There and back again

This weekend saw Beloved Consort and I meandering through country lanes, absorbing the typically English atmosphere that infuses so much of our cultural foundations, as vistas of breathtaking natural beauty unfolded on every side.

Well, probably they did. We couldn’t see much through the thick mist and/or driving rain. I guess that was the typically English atmosphere.

No, I’m being unfair. There was at least, ooh, several hours of sunshine. Some of it even coincided with breathtaking vistas and so on. Indeed, some of it even happened at the seaside – a veritable miracle.

So I can confirm that Dorset really is remarkably pretty. And atmospheric. Leading one to think not only of Louisa Musgrave and Tess of the D’Urbervilles, but also Bilbo Baggins and Tiffany Aching. Our literary pilgrimage took in, inter alia, the following notable sites and sights:

Dorchester, better known in its fictional incarnation as Casterbridge.
Thomas Hardy’s cottage in Higher Bockhampton*. Accessible only by a leisurely stroll through verdant woodland or along a country lane. Ridiculously picturesque.
Winchester, where Jane Austen died.
Lyme Regis, where Austen spent two summers and set part of Persuasion, and of course where John Fowles set The French Lieutenant’s Woman. Apparently he still lives there, too, and I have to envy him; the place has single-handedly overturned my belief that there is no such thing as a lovely English seaside town**.
And Wincanton, which is twinned with Ankh Morpork and home to the Ankh Morpork consulate.

It wasn’t all booky stuff. We also enjoyed a fair few cream teas, admired the Durdle Door and the New Forest***, oohed and aahed over Stourhead’s landscaped gardens**** and made the obligatory stop at Stonehenge. Where we were most liberally drenched. It’s hard to experience a mystic connection with our spiritual past when you’re bent over double with a brolly between you and the awesome stones.
___
* We also passed Nether Wallop, and for that matter, Middle Wallop. I do love English village names.

** As an Englishman said to me yesterday: “The English seaside resort is an acquired taste. Like salmonella.”

*** It's a thousand years old.

**** Which is the Austen novel and character where she lampoons the fashion for sticking classical temples and ancient woodlands onto new estates? Anybody?