day - lots of groups of students being shown around.

Were they impressed by the horticulture department, I wonder?

Stopped off in the Walled Garden to sit on a bench by the greenhouse, in the company of robins and blackbirds, and gone-over dahlias.