THE actual Bank Holiday Monday began with me lying awake in the small hours wondering if the drunken youths in Weymouth would ever, just for one minute, stop shouting at each other. The cheap and cheerful hotel was rather more central than the previous week’s B&B and in consequence was subject to external noise. All. Bloody. Night.
Tag: cows
XXIX – Burton Bradstock to Seaton
MINE was not a lazy Sunday morning, for I found myself up and out of my cheap and cheerful hotel — the main rule of which appeared to be that no two staff members could have the same accent, whether it be foreign or domestic — and awaiting a bus under the gaze of the King’s Statue in Weymouth.
XXVI – Durdle Door to Weymouth
SATURDAY’S walk marked the first occasion on these coastal perambulations on which I have not completed a section purely as a day trip. A friend, whom we shall here call ‘Alice’, has asked me several times when I’ll have to stop day-tripping and start staying over, and the answer is apparently now.
XXV – Kimmeridge Bay to Durdle Door
YESTERDAY was a much shorter walk of only eight miles, into which I managed pack a heady mixture of pain, fear, nausea, exhaustion and sheep.
I knew from the outset that I had limited time for the walk. Kimmeridge Bay has no public transport whatsoever, which meant catching a train to Wareham and then a taxi to Kimmeridge. I asked the taxi driver for an estimate of the cost before we set off and, very reasonable chap that he was, he turned off the meter when it turned out to be more.
Continue reading “XXV – Kimmeridge Bay to Durdle Door”XXIV – Swanage to Kimmeridge Bay
MY LEGS hurt. Actually, I think even the hurt hurts. But on balance, I’m feeling pretty good about it.
It’s been a while since my last walk on account of a number of factors including, but not limited to, being a bit busy, my finances dwindling and not wanting to climb hills in the heat of the summer.
Continue reading “XXIV – Swanage to Kimmeridge Bay”XXII – Lymington to Bournemouth
WEDNESDAY’S walk began with an almost traditional start insofar as, having set off to catch the last night bus at just before four am, I got to the bus stop just in time to watch its rear lights disappear down the road. While this did throw my timings into disarray, it also felt reassuringly familiar. Also, In the end, it made just an hour’s difference.
XIII – Eastbourne to Newhaven
ON FRIDAY night I decided that I needed to boot up Cleopatra, the old Windows 98 machine that lives in a corner of my bedroom, because I needed something on her hard drive. Perhaps because she is ancient in computing terms, or perhaps because she is still sulking over her replacement, Pandora, she repeatedly refused to boot up. But I am a stubborn mammal, and helpful, and eventually I got my way.
IV – Faversham to Whitstable
I KNEW my plan to get up at silly o’clock this morning was doomed before I’d even gone to bed—I’d gotten engrossed in something and was still up and awake at 3 am. So, I decided there and then that today was obviously not going to be another walking day.
I was, of course, wrong.
Continue reading “IV – Faversham to Whitstable”