Dorset way

Stoke sub Hamdon

Each county appears to have its own unique feel and mysterious qualities. We all know Wiltshire is weird, as it has Stonehenge, Avebury, Silbury hill etc and the form of the hills often makes it feel enclosed and slightly mysterious ...but Somerset has a different feeling again and so does Dorset. It was almost as if when we crossed the border the atmosphere changed, but perhaps I am getting too in tune with the land and picking up echoes from times gone past... Certainly Dorset, with its pleasant countryside (sadly bathed in misty cloud for half the day) was rich in top quality romanesque delights.

Navigating from the road map, your favourite navigator made her usual useless effort of "oh yes we should have turned there" as the car sailed past its turning.  Our first stop, once we found it, was St Andrew's Church in Todber, an unusual building, which was supposed to have some Saxon carving outside. Alas, said carving was no longer outside and the church was shut, so we returned through the drizzle and dripping trees to the car.  Next stop, Melbury Bubb. A small distance away but not on any direct main road. We decided to "take the cross country route".   I don't know why as I didn't have an OS map and couldn't see the best way to go, even while I was giving directions. The small white roads got even smaller on the map and even less road-like in reality.  Luckily for me I am always driven with skill and care around the English countryside and just kept the map out of sight so that the ludicrousness of our route couldn't be seen.  Eventually, having been down the tiniest and most hidden of Dorset's backroads, including via a diversion, we found Melbury Bubb (to our great relief). Most of the names around there are equally as remarkable - Piddletrenthide, Glanvilles Wootton and Huish Episcopi. Of all things.

Melbury Bubb church was, thankfully, open. A man was inside the door and evidently slightly surprised to see us. "Are you researchers?" he asked us. Well, yes, we are! Never thought of ourselves like this before but in fact that is exactly what we are and it felt good to be recognised as such! The church is apparently "always open" and no wonder - inside the door is the most amazing font ever! It was made into a font out of an existing carving and so the scene is upside down. Someone has done a drawing of it so you can see what is on there. But in fact it is not hard to see (when you have your head the wrong way round). Around the sides are a menagerie of creatures -some I swear we have never seen carved before - a stag with impressive antlers, a dog type creature, a horse... and some strange creatures in between, perhaps a lizard, perhaps a sea creature - really quite hard to tell. All with the requisite curved tails tucking up under their bodies - but in fact tails reminding me of Saxon knotwork as well, as they became a long and weaving pattern, looping in and out of themselves. I was musing there must have been a crossover between Saxon and Norman styles and so perhaps this was part of it? Lovely animal feet and the ususal characterful faces, with amusing expressions. These creatures are neither serious, or in my opinion, religious - we were debating whether they were symbolic of something religious. Perhaps. But perhaps not. Although they are not - apart from these ones - usually creatures that would have been around day to day. So here the stag and horse were interesting. But in other places - the creatures you'd expect to see would surely be wolves, badgers, hares, etc? All very interesting to think on.  It helped to draw them upside down as you were forced to draw what you saw and on turning your drawing upside down it was quite fun to see the result. A lovely spot with an absolutely amazing font. Find it if you can.

Moving on (the heavens opened, it was absurd), our next stop was Melbury Osmond. Inside the church set into the wall near the altar was a creature again with winding crossing patterns around it, this time a bit like a dragon? And possible plants?

Final stop on the tour was Stoke sub Hamdon. From the notes in our sacred blue book (I say our, but the book is all my sister's hard work) the church promised many things of great excitement and it was not wrong! I may have been tired but I became quite emotional. The first thing to greet our eye was a truly wonderful tympanum. My sister is so kind, she likes the initial discovery to be a kind of gift and will often let me go first as it were, to get the full impact of the surprise. The tympanum is very well preserved (apart from a small part where we believe someone had tried to chip it away! Poor thing!)  It is spacious and airy, beautifully considered and spaced out, with a Sagitarrius, a tree of life, three gorgeous birds, a wolf/lion and a fabulous, jaunty lamb of God!  Who doesn't love a lamb of God and this one had a real way about it. The birds had a very appealing design, straight backs and all seen from different angles. They reminded both of us at once of the ones in Little Langford. Ah, we are fonts of all knowledge now (pun intended).  The other creature was possibly a lion (as in Leo) or possibly a wolf - it had a woolly neck so the lion theory fits. But whatever, it was all very nicely done and fun to draw.

That was me drawn out really, so I just had to admire the other treats inside  - the chunkiest font you ever saw with a double band of carving which meant the rest of it would have had to have been chipped out for a year and a day. The most amazing triple arches inside with different pleasing patterns, all very well preserved. Far too much for one person to take in.  On the outside wall as well there was a super-cute dragon being attacked by some stupid person (why did people treat dragons so badly?) with not just a spear but a lance as well.  I loved its curving body and amusing expression. They really knew how to draw character.

I believe Dorset could be a great place to spend more time fonting, it had a nice feel, it certainly had many hidden wonders and it is not too far to go. We have been enjoying a wealth of fonting opportunities recently so long may the good weather continue.

Escape to the New Forest

No, not escape from the EU, but from the awful result of the referendum. We took off for the day to a new area of the country for me, the New Forest and very pretty it is too.  It was relaxing to be driven through the leafy lanes and to see the ponies. There are a lot of posh houses and we had the chance to see many as I inexpertly misdirected my sister several times and gave us a longer-than-necessary tour around the villages.

It was a weird sort of day, of course, but the pocket of green helped calm us after a few rants, and being out fonting was the perfect thing to do.  Four villages had been chosen, first of all Minstead, which proved tricky to get into. We drove down a lane that said Road Closed and indeed it was closed, so we chose to walk through and look for the church on foot. We tried using our sixth sense but after wandering down several roads and also asking some passers by, we realised the church was miles off and that we needed the car. So we stopped for a sandwich, under a tree, in a peaceful spot.

The church itself was quite weird, looking more like a house than a church. It was a bit unusual inside as well but the font was a cracker and reminded me slightly of Steeple Langford as it had four rectangular sides each with its own picture. But the pictures were more elaborate here and harder to make out on two sides. One, described by the church as Jesus's baptism, was three figures - but very hard to see who they were or what they were doing. One looked like it was holding a hammer, or was it holding a person? One looked like an alien. One was possibly an angel with wings. A second side had strange designs too, hard to make out. A third had a rather appealing animal, with two bodies and one head, which is not unlike other animals we have seen. The head looked very like the Cheshire cat, with a grinning mouth.  The fourth side was sadly hard to see as it was too close to a wall. It was, to our delight, a long-bodied but appealing Lamb of God, holding the requisite staff in one foot.

"Are you doing the flowers?" asked a woman who came in, who somehow reminded me of Samantha Cameron. I ignored her because it was such a stupid question,  but she repeated it and we both answered no. Obviously not as the flowers were done and sitting on top of the font. It became an amusing line to ask each other in the other churches we visited during the day.

Second stop was Landford, which also proved awkward to find, giving the day an edge of weirdness. We stopped for a lemonade at a carvery inhabited by only 2 men at the bar and the landlady, and I dared to ask where the church was. The older bloke kindly told us but neither of us really understood what he said. I thought he said something about Royal Gibraltar, the referendum still on my mind, but knew he couldn't have done. After much driving around we chanced upon an Indian restaurant, the Royal Jaipur, on the main road and I was quite chuffed I wasn't going completely mad. The church itself was away from the village and sadly locked, but there were two nice Norman capitals either side of the door, which we drew.

We moved on to Breamore, just outside the New Forest, again stumped as to the whereabouts of the church (I was just using the road map which let's face it, is useless for finding churches). We found this one through a mixture of luck and sense, as there was a "Breamore House" on the map and often posh houses are near the church and luckily there it was. It was a sweet Saxon church with tall windows, and a lovely Saxon archway inside with some writing over the top. Sadly my drawing of it was less than accurate so it looked very odd. There was some fine "ropework" carving as well.

Final stop was Damerham, north east of Fordingbridge. The church was on its own again, stuck down a lane. In the porchway was a rather wonderful tympanum of a horse and knight, vanquishing some poor soul down on the ground. We agreed the carver must have liked horses or certainly observed them well as the horse was accurately depicted. We particularly liked the way its hoof rested on the person lying down, who appeared to be holding an axe. There was attention to detail, as the horse had some decoration and the people's clothes did too. Rather pleasingly my own interpretation of it came out well.

Goats, gorges and Noto

Our second enjoyable day trip was to Noto, another Baroque town in the south-east, recommended by

one and all. En route the guidebook said we went through a gorge, which had old cave dwellings in the rock. We soon recognised these, which were little holes in the rock some boarded up or with little locked doorways. It was quite picturesque and also weird.  We stopped to get out and take some pictures, as well as visit a horse that was on its own by the roadside.  Jo helped it to some grass from the other side of the fence and made a new friend. I went further down the road where I'd spotted some gorgeous goats, white in colour but with cute floppy ears - all of them had black ears except one lone goat who had brown.

A few words in the goats' direction brought them all running towards me and I soon realised there was no fence as such stopping them from getting out, and although it was obvious that they were allowed to roam freely, I couldn't help feeling that an angry goat-owner might run out at any minute and ask me to stop bothering his animals.

Before we could make our escape, a couple of men stopped who lived inside the gorge area. We asked if it was their horse/goats. The man said no, but was interested in what we were doing in Sicily, etc, and held the obligatory large parcel of cakes fresh from the patisserie, for Easter weekend. He insisted on giving us a few. One of them was a biscuit in the shape of a dove.

The rest of the day we spent in Noto, a charming town with honey-coloured buildings not unlike those of Bath. It said in the guidebook that at sunset the stone glows. Jo and I were taken with what the book called one of the nicest streets in Sicily - it was open and unspoilt and quite pretty. Jo even got to hold a cute budgie for a donation to the budgie-owner. For some reason I thought he was going to sell it to her, but of course he wasn't.

We found a church that promised a good view of the town from the top of the tower. It was worth paying two euros as the view was quite impressive and there were many swifts doing their thing around the sky.  The church had a convent attached to it and we were rather aghast at a photo of their accommodation from an earlier time - very sparse and basic looking.  I also found some baroque balcony carvings, which are characteristic of the area.

In the evening, a lovely sunset on the beach near the resort.

This morning there was a surprise outside on the main road: some drummers and trumpets, with some men whirling flags. There was a classic car event (it was all a bit random) with some classic cars along the road, men staring at them, and near the cafe was a large white horse and a painted carriage. The horse was dressed in all sorts of finery, and in the carriage were 3 men in traditional costume playing the rather nice whistle/flutey/pipe thing that they have here. I like it. The cart was painted all over with figures and flowers - on closer inspection there were pictures of people slaying each other, so who knows what that was about. I couldn't help thinking the horse looked like it was dancing as it was moving back and forward a little but probably it was just uncomfortable having to stand there, when it would probably rather have been in the parade, or looking at the classic cars.

 

The drums were cool, they went right through you, but strangely enough the road hadn't been closed so cars were driving past and the men sometimes had to get out of the way. It was a nice change and after watching from the balcony I went down to see the horse and look at the cars.

Jo, Beth and I had to abort a trip to Taormina because it turns out the bus timetable has changed for winter - but on the way to the bus stop we saw a fabulous view of Etna between two roads. The galling thing is, the view of Etna from Taormina will be absolutely amazing at the moment because the sky is so clear - the snow on the peak must look incredible. Oh well, another time.

The Christmas present situation is looking good; I have now sorted most things for my flight, and I just have to figure out a few things for the other end now.