We could see the glorious landscape
THERE is a place in West Dorset that I absolutely love. I hadn’t been there for years and then, when travelling restrictions were lifted in lockdown, Mr Grigg said after supper one evening, “Do you fancy a drive?”
We left the dogs behind (they’d already had a long walk up Bluebell Hill that day), went into town to get some petrol for my little yellow Beetle, then realised we only needed ten pounds’ worth because fuel prices had come down so much.
“Shall we pop down to look at the sea?” he asked.
I took a deep breath as everything I had seen about our local coastline was telling me not to go anywhere near it.
There were far too many people about and, in the pictures I had seen, they didn’t appear to be very good at social distancing.
We tend not to go to the coast in the summer now that Mr Grigg has sold his boat. We find the seaside a place best left for winter.
But it was evening and we decided we’d be all right if we stayed in the car.
And the place was empty, save for a few pedestrians, which was delightful.
We pootled round the harbour and up to the esplanade, sensibly closed to traffic, then turned around to come back.
Bypassing the town, we headed off east along the main road before taking a small lane which winds its way up to an ancient hillfort.
The last time we came up here, Mr Grigg and I were on electric bikes, having won the trip as a prize in a raffle.
The car chugged up the steep slope without even wheezing before Mr Grigg pulled into a layby at the top.
Looking out to the west, we could see the glorious landscape out to the shimmering sea.
“I love it here,” I said.
“It’s one of my favourite places.”
“I know it is,” he replied. “Why do you think we came here?”
We got out of the car and walked along the track to the National Trust sign and opened the gate on to Eggardon Hill.
A couple was just leaving. It looked like we had the place to ourselves.
That’s when we walked up on to the ridge to realise we were accompanied by a grazing herd of Highland and young White Park cattle.
For a country girl like me, face to face with my favourite animals, I was in seventh heaven. It was just as well we didn’t bring the dogs.
From up here, the patchwork of fields in the evening light looked more like Narnia than West Dorset.
Up on the highest point three figures were silhouetted against a pale orange sky. It seemed we were not quite alone, but it didn’t matter because it made the most wonderful photograph.
When I uploaded it on to my computer later, it looked like I had captured a Star Wars-style binary sunset.
A trick of the light, but perfect for the person who cries at the part of “A New Hope” when Luke Skywalker gazes wistfully at the horizon from his home planet of Tatooine.
“This is absolutely fantastic,” I remarked. “I can’t believe it’s been so long since we have visited this wonderful place.”
We walked back along the footpath in the fading light, the cattle grazing nonchalantly, and got back into the car, driving along the back roads in a big loop that led us back to Lush Places.
And when we reached the house, we looked at our watches and it was almost ten o’clock.
“Wow!” Mr Grigg exclaimed. “Time just flies when you’re having fun.”
We went into the house. The dogs were pleased to see us, and we wondered why it had taken a pandemic to get us off the sofa and to turn off the television. ■
In her weekly column, Maddie Grigg shares tales from her life in rural Dorset . . .