The Water Meadows

A lady stops me before I’ve even left the road.
“Just enough time to get a little walk in before it gets dark.”
She smiles as if I know her. How does she know I’m going for a walk? I’m dressed the same as if I were going to the shop or the train station. What is it that labels me as walking, rather than doing something normal? The train blares its horn where there used to be a foot crossing, the driver pointlessly obeying the command to whistle, despite there being nobody to whistle at. It might fulfil a childhood dream to blow the horn on his very own train, and he does so enthusiastically, making local residents jump in their kitchens all the way to Weymouth.

I take the footpath through the caravan site. Blackbirds, four of them, pick around the fallen leaves, hoping to surprise something tasty. Two of them leave, not pleased with my presence. The others don’t care as long as I don’t steal their dinner. I assure them I won’t. Most of the caravans are empty, but I startle an old man filling up his water container before it starts to rain. The sky has taken on the colour of dirty sheep. It’s not as grumpy as it was during last night’s storm, but the branches still have some energy in them. The real dirty sheep are over by Woolbridge Manor today, and alongside the path I want to follow across the water meadows. Heads bob up as the guards watch me pass, but after a second’s contemplation they return to their grass. They look up as my welly boot slides on the mud and I find myself apologising as I try to keep my balance. They scatter as my clumsy suction noises leave messy footprints along the river bank. It’s quiet on the water, but I manage to terrify a mallard whilst stopping to put on my hat. I feel like I’m messing up their evening with my nature walk.

I’m relieved for a moment to hear voices ahead, so at least it’s not only me disturbing the peace. We exchange polite hellos as they pass with a brown dog which I suspect started off white. They move on and I stop to scan the rushes on the other side of the river. Two tiny birds fly down into them before one re-emerges, fluttering up and down, slowly gaining height, then disappearing, the black spot erasing itself with increasing distance.

Angry hiccups from a moorhen float my way as I move into another field. I pick what may be my last blackberry this year, judging by the state of its friends. There’s a small bridge over the water that I want to investigate, but I’m not equipped to be out after dark today. I curse having to cut my loop short as the mud becomes tarmac again, edged with thatched cottages that nobody lives in all winter, reserved for holiday rather than home makers.

Two gunshots take me out of my thoughts. Is that the army practicing wargames on the range at Lulworth? Or is somebody hunting this evening? Neither thought is pleasant. I make one final diversion to look back over the river before going home. I’m glad I do as a kestrel hovers over the bank scanning for supper. The water is starting to lose its reflection as evening approaches and the first drops of rain merge with its surface. Just as I turn to leave something darts through the water, a tantalising splosh being the only evidence by the time my senses process the message to turn around and look. It seems the wildlife don’t want to be watched tonight.

Dogservations in Corsham

Following its canine inhabitants, writing student Rachel Henson explores Corsham on foot, and discovers parts of the village most tourists never get to see.

A wobbly dog and two ladies walk past the Deli. I jump up and follow them past Boots and left at Co-op. They enter a café that my cheese sandwich forbids me to enter. I’m in a graveyard waiting for another dog to come along. A stone cross declares it’s sacred to the memory of the Reverend William Green, died in 1904, aged 46. Now surrounded by flowers on a thoroughfare to the supermarket. The owners reappear with sandwiches and tea. The dog is invited to join in with neither and lies panting in the sunshine as they sit down to eat. I awkwardly try to feign an interest in the lone tree in the old churchyard, which I notice is fluttering unnaturally. A closer inspection reveals mesh ribbons and bows tied to its branches, and luggage tags twisting in the breeze. I stop one spinning:
“Be strong and never give up”.

The headstones haven’t been tended to in a long time. But there are other more recent additions besides the ribbons. High up on a wall, between a security light and the metal torture spikes set out for homeless birds, is a sign:
“Pigeons. Please don’t feed them. We love them but there are just too many and they do cause problems. We want to avoid culling.” I’d love to know what sort of problems pigeons can cause in a ruined churchyard between a carpark and a supermarket. The sign annoys me because it’s lying. I doubt that its composer really loves pigeons. I really love my nan, and she certainly knows how to cause problems, but I wouldn’t put spikes on her favourite chair or advise not feeding her as the only alternative to culling.

A man walks past carrying a sack of compost, and cigarette smoke drifts over from a chap staring at me from inside a hi-vis jacket. I feel despairingly dog-less and walk around to the rear of the café, noticing a fellow writer in a hedge as I do so. The gate is open to the rear of the café. There are gravestones here too, but sombre sounds of reflection and mourning have been replaced by a clattering of plates entering the dishwasher. Wiltshire Waste Recycling blue skips sit amongst the tombstones. A ladder lays painfully across a child’s last resting place. “Annie, beloved daughter of Arthur and Jane Holder who died September 1st 1890. Aged 14 years.”

I doubt they wanted her buried in a rubbish tip. I pick up a Fruit Shoot bottle tossed onto someone’s grave and put it in one of the skips, which is itself positioned without respect. The best I can do is tidy up a bit, then I remember I’m meant to be looking for dogs. Yellow lines on the road seem like a plausible thing to follow whilst lacking in dogs, but eight steps later they run out underneath a silver Transit van which is parked over both them and the pavement. They turn up again after an unexplained break where I suspect the painter gave up trying to work around a parked car. This new pair of lines is smattered with white paint, which somebody has driven through before also parking up on the double yellows. Corsham’s traffic warden must be on holiday this week.

A peacock yells at me from a wall on the far side of the car park in which I find myself. It peers haughtily from an elevated position above a Biffa bin, scratches its head with its foot then stares at me until I retreat from the carpark. Back on the high street I finally have one. A rat-sized dog attached by its lead to a mobility scooter. I can’t catch up. I speed up and the woman stops, without warning, to allow the dog to sniff some fallen leaves. I accidentally overtake and kick myself for ending up in front. I have to walk painstakingly slowly, whilst trying to look interested in in the parkland view, until correct order is restored and I’m behind my subject once more. The woman stops again, spinning her tiny buzzing motor around to glare at me over her glasses. I’ve been rumbled.

“This way, Peggy”, she demands, and scoops up the dog, depositing it into a basket before scooting off at a speed I can’t match. A corvid laughs at me from the tree above. I’m not sure whether it’s an angry crow or a grumpy rook, but they seem to find my inability to keep up with a pensioner in the sunshine most amusing.

Walking with the Wounded Badger Patrol

Walking at night with the Dorset Wounded Badger Patrol, naturalist Rachel Henson witnesses the controversial badger cull first hand, reflecting on the impact it has on one of our most iconic mammals.

The fields were laced with orange mist, illuminated by a Halloween pumpkin moon. The sloping fields were kept from running away by hedgerows hiding mammals and the traps laid out to catch them with. This part of Dorset was hosting a nocturnal battle for the fourth consecutive autumn. The government-led badger cull was brought in as part of an attempt to curb bovine tuberculosis, but arguments over efficiency and animal welfare rose in temperature until activists raised up from their armchairs and put on welly boots and head torches. By day these paths led dog walkers and ramblers, but during the cull the traffic changed. After the ten o’clock news, a human on these paths could be a peaceful protestor, a cull contractor with a weapon, a hunt saboteur, a police officer or a curious neighbour. For a badger, it would make the world of difference.

Lowland navigation is hard at the best of times. Map reading by moonlight is harder. Hedgerows merged into the night, distorting field boundaries. Distant landmarks couldn’t help us after dark, keeping quiet until sunrise. Every cowpat squelch or cracking leaf made my muscles tense, but not as much as the pigeons who chose flight over fight as we interrupted their sleep. We entered the woods, sinking into land that gave way under foot, hidden by water left behind from a storm the week before. I shone my torch to the base of each tree, looking for any sign of mammalian life. The map indicated that this was Brock Farm. It couldn’t confirm the presence of badgers, but it seemed like a safe gamble. Memories of a previous outing came to mind when my torch light picked up a badger, standing still at the entrance to its sett. It didn’t leave immediately. Dipping our beams in respect we watched the badger as it decided that whatever threat we posed was minor, and turning slowly, its tail wobbled back underground behind it.

A tawny airborne steam train hooted in the distance, making me stop in my tracks. I chilled from nerves as well as my wet feet encased in no longer waterproof boots. Having recomposed myself, a barn owl barked above my head, and I started to think the badgers would be fine looking after themselves.

“I’ve got one.” Katie called from behind a bank peppered with sett holes. I scrambled closer, cursing foliage too low for my torch to warn me about, that only announced itself by smacking me on the forehead. The cage sat ugly in the amber glow. I had expected it to be shiny, but it was painted bullshit brown. The death box was tied open with baling twine, which tripped effortlessly with a sturdy stick. At the very least it wouldn’t kill anything that night. A silent text message carried away our location as I studied the trap. Either the badgers had grown wise, or this sett was already empty. Peanuts remained in the bait point, the trap untouched.

Less than a mile away, a sow dragged her bleeding body back to her sett, seeping the soil red because the free-shooter couldn’t get a clean shot. The ladies on patrol found her at the entrance, too exhausted to make it underground. At least with a trap, it should be a quick kill. But if a badger enters the trap at sunset, it has no choice but to cower there until somebody comes to shoot it after breakfast. Many of these contraptions were recalled from the vaccination trials and reissued for this year’s extended culling. Standing where a protected species was due to be shot at dawn, the cull seemed an expensive slaughter of scapegoats for a disease mismanaged by humans.

The phone screen glared in the darkness: “Thanks, will sort it.” We carried on our night walk, relieved that the trap was retiring soon. Thoroughbred Black Beauties lined the fences as we returned towards the houses. Demon eyes and Batman ears surveyed the situation. Galloping into the fog they took our secrets back to the farm, but we were gone long before they told anyone.

The Great Dorset Steam Fair at 50

Each August, The Great Dorset Steam Fair takes over the fields of Tarrant Hinton. Attracted by the largest collection of steam engines in the world, 200,000 people swarm amongst the exhibits; wellies on feet, hotdogs in hand.

The collapsed crops are faded by sun and mud, trampled by the public, rolled flat by tyres and steam rollers. In the shadow of fairground rides is an area cordoned off by an ellipse of metal barriers. Spectators perch on hay bales, cameras dangling from necks, waiting for the classic car parade. Strings of light bulbs struggle for attention in the daylight, high up on poles above the fences. Alongside the ring is a silver caravan which stands unnoticed until words begin to leave the speakers paired up on its roof.
“Good afternoon everyone, and welcome to the Great Dorset Steam Fair.”

A threshing machine continues to work, oblivious to the more modern display. Sun-hatted men stand confidently on top of the shaking wooden box, feeding straw in to the chute that begins the process of separating the grain from the chaff. A steam engine works hard to one side, the belt lazily wandering over the fast-paced flywheel. It rocks against its chocks, as eager to work now as it had been when new, when Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles took in this new technology for the first time in the Wessex countryside, over a century ago.

The phut-phut of the engine is out of time with the ABBA mega-mix exploding from a gold and red organ, adorned with angelic statuettes playing Dutch-made castanets. The exhaust of a proudly polished Austin A40 blows its heady petrol scent towards a cocktail of sausages and onion, coal smoke and dust.

“Now we move on to Number 13 in the programme, this lovely Morris Cowley 12/4 coupé, restored by the current owners and used again since 2005…” A man in a checked shirt stumbles into the crowd, drawn over to look at the car. His vision is tunnelled by multiple tankards of farm-house cider, served up in a green-canvas tent held fast by ropes that flaw its customers on the way out. He leans on the fence as the Morris purrs past, completing its lap to a wave of applause before parking up amongst the crowds of curious holiday makers, enthusiasts and eyes that light up as they exclaim in delight, “My Grandad had one of those!”

Awkward Moment on a Train

Those of you who know me, know how much I love trains. In theory, they are environmentally friendly, simple ways to travel. In reality, they are so expensive that it costs me twice as much as it does to drive anywhere. Over the years I've spent commuting between Cardiff and Dorset, I've been delayed by breakdowns, signal failures, hot weather, cold weather, rain, cows on the line and a malfunctioning steam train further up the line. I've sat with drunk people, funny people, creepy people, a man who re-enacts medieval battles and tells people about them on trains, and many normal people too.

There are advantages to travelling this way. One of the big ones for me is that, although it takes nearly twice as long to get to Wales as it would if I drove, I actually get a few hours of my life back. Instead of three hours concentrating on the speedy lumps of metal zooming by and the myriad of white stripes and yellow squiggles on tarmac, I can read, write, think and procrastinate on the interweb. The only time this falls through is on an extremely busy train, like the one I caught yesterday, which suddenly filled up at Bristol Temple Meads, making turning the pages of my book more difficult than it was worth. So I started people watching.

There were so many people squished on board, that for the most part, staring around the carriage was quite boring. However, the lady opposite me was absorbed in a complicated textbook with brain diagrams dotting the text. I tried to read it upside down, and failed. Something about 'resilience'. No idea. Got bored. Daydreamed a bit. Realised she was having a very important phone conversation and that I'd been bored without realising it. I was curious about her frantic scribbling of notes and really wanted to know what the book was about.

I could just ask, of course, but that sort of question has previously landed me in several hours of dire conversation with no way of escape until Southampton Central. So I chickened out. What I did do however, was Google the name she had written on her backpack in permanent marker. The Sherlock Holmes way of finding out what she was reading, or at least finding out something.

To my amazement, the result brought up an American billionaire heiress to a food company... and an art therapist with an OBE. I was just clicking on a search result which took me to Wikipedia, when her phone conversation ended, and the train jolted. Whoever she was, she had far better control of her personal belongings than I did, because whilst her phone was put neatly back into her pocket, mine leapt out of my hands and landed screen-up on the table between us, proudly displaying her own Wikipedia page.

She was good enough, or creeped out enough, not to say anything. Or maybe she was secretly pleased to get a Wikipedia hit, who knows? All I know is that it seemed an appropriate time to attempt reading my book again, I've banned myself from train travel for the foreseeable future, and I still don't know what she was reading.

The Long Trail

As the idea of walking a long distance trail burns away in the back of my mind, every path and gateway appears as an opportunity. Earlier in the year I read Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods, his account of attempting to walk the entire Appalachian Trail. He gave it a fair shot, but its gruelling 2,160 miles eventually got the better of him. I honestly don't think I would have got as far as he did, but still, the idea of completing a self propelled journey of a significant distance is appealing.

When I decided to come to Vermont, I knew that I would mostly be based in the city of Burlington, but budgeted for a few weekend trips in a rental car. Staring at the map or this relatively small state, it became obvious that you could reach any of its corners easily in a day trip, and that there was a nice obvious walking trail dissecting the state down the middle.

The Long Trail is the oldest dedicated long distance hiking trail in the United Stated of America. It runs 273 miles from the Canadian border in the north, down to Massachusetts, and in the southern part of the state actually joins up with the Appalachian Trail. I had to at least set foot on it.

This weekend, we headed to an obvious access point on Route 125, where the signs quite clearly labelled that we had the right trail. All we had to do was pick a direction: North or south? North had the more adventurous feel, looking like it went 'up' rather than stay on the flat. On entering the trail you need to sign in. It enters a wilderness area at this point, and I suppose the authorities want to know how many people they might have lost on the way. Only one other person had set out that day, but it wasn't too surprising considering that it was a very cold day in November and snow was falling.

We only walked for a couple of hours, due to my fingers feeling like they'd disappeared, but it was enough to re-ignite a sense of wonder. 'What would it be like to do the whole thing?' 'Could I do it?' '273 miles is a long way.' These thoughts bounced around my head as we meandered back down the rocky path towards the road. I did, however, make one decision. Nothing would be able to persuade me to walk that trail in November!

Snow in Vermont

It's good to see that weather in New England is as changeable as it is back in 'Old' England. Fall still hasn't finished doing its thing and already we're having dustings of snow in the hills. For these parts, it's only very little, but if we had this in Dorset right now there would be people out there trying to build snowmen. It still has a novelty value for me, and it gives me an excuse to get the Cookie Monster hat out.

These were taken down at Texas Falls in the Green Mountain National Forest. I only had time for a quick potter today, but it's made me want a slightly longer expedition later in the trip. If possible, on the Long Trail. Watch this space.