puddleshark

Took the walk from Upwey, down in the valley, where the River Wey rises, up onto the hills.

Upwey would be a quiet village, were it not for the rooks who inhabit the woods on the hillsides above.

The path through the rookery woods...

From the woods, up onto the open hilltop. The Met Office had forecast sunshine and cloud. Well, they got the cloud right. And the strong and bitter northerly wind, up on the high ground. I had sort of planned for the wind. It's good to walk on the hills in a cold north wind sometimes. A kind of exorcism. An icy blast to drive the cobwebs of the working week from the brain.

But I thought I would be walking out with the wind at my back, and instead the wind kept creeping round to freeze one side of my face.

A straight path, through huge hilltop fields, empty of livestock at this time of year. No shelter. Nothing along the way but the tyre tracks of tractors, where the farmer has been muck-spreading. Down in the valley, towards the sea, the fields already striped from the harrow and the roller - showing what a dry February we have had.

Weymouth & Portland from Friar Waddon Hill

Weymouth and Portland in the distance.

Once this would have been a landscape of dry stone walls and delicate chalk grassland, full of flowers and skylarks in summer. But the dry stone walls have all been left to fall down, replaced with stock fencing. And seventy years of modern agriculture - fertilizer and weedkiller - have turned the old chalkland meadows into 'improved' pasture.

Possibly the remains of a ploughed-out long barrow? There are Neolithic long barrows and Bronze Age burial mounds all along these hills.

Above the barrows, the pylons. Though these are gradually disappearing. There used to be three lines of pylons striding towards the sea, but two of the lines have been replaced with buried cables.

Newly-buried power lines!

Friar Waddon and a zigzag chalk track.

From Friar Waddon hill, downhill to Corton, where the concrete track to the farm cuts through a small chalk gorge.

Corton Farm, a lovely group of buildings - mullioned 16th century farmhouse, 13th century chapel, old brick granary, and (not in the picture) a ruined dovecot, pigeonholed walls open to the sky.

St Bartholomew. 13th century.

Sat for a while in the shelter of the chapel walls. Even here it was not warm. The wind kept veering round and saying, "Hah! Found you!". But it was peaceful. Only a strange faint hum that I eventually identified as coming from the powerlines of the nearby pylons.

From Corton, back to Upwey, but not along the wild windy hilltop. I took the underhill path. Here and there it was a bit of scramble, up slopes and along narrow sheep paths, through thickets of elder and tumbled stones, trying not to fall into the holes of the badger setts. But at least the hill-bottom stinging nettles are only ankle high at this time of year. And further on, the path widens and becomes level.

Friar Waddon Dairy House, in a woods, in the middle of a kale field. Inhabited only by wood pigeons now.

Even on a cold grey day, the Blue-tits singing. Buzzards mewing. Ravens passing overhead, saying "Cronk!"

At the foot of the hill, a spring.

And then back round the side of the hill, to my starting point.

Up above Upwey, me and the rooks.

***

I was going to treat myself to tea in the Wishing Well tea rooms after the walk, but when I went to go inside, the tea rooms were very busy, full of customers, and there was muzak playing. It was all a bit too loud, and a bit too warm and stuffy after being out in the north wind all morning. I'll go back later in the year, when it's possible to sit outside in the gardens.

***

Did something to the camera, stuffing it carelessly into the camera bag. The flash popped up, and would not go down again. I thought I had broken it, and that I would have to get it back to the sellers in the two remaining days before the six month secondhand warranty expires... But luckily it turned out to be a system error, not a mechanical failure, and I found a fix online. (For future reference: switch the camera to Auto mode, put on the lens cap, hold down the flash manually, and press the shutter. An error message will tell you to switch the camera on and off. This will reset the flash.)