Monday 20 April 2015

Bring me sunshine…!

Oh me, oh my! How lucky were we with the weather over the Easter holidays - and beyond! It's been glorious - and I love it!

We had a really nice break although I have to confess we didn't do too much exploring of Dorset this time around. We did things like the beach, Upton, Farmer Palmer's and went to visit my family in the Cotswolds. And we had a few days at home, painting and pottering in the garden, which is always nice. 

It felt like a really long break, I don't know if that was the weather or the fact that our holidays ran differently to most of the country (hurrah, less crowds!) but it felt like we squeezed a lot in and that was good. 

And now it's back to reality with the school run, work, routines… But hey, at least it's sunny!

And we can think ahead to the May half-term. So who's going to tell me their top tips for places to go then? 

Tuesday 7 April 2015

Far From The Madding Crowd

If anyone's looked at the other section of my blog - My reading list - you'll have realised that I am a book geek. I LOVE reading. I really, really do. The only thing I miss about living in London is the fact I don't have the hour or so commute where I would bury my head in a book and lose myself for a while.

Dorset and its beauty has inspired many a novelist and one of the county's favourite famous sons is Thomas Hardy. Having studied Far From The Madding Crowd at school and grown to love it, I was keen to see where this literary genius grew up and got his inspiration from. So last weekend I took a trip to Higher Bockhampton, near Dorchester, to see where the great man lived (and as it was Easter, it had the added bonus of offering an Easter Egg trail to keep D1 entertained!)

Owned by the National Trust (membership comes in VERY handy in Dorset), the property is your archetypal chocolate-box cottage. It's beautiful. Set in woodland, which you can walk through to get to it, it has lovely gardens with trees, flowers, vegetable patches. And when we arrived, a fire was burning in the parlour, so we even got to enjoy the smell of woodsmoke as it curled up into the air… Bliss!

The cottage is as you'd expect for something built way back when - so tiny that you can't imagine how a family lived it. But somehow they did, and it's in this little oasis of tranquility that Hardy sat and gazed out of his window as he penned FFTMC amongst others. There's even a replica of his desk that you can sit at and perhaps gain some of your own inspiration!

But as a mum worried about how her 4yo is going to enjoy something a bit more mature, the best bit had to be that you can actively get involved. You can touch objects, you can interact and explore your surroundings - and the staff on hand were brilliant at drawing D1 (or Flopsy as they named her thanks to her Easter bunny ears) into conversation and pointing out things in the rooms she would love. OK, so the trail was great because she knew she would get an egg at the end of it, but 'Flopsy' was genuinely interested in who Hardy was and I think she would have enjoyed the cottage regardless of the chocolate incentive. 

Just a walk away from the cottage, by the car park for the property, the National Trust has built a new visitor centre with a cafe (good scones!) and the adjacent woodland nearby was popular with families, dog walkers and cyclists. It's definitely an unspoilt bit of Dorset that I'll be returning to again - and not least because Clouds Hill, where 
T E Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, retreated when he wanted some peace and quiet, is nearby. I told you Dorset was rife with writers!

For more information about Thomas Hardy's birthplace, see http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/hardys-cottage/