A Christmas Ghost Story

According to the news this morning most of the country is suffering from heavy snow.  Here in the valley there’s not a speck to be seen but it’s cold – deep, deep cold.  The best thing of all is that the sodden ground is now firm underfoot and there’s a spring in my step as we head up the hill.

It is freezing.  My throat and neck are swaddled in two generous scarves.  My hat is puilled well down on my head.  Just my cheeks and my ears are feeling the real sting of the cold.

The wind is coming from the north, down the hill and I’m pushing up against it.  There’s a tap, tap, tapping sound coming down on the wind.  The dogs are scurrying and hunting, looking back to check where I am and standing on the edge of the path looking down into the deep valley, just taking in the view.

It’s bitter.  Behind me Portland is clearly visible but there’s a slightly misty feel.  There are plenty of clouds and the sun is low, blinding when it peeps through a gap and throwing shafts onto the sea producing great, glowing, golden pools.  From the top of the hill I hear the strange tap, tap, tapping noise again.

5000 Years Ago

Onwards and upwards, past Margaret’s bench and the first barrow looms over me as I crest the hill.  Extraordinary that 5000 years ago men built these hills looking over the same view that we see today.  It may be 100 generations ago for mankind but it’s just the blink of an eye in geological terms and our ancestors will have gazed on exactly the same hills, valleys and views as we do.

Up on top of the hill the wind blasts in my face.  The clouds cover the sun and it’s bleak, dark, perishing and strangely ominous.  There’s just a hint of the tap, tap, tapping sound on the wind but now it seems to be behind me back towards the barrow.

I turn and as I do the sun comes from behind a cloud and flares out my eyesight, dazzles me almost completely.  Tap. Tap. Tap.  There are three figures by the barrow, unkempt hair, each of them tapping with a stick…. no.  No it was just the fence posts or those gorse bushes and the sun.

My eyes adjust and the sunlight seems gentler.  Once again the hills and the valleys are bright and beautiful.  The gorse bushes are quivering in the wind.  The tapping noise was just my imagination but a shiver runs down my spine.

So which way this morning? East along the top with spectacular views over Dorset or west and back down into the valley?  The sun goes behind the clouds again and the slightly ominous, bleak feeling returns.  The wind whips up and I pull the scarves up around my face.  Let’s head east.  Hot coffee and breakfast for the dogs seem the best idea.

The wind gusts again and the sky gets blacker. Tap.  Tap.  Tap.  A massive swirl of wind gets up, the sky darkens even further and I squint into a single ray of blinding sunlight as the barrow seems to come to life again to the rhythm of the tapping.  The wind snatches at my scarves.  In a terrifying, weird whirlwind my scarves are unwound, flapping against me, in the wind, in the dark, in the tapping.

Then as suddenly as it arrived it’s gone,  The sun is out.  My scarves lie either side of me on the ground fluttering in the breeze as the tap, tap, tapping fades away.

Gathering my bits together we head past the barrow for home but there on the ground are three matched pairs, sticks and stones.  The sticks about a foot long, a little thicker than my thumb.  The stones the perfect size for holding in one hand and drumming.  The sun is bright now.  What happened?

As we start down the hill the snow begins to fall.

October/November

On the second Saturday in November I stood atop Winslow Hill and imagined myself as an autumn leaf, vulnerable, light as a feather, about to be blown away into yonder.  With hurricane force winds blasting in from the sea, the whole of Bowleaze Cove was a bubbling mass of white water.  As I tried to photograph the scene, with just a fraction of zoom lens protruding, my camera bucked and weaved like a rebellious stallion while the wind and the rain took its revenge on me.

Later that day I went to worship once again at the awesome reality of Chesil Beach in a force 10 when the waves provide the thunder and the spray the lightning.  Behind me the valley was brimming with rain and hunkering down for the worst storm of the year.

Three days later and I’m strolling due south across the centre of the valley.  The dogs are hunting and quartering in front of me.  On my left the deep shadows are playing games in amongst the strip lynchets.  On my right a wondrous and idyllic tableau is formed by the White Horse and a field full of sheep.  Underfoot is sticky and soggy as the rainwater drains down from the hill.  Ahead of me the A353 snakes across the lip of the valley and I wonder when the next motorcyclist will be severely injured up there.  It happens on a fortnightly basis and what does the Highway Authority do?  Absolutely nothing of course.  Dorset County Council sits on its fat, collective, complacent backside while young people are grotesquely mutilated on dangerous roads.  It is nothing short of blatant, inexcusable negligence.

So while the valley is a cure for many of the stresses and strains of everyday life, it is not apart from them.  In fact, I make a plea to all driving south down the A353 to look left towards the sea.  Paradise Valley is far too distracting.

Up on the hill, the yellow gorse flowers are back and I’m marvelling again at the hardiness of the sheep.  When Capone, Carla and I go up there for an hour and a half we come back and spend the rest of the day in heated shelter.  Recently, we’ve had as long a spell of consistently high winds as I can remember.  I hate to think what it must be like for those sheep at 3 o’clock in the morning!

In an hurrah to the height of the pheasant season, this morning Carla demonstrated the superiority of her nose and hunting skills.

We climbed up and over the hump that sits on the northern shoulder of White Horse Hill.  Coming down the far side is a favourite place for deer but Carla hunted high and low to no avail.

Out into the main field where the stubbl;e is thick from the last crop of barley and suddenly she’s put up a hen pheasant, fluttering back up to the hump.  Then there are three breaking from cover, another back up the hump and two curling round towards me.  The third is rising, screaming, soaring as I swing right through it and see a clear 20 feet of lead before I pull the trigger.

Another is up quartering me from right to left, accelerating and rising, actually beneath me due to the lie of the land but tumbled cleanly out of the air as another pair break right and the last one falls to my second barrel.  Carla looks bright, fulfilled and chuffed to bits.

Of course no dogs, birds or people were injured in the making of this film that plays only on the ultimate high definition, widescreen inside your head.  Everything except the birds and the dog were imaginary!

September/October

The ground is now thick with tussocks of coarse grass and withered thistles.  The sun lies lower in the sky and gives everything a much more interesting light than in the summer.  Comparatively, the supposed to be balmy days of June, July and August are boring and sterile.  Now in one morning’s walk along the top of the hill we’ve put up one hen pheasant and, amazingly, with that distinctive whirr and clatter, a pair of partridge streaking down the line at knee height.  An almost impossible and very dangerous shot even with an imaginary gun.

Carla is beside me now, on alert, 30 or 40 sheep are ahead and she’s being a good girl.  Yes, she’s interested but she knows what’s right and what’s wrong.  She doesn’t want to upset me.  In fact, aside from walks and grub, all she wants to do in life is please me.

So she tiptoes forward, perhaps just four or five feet in front of me and the sheep start to run across our path.  She’s steady.  She’s a good girl.

As we begin to head down the steepest path on the hill a last, lonely and unseen sheep breaks across and this is too much.  She lunges and I can see the muscles in her hindquarters flex as she begins to chase…

My arm is in the air and my “sit!” becomes a shout.  Instantly her pert, quivering little bottom hits the floor and stays there – quivering!

The sheep has gone and my gorgeous little girl has passed a stern test.  Stopped in the very act of her natural instinct.  Stopped for me.  Stopped to please me and delighted with the meagre reward of warm words and an affectionate squeeze of my hand.

Such are the wonderful pleasures of walking my dogs – for indeed, sauntering along behind, blissfully unaware of the little drama is my reliable, dependable, unflappable Capone.  He needs no such attention for he is never trouble, always well behaved, always my best boy.

We had an exciting revelation around the turn of the month: categoric proof that the deer population is at least twice what I had previously thought. That morning our outward leg was along the very middle of the valley.  Heading east and looking up towards the hill I could see the familiar family of three sunning themselves in one of the deep folds in the bottom field.

Often I will walk this route seeing nothing but conscious of Carla’s interest up towards the hill.  Every time she is proved right and adjusting my focus or direction I eventually see what she already knows.

So our return leg that morning was just a couple of hundred yards further south, along the bottom of the fields that make up the southern slopes of the valley.  There, right in the middle of the barley stubble, like rabbits caught in headlights, was a family of three deer.  From that location I was able to swing to my right, look through the hedgerows and trees towards the hill and with the aid of my binoculars – there were the original family of three still contentedly sunning themselves.

August/September

The big news through August was the weather.  Never, have I seen so many dismal, dull days with the valley smothered in gloom and an oppressive, muggy atmosphere.

As the prevailing south–westerlies push cloud in from the Atlantic it swoops over the beaches and cliffs, drops into the valley and then often struggles to climb up the mountain.  Wisps of cloud fall backwards down the clefts in the hill.  The result is that we often miss the rain which is precipitated a little farther inland and the valley is left in cloud or sea mist, sometimes all day long.

This, combined with damp and high temperatures, means that paradise has taken a rest for a week or two.  Even the corn has been abandoned, overripe and soggy right up to the last days of the month.  Blight has struck down the last of my tomatoes and potatoes

Worse still has been the horrendous invasion of traffic meaning that any trip outside the valley is prolonged by the queues of cars and caravans standing still on the roads all around.  Journeys that wouild usually take 10 or 15 minutes are stretched to an hour plus.  Perhaps, in fact, paradise is still here in the valley.  Certainly by comparison we are all so very fortunate to live here and sometimes too ready to moan or complain.

With the turning of the month the grockles are gone and glorious, fresh sunshine returns.  There is a sense of excitement and life again.  The rooks are whirling and weaving in the breeze.  The buzzards are on constant patrol, swooping, gliding, seeking those elusive baby bunnies and other delicious prey.  Every day we are out in the valley: Carla, Capone and me – the intrepid three.  There are adventures to be had in every corner, across every field.  As we pass the anniversary of our arrival in Paradise Valley I can reflect on the very warm welcome the dogs and I have received here.  It is a privilege to live in the gentle community of Sutton Poyntz.

It is a privilege to know the valley as intimately as we now do.  Endless meandering through every field, along every hedgerow, up and down the hills and dales makes every nook and cranny familiar.  The great delight is how the seasons and weather change the views and environment.  A vast palette of colours is used.  There are different wind strengths and directions; dramatic lighting and cloud formations; a variety of wildlife, wild fauna and flora, often producing amazing, emotional experiences.  Only by familiarity, experience and repeated visits can one truly appreciate the beauty of the valley.

I can enjoy walking in blustery rain and wind, often more than in stillness and sunshine.  Only very occasionally is there weather that really cannot be enjoyed.  We are moving towards a more exciting season.  There is a developing chill in the evening air.  The sun is still strong but the trees are beginning to redden.  Outside my window the white horse bathes in the evening sun and closer to me two collared doves flutter into the branches of a dead tree.  Behind them is a magnificent horse chestnut and yes, there are definitely colours of autumn there.  The change is upon us.

June/July

Little changes in the valley through the high months of summer – except for the gradual ripening of a few fields to a glorious gold.  There is a little wheat but much more barley.  There are fields of untopped pasture that have run to seed and now rival the crops in their burnished glow.  Silage has already been cut and baled and there the regrowth is bright green. The combine harvester will be along shortly to rescue another wet season’s produce.  Perhaps, just perhaps, another indian summer is on its way.

The invasion of painted lady butterflies in May has led to a massive increase in offspring.  On one rare day of blazing sunshine the eastern slopes of the valley seemed to be carpeted in nothing else.  Literally thousands roosted in the grasses, bushes and simply on the ground.  I wonder what other consequences will flow from this massive peak in population.  How will the valley’s ecosystem be changed by this extraordinary phenomenon?

Of course, the strangest behaviour in the valley is displayed by people.  The brain dead fools that leave gates open and allow the sheep to wander.  The hysterics that clasp their precious pooch to their chest as soon as a real dog comes along, then wonder why they have a nervous and dysfunctional pet at home.  Or the small minority of horsewomen who gossip and opinionate at the top of their shrill, pompous voices as they disturb the peace and cut up the pathways for everyone else.

The worst excesses of some though are quite extraordinary.  A few weeks ago I heard a commotion in the field behind my house.  Leaping atop my garden bench, which does honourable service as a crow’s nest, I saw a very large young lady shrieking as she chased her three dogs, worrying the field full of sheep. Forty-five minutes later, perhaps after a walk or another visit to McDonalds, she was back, allowing her dogs to do exactly the same thing again.  This time one sheep was left stranded on its back requiring rescue before the crows could attack its vulnerable underside.

Most people in the valley are kind, gentle souls and there’s little reason to be any other way when you live in paradise.  Whatever stresses or strains life brings, an hour’s stroll through these fields is powerful therapy and produces an involuntary response of calmness and peace.

I was startled to come across two handsome, square-jawed young men at the base of the hill the other day.  I have never seen even a hint of someone else there before.  They were camping and very keen to reassure me that they would leave the place as they found it.  Whatever fun and games they were up to I was delighted a few days later to find the place in immaculate condition with a burnt out fireplace, encased in carefully placed stones.

Though the holiday traffic in Weymouth is now building to all afternoon gridlock, thank God, the valley remains virtually empty.  This year’s lambs have just been weaned from their mothers and banished to a separate field.  Each morning their plaintive cries are more maa than baa.  Soon though they’ll be off for an even more serious separation – from life itself!  Such is the way of the world.  Just as night follows day and dogs chase rabbits.  There’s no better place to live out your days than in Paradise Valley.

May

May is the month of the skylark and all along the mountain top there’s a gallery of different entertainers.  Every twenty or thirty yards a new song takes over and its performer flutters up and down, sometimes out of sight but never unheard.

The bright yellow flowers of the rape are fading away.  The wheat is developing seedheads and adding a new grey-green to the valley’s palette of colour.  The meadows are profuse with so many flowers and grasses and butterflies and beetles and tiny, tiny little birds.  We’re heading for a flaming June and the valley seems fit to burst with life, with light, with smells, with sounds rolling into summer.

There is one particular field in the very heart of the valley that seems to nurture the widest variety of life.  It is the place where the wild flowers and long grasses first arrived and it is where the deer have now set up their summer residence. Approaching and into spring they favoured the woods along the very base of the hill. It was probabaly warmer there.  Now they prefer this dense coppice, a little more than a hedgerow but less than a wood, warmed in the sunshine throughout the ever-lengthening day.

Around the middle of the month some real weather returned.  Mother Nature hadn’t quite finished with us yet and at one point I found myself high above the Coombe Valley Road grateful for my wraparound shades as the wind whipped hail into my face like shotgun pellets. In truth, I often prefer some wind or rain.  The experience is richer.  It’s easy to tire of calm sunshine.

The woodpigeons are particularly fat and sleepy at the base of the hill.  Nowadays I enjoy only an imaginary over and under and I’ll take quick reflex shots as the pigeons break from the trees.  The only thing missing is the bang and I know in my heart whether my swing was right and I scored a hit or a miss.  Mind you, half a dozen of those big, fat, juicy birds would make a delicious casserole and they’re all just going to waste.  I think the pigeons in this valley die of heart disease due to to overeating and lack of exercise. Someone needs to liven them up with a little sport.  Also, I detect there may be a local consensus emerging that the rooks could take a little thinning.

On one delightful May morning the dogs and I strode around the centre of the valley.  We were enjoying the scent of the wild flowers and grasses while avoiding the young and enthusiastic beef cattle that like nothing more than to terrorise a man and a couple of dogs on an innocent ramble.  Safely through the stampede the dogs began to put up butterflies and as we walked further into a calm but flowing ocean of grasses, they began to rise more often,  Two paces forward and flit, flit, flit.  This way, that way in glorious colour.  Another pace and another flurry of wings, from each dog, flit, flit, flit from both dogs.

The valley is almost at its crescendo now.  Within the space of three or four weeks the days will start to shorten and the bright, vivid explosion of life will deepen into a regular rhythm.  Then the fruits of all this fantastic energy will begin to set, swell and ripen.  Everyone and everything in the valley will start to feast on its abundance.  My tomatoes and potatoes are starting to flower.  Cabbages and broccoli are becoming big strong plants.  In every corner of the valley there’s enough budding blackberries to consider starting a jam factory.

April Unfolds

In the space of a month the valley has changed to a deep, vibrant green.  As the first of the blossoms fall, hedgerow, pasture, wheat and barley weave a patchwork of colour with the sunshine yellow of the oilseed rape.

Once the nettles start they seem to explode everywhere.  The uncurling strands of bracken are beginning to shoot up too. There are more and more bunnies, woodpigeons and songbirds.   At some times of the day the baaing and bleating from the fields full of new born lambs can accurately be described as loud.

There’s an upsurge of human activity too. The White Horse birdmen are back in force, launching themselves off the hill at huge peril to life and limb but swooping, soaring and gliding in what seems such a gentle and relaxing pastime.  A conversation with a visiting French pilot reveals that injuries and deaths are far more frequent in his sport than generally realised.  In fact he describes it as a “cover up” and it reminds me of my own brief skydiving career.  I only did for a year and despite all the official statistics I saw two people die and several more badly injured.

With my feet firmly on the ground I scour up and down the face of the hill watching the paragliders, trying for the most dramatic picture.  Soon though I am drawn down to the bottom, a magical place where somebody has mowed the wide pathway alongside the tumbledown barn.  I wonder who?  I discovered that the work last month on the gorse was funded by Natural England.  That means you and me, the taxpayer. I don’t object to that but I do wonder sometimes who sets the priorities for public expenditure.  There must be dozens – well, at least a few local residents who would volunteer their time to keep the valley in order.  There’s no forum through which to organise this though.  Neither West Dorset nor Weymouth District Councils impress me with their efforts at involving residents.  Discussions I participated in about restoring the White Horse in time for 2012 have ground to a halt. Perhaps this website could help.  Add a comment here if you would volunteer for the care of Paradise Valley.

The barley was only planted at the beginning of the month.  The tractors reappeared and I was amazed to see what was planted back in November being ploughed in.  It seems that slugs had devastated large areas of the winter wheat.  I’m not bothered by creepy crawlies generally but the thought of such a huge army of slugs is the stuff of nightmares.

Climbing the hill up any footpath there are snails everywhere.  I’m reminded of the posters in the vets warning of lungworm that dogs can catch from such slimy creatures so Carla and Capone have a new trick to learn, something else they’re not allowed to do. I wonder whether a dozen of these is the same as a dozen delicious escargot?  I won’t be experimenting so if anyone knows the answer please enlighten me!

In the valley the grass is growing lush and an early morning walk leaves my trousers saturated with dew.  Wild flowers are springing up and the fields in the very centre of the valley are now smothered in an idyllic flush of colour: buttercups, daisies, speedwell, clover and many, many more.  I’m sure that I’ve seen a few orchids as well but my plant identification kills are sadly lacking.  All I can do is wonder at the beauty of it all.

Every day I’m in a state of wonder.  Often, even in the most perfect weather, how I seem to have the entire valley to myself.  This is no complaint because I’m certainly not wanting an influx of visitors or for the fair weather dog walkers to become more hardy in the wet or the cold.  The valley is though a source of great joy and peace and that is why I share it with you.

Walking The Dog(s)

I have been writing about the countryside, wildlife and walking for some time.

See my “Walking the Dog” series here.

Welcome To Heaven On Earth

I’ve lived in Sutton Poyntz for six months now. A mile to the south is the sea. A mile to the east is Osmington and half a mile to the north but up a very steep hill is the “top of my mountain”. Walking my dogs around this wonderful area has fulfilled every dream that I dared hope for when I first arrived.

The Mysteries Of the East

We have perhaps half a dozen standard walks that we’ve learned, each one of which can be varied with diversions, extensions or shortcuts. Usually we walk for about and hour and a half. The one delight that is always there is a succession of dramatic and quite beautiful views. I never tire of these wonderful vistas across the valley, to the sea, the Isle of Portland and beyond.

I believe that being able to see some distance is fundamentally good for your psyche. Even in the midst of our ghastly capital city on the 12th floor of a vile 1970s tower block there was some consolation to be gained from

Go West Young Man

the view. In Paradise Valley the views move me every day as they change and develop with the seasons. Quite why just looking can make me well up and seems to touch my soul, I do not know but it fascinates me that the dogs will do the same thing. We reach the peak of a hill or come round a corner and they will stand on a wall or look over a hedge – and just look.

After one false start, spring is here. In the great national blizzard we got off lightly with merely an inch or so. A fortnight later though and we had our own intense Dorset storm and we woke up to four inches and twelve hours without power.

Taking In The View

Another fortnight on and the daffodils and crocuses are out. There is already some intensity in the warmth of the sun and all around gardeners are beginning to dig and to sow, to dream of runner beans and strawberries. Up on the hill they were burning the gorse. Quite why I’m not sure. Then this week they brought in a formidable machine which seemed to crawl up and down the sides of the mountain completely demolishing the gorse bushes  and leaving an apparently smooth and fresh sward of pasture.

This required immediate investigation and so the dogs and I struck out for the top. Up closer we discovered a compact bulldozer on caterpillar tracks with a vicious flail mounted on front. The driver told me that it weighs six tons and guiding it across the slope sometimes it would slip and slide and nearly give him a heart attack. He explained that the gorse needs to be cut back simply to keep it under control. He’s a braver man than me. Perhaps he doesn’t know that others deliberately throw themselves off the mountain underneath paragliders.

So in a deepening wamth, for the first time since winter took hold, I find time to sit. With the absence of movement, without having to worry about negotiating the hills and the fields, with time just to sit and contemplate, the valley bursts into life. It’s like sitting in a huge and magnificent amphitheatre but there’s not just the single focus of a sport or contest. Every single part of the valley throbs with activity. A family of deer watch the dogs in trepidation. Countless beautiful, big, brown buzzards soar and swoop. A pair of kestrels hover over the gorse bushes. The biggest rabbit warren I have ever seen, a city full of bunnies, teems with bobbing white tails. The trees are developing that slightly misty look as millions of buds begin to swell and fill. The insect population is burgeoning and heading towards a total that must surely be in the billions, surely exceeding even the number of humans across the whole of our world.

Paradise Valley is blossoming and as it blooms with it will come ever more intense beauty and experience. This, surely, is one of the most beautiful places on the planet and I live right here. For me it truly is paradise.