Here are some holiday snaps:

My sons are feral and the oldest one had to be rescued by the coastguard within an hour of arriving at the beach.



On Lyme Regis beach I found myself yearning for an impromptu raid from the Tehran Morality Police. There are only so many beer guts and varicose veins that a person can look at.





The Museum concentrates on the county's archeological, geological and literary heritage, the latter of which includes features on Thomas Hardy, John Cowper Powys, Sylvia Townsend Warner, John Meade Falkner and the local dialect poet, William Barnes:
The girt woak tree that's in the dell !
There's noo tree I do love so well;
Vor times an' times when I wer young
I there've a-climb'd, an' there've a-zwung,
An' pick'd the eacorns green, a-shed
In wrestlen storms from his broad head,
An' down below's the cloty brook
Where I did vish with line an' hook,
An' beat, in playsome dips and zwims,
The foamy stream, wi' white-skinn'd lim's.
The Dorset dialect is virtually dead, but I once heard a teenage girl say 'Oi bain't' (I be not) to a baffled French exchange student. There may still be pockets of Dorset dialect in some of the remoter 'Squeak like a piggy' parts of the county, but it's unlikely. Even the lovely rural burr is dying out (for non-British readers, the traditional Dorset accent sounds a little like pirates - 'Ha-harr, me hearrties', etc).
However, when the gentleman below was alive, the English language didn't even exist.



Like many small museums, although there were themed displays, there were also some quirky artifacts that the curactors had inherited from an earlier, more ecclectic age. I really enjoyed the displays of stuffed red squirrels and Victorian washing devices, but couldn't quite muster up the same enthusiasm for the farming implements.
Museums like the British Museum or the Louvre are all well and good, but they are so vast that the visitor ends up feeling exhusted and drained within an hour. I prefer a good small museum any day.
I didn't think my visit could get any better, but then I found this exhibition:

I like Dorset. I probably liked it even more when I lived in London and the sight of rolling hills and blue seas was a rare treat, but I still feel excited when I see the Cobb at Lyme Regis. However, I will not be going there again for a few years.
Whilst we were cowering behind a wind break on Charmouth beach last Tuesday, my wife and I concluded that unhappy parents are not good parents. My ideal holiday involves good weather, decent accommodation, nice food and a mixture of stimulation and relaxation. Our caravan holiday provided bad weather, plastic accommodation, a constipation-inducing diet of microwaveable ready meals and a mixture of anxiety and exhaustion.
Britain may be back in favour as a holiday destination, but next year we shall be heading for sunnier climes.
7 comments:
This was wonderful!
Thank you Sam. I've just visited your blog and will be adding it to my favourites - the Geoff Dyer anecdote rings horribly true. I used to run branches of Ottakar's and Waterstone's and had more than my fair share of embarrassing or absurd conversations with authors.
That's very kind of you. Exploring your blog has really brightened my day. What fantastic writing. (It actually made me want to go to Lyme Regis too, in spite all...)
I spent a week in Lyme Regis and also visited Poundbury and surrounds a few years ago. It was perfectly pleasant (and we hired a charming ex-fisherman's cottage in Lyme Regis cheaply out of season), but a week was enough for a few years, not least as some drug addict totalled my car at the end of our holiday by driving into the back at high speed.
Did not manage to catch the Ladybird exhibition sadly.
Poundbury was very pleasant but a bit sterile. However compared to other modern 'carbuncles' one really can't complain!
I guess tyhe blog is like a reverse psycology. I love this part of the UK. For accommodation in Lyme Regis and the surrounding area remember to visit this website. I found it to be very useful
You made my day. I smiled when i read your blog. Thank you.
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