Playing at being Lady Mary and James May's girlfriend

It's the lull. A time where countrywide people finish the food in their fridge, the booze in the porch, play with the kids' toys and sometimes venture out to shopping centres, coming home shell shocked and bargain-less.

Brilliantly, my Dad suggested we could go to the National Motor museum at Beaulieu, so off we toddled. As soon as we arrived my son shot into the World of Top Gear exhibition. Whatever your feelings about Clarkson the ideas on that show for how to thoroughly mess up a car are hilarious.







We met Geoff.





Then we went in the museum where we saw some truly beautiful vehicles. Highlights for me were the Model T Ford, the Rolls Royce Phantom and the one directly below which I must own: do you think they'll do a direct swap for a Peugeot 206?












The Bluebird - the car Donald Campbell achieved the landspeed record in.


And the quirkier vehicles









However, it's not just for petrol heads. The house is wonderful. We were welcomed in by a butler who gave us mulled fruit juice and then sang carols in the hall. This gave me the opportunity to pretend to be Lady Mary from Downton Abbey. Again.






And got to look at the remains of the Cistercian house from where Beaulieu gets its French name




It is an utterly fabulous day out. Best of all we had it virtually to ourselves as presumably everyone else was at sales or eating.

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And the running of the deer

Secretly I think I prefer Boxing Day to its more gaudy and glitzy predecessor. It's a day which promises little and often delivers much as opposed to Christmas Day where I always feel the loss of that magic felt in childhood.

Today we went to Corfe Village square to watch a Mummer play. It's the first time I've seen one and I loved the mixture of tradition and bawdiness. A very light smattering of research later and I've found that, whilst it's a medieval tradition, the Mummer play we see today dates from the mid 17c and involves stock characters of King George, the Turkish night, Jolly Jack and a quack doctor who brings the dead to life. Getting to watch a performance lets you, for a moment, feel as if you are in Hardy's Wessex.















We looked at the history of Hardy's Mummer plays in Dorchester county museum where we met the Ooser. This creature, half man and half cow, was a popular sight at midwinter gatherings in 19c Dorset. The last one was lost sometime in the early twentieth century. I'm definitely going to try to find an excuse to dress up as an Ooser some day, maybe on some Hardy orientated dinner party.




Later on we went for a walk at the Arne nature reserve, famous for many Springwatch series. It has a huge population of sika deer and amazing views over Poole Harbour, the second largest natural harbour on earth after Sydney. The very small brown blobs in the photo below are sika - the iphone doesn't lend itself to wildlife photography. I've taken my son there on many Boxing days and have always felt refreshed mentally and physically after the excesses of the previous 24 hours.





I do hope that wherever you spent Boxing Day you had an equally lovely day.

Beginning to look a lot like..,

I've been on this planet for 40 years and the one thing I'm very firm about is that Christmas just doesn't feel right in my own home. For me, Dorset is where I ought to be at this time of year despite the fact that I've not lived here since I was 3. Since my son was born we have developed a few Dorset traditions and I really look forward to them.

The first is going to the panto in Poole. This year's was actually hilarious.



Then, on Christmas eve, we catch the last Santa Special train from Swanage to Corfe Castle. Despite the fact that my son set out a very persuasive set of evidence as to the non-existence of Santa back in October he still likes seeing the old scarlet reprobate.









The trip is always notable for some of the most potent sherry this side of the NASA space programme. You could certainly get back to the moon with this in your rocket blaster.




My parents live in Corfe Castle village. I know I'm biased but I don't think a Christmas Eve walk is as beautiful anywhere else on this planet.







And, of course, today looks very much like I expect your day does.




Merry Christmas. And thank you so much for spending this year with me and my beautiful son.

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With the rising of the sun

I have to admit that as soon as the holidays start my alarm goes off and I don't get out of bed until there are double figures on my digital clock. However, this morning I was up in the dark to witness the rising of the sun on the winter solstice.

Before 7am my son and I were up and out, walking through Corfe Castle village and being amazed by how the dawn chorus was in full voice in the middle of winter. The castle was originally a motte and bailey so is a brilliant vantage point to watch the sun rise over the Purbeck hills and towards the coast. Rapt, we watched the transition from darkened village; through pinkening sky; to the first sliver of blazing orange and the sun easing over the horizon. One of the National Trust staff said she'd been doing it for 8 years and this was the first time that the sunrise was visible. We were certainly blessed by sol invictus, or maybe Samhein.

Afterwards, there was a gorgeous festive atmosphere as we drank mulled orange juice below the castle before having a hot drink and breakfast bap at the cafe.

Happy solstice everyone. Next stop summer.




























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Location:Corfe Castle, Dorset

Bang goes the current account

Today was one of those wonderful days in a teacher's life. Term ended for over 2 weeks of blissful rest. Being me I deferred the rest and instead went on an adventure with my son. I sprung him from his school half an hour early and then we zoomed over the M62 to Manchester. And by 'zoomed' I mean 'crawled slowly whilst moaning loudly about roadworks'.

Our location was Media City on Salford where we went to a 'Bang Goes The Theory' event. The Prodigious Progeny loves this programme and was madly over excited when we arrived and I revealed the surprise.




He was interviewed for a vox pops. In all likelihood it won't be used, but how cool if it was!


He was just incredible talking into camera as if born to do it.

I don't have many pictures from the event itself but it was basically a mixture of explosions and football. A 9 year old boy's dream. Afterwards we got to visit a very familiar friend in the foyer of the BBC





And had dinner overlooking the phenomenal beauty that is Salford at night. I know. That sentence shocked me too.




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Birthday weekend

My son turned 9 on the 4th December and we had a fabulous weekend. On Saturday we went to see Annie at the West Yorkshire Playhouse. It was an amazing production: I started crying in the opening reprise and pretty much didn't stop from then on.

On the Sunday he had a go-karting party. They started off little old ladies on mobility scooters and half-an-hour later were budding Jensen Buttons. Terrifying to watch.










And look who had the fastest lap time




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Catching up on homework

Ages ago I upgraded to IOS5 and ever since then Blogpress has crashed on my iPhone. However, as is our way, me and the prodigious progeny have been very busy and this is a quick catch-up on the story so far.

5th November, his first proper gig at Newcastle seeing The Vaccines and headliners Arctic Monkeys. Totally amazing gig.




On the way back we had a satnav caused detour and saw the Angel of the North up close and personal.

Visiting Wessex

My son's middle name is Hardy, partly as a pun on my grandfather's initials (RD) but mainly because of my love of Dorset and the writer.

Yesterday we joined the National Trust and went on a literary pilgrimage to some of the sites related to the authors in this area.

First was Cloud's Hill, the tiny cottage where T.E. Lawrence hid from his legacy as Lawrence of Arabia. The building is bizarre. His bedroom was like a ship's bunk and lined in metal. His second room was a music room with a huge, and presumably hugely expensive, gramophone. Downstairs he had a bedroom cum library with a 6 foot square bed and thousands of books (a room I admired) and the final room was a bathroom lined in cork that he could have a hot bath in, but which had no toilet. And there was no outdoor toilet either: just a rhododendron wood.

T.E.Lawrence was a friend and visitor to Thomas Hardy and next we went to Higher Bockhampton where he was born. The cottage is beautiful and recalls the stories of the man: that he was believed to be stillborn and put aside until the nurse realised he breathed and the day his mother found a snake curled up in his crib with him. These stories may depress those who struggle with Hardy's language and less than uplifting themes! Afterwards we went to the newly opened Max Gate, the house he had built, which is where he wrote the masterpieces 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles ' and 'Jude the Obscure'. The building has only been open for one season and there is much to do to tell the story of both the building and the writer, but just standing in the room where Tess was created was really moving.

(I am sorry the photos are jumbled at the end recently - since IOS5 I can't find a decent Blogger app which allows me to post in the order I wish without crashing)