With the Inn crowd

I have to admit I often don't understand why people are so fond of going to the pub. In the area of Leeds in which I live a lot of the pubs are awful with fighting and drugs raids being common. However, on Thursday we went on a beautiful walk through the autumnal countryside to Chapman's Pool, which is a secluded bay on the coast. The final half a mile involved scrambling and slipping down steep valley sides of clay to get to the beach. Once there, it was idyllic: sunny, deserted and with fossils throughout the Kimmeridge shale for my son to collect.

Afterwards we went to the pub that is often called the best in England, the Square and Compass in Worth Matravers. It's completely authentic in being a very old pub but one that is run with imagination and love. There are no pool tables or juke boxes or bought in microwaved pasta pub meals. Instead they sell homemade pies and pasties, serve local ale and amazing fresh apply juice and have a museum taking up a third of the footprint of the building, full of fossils and archaeological finds. If I lived in Dorset I know where I'd visit.





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