Dorset and a bit of Somerset in The View from the Terrace

We arrived home from Dorset late on Friday evening, later than we planned, partly because I took a wrong turn on the motorway, it’s a long story but we ended up coming home through Gloucester instead of going over the Severn Bridge. Hubby said we had used more fuel but saved on the bridge toll so probably cut even!

The previous Sunday we had driven down to Glastonbury where we stayed the night. The next day it was raining, only lightly, but enough to make us change our plans for climbing the tor and visiting the Chalice Well Gardens, but we spent a great hour on the High Street visiting some facinating shops.

After a lovely lunch we drove on to our caravan site at Littlesea near Weymouth. There was more light drizzly rain the next day, but it cleared in time to see great views of Weymouth Bay and Chesil Beach. Chesil Beach is incredible, an 18 mile long barrier beach projecting from Portland Island along the coast and forming a lagoon on the landward side, our caravan overlooked part of the lagoon.

Chesil Beach from the Olympic monument on Portland Island. The 2012 Olympic sailing events were held in Weymouth bay on the right of the photo.

After driving around Portland Island it was back to the caravan for a lovely hot shower, sheer luxury after not having one at home for several weeks!

On Wednesday we visited a beautiful water garden just down the road from our caravan site.
It had it’s own Monet Bridge.

There were also 2 smaller bridges, Mini Monet bridges you could call them.

Then we drove on along the coast road and found ourselves in Broadchurch! (Bridport).

We spent our last day at Lulworth Cove. We visited there 42 years ago before we were married, and, apart from a bigger car park and the addition of a smart visitor centre it hasn’t changed.

After packing up on Friday and checking out of our holiday site we spent the morning exploring Dorchester. I was delighted to find a small market where there was a lovely plant stall. I bought 2 trays of violets for my winter window boxes and some beautiful Michaelmas daisies which I planted yesterday afternoon.

Then we went to visit Thomas Hardy’s birthplace, a lovely little cottage on the edge of a truly beautiful wood. He wrote some of his early books in the bedroom on the right.

Now I guess it’s back to ordinary life and bathroom chaos. It’s coming on fine, most of the tiles are up and I might even have a working shower soon!