Sublyme

When we went to check out after our exemplary breakfast this morning, the receptionist handed us our picnic lunches, which we had ordered yesterday and completely forgotten about. So that was lucky.

From the Limestone Hotel (in West Lulworth, apparently) we drove up the hill to see the Durdle Door, a hole in a rock near a beach nearby. It was quite a steep climb down, so we stopped at the first lookout, although it was possible to go right down to the beach, or follow the cliffs around on a coastal walk. Nah. We’ve done a lot of walking, but whether it’s been enough to offset the eating remains to be seen. Stephen was sure within the first week that he’d put on weight, but that was when we did most of our walking, and we ate fairly well – healthily, and not too much, I mean. It’s the B&B breakfasts that can really do you in, I reckon.

From Durdle Door we took the Coast Road for Lyme Regis, so a lot of 2nd and 3rd gear driving, through some gorgeous little villages, and as we go further, the style of cottage is changing. They’re a lot plainer now, although still often thatched. And the coastal road was quite a way inland, really, just not as far inland as the motorway, I guess. We stopped along the way at Weymouth, but it was still only 11ish so we just had a coffee. It was a nice little town. But too early for our picnic lunch so we continued on, and got to Lyme Regis before we were hungry, so we came straight to the B&B we’d booked this morning. This is the first place we’ve stayed with no historical value (well not yet – maybe in another 100 years it will) but the landlord is a friendly enough chap and the bed is comfortable.

We took our picnic lunches down into the town – only about a 5 minute walk, but quite steeply downhill. Usually I enjoy walking downhill, but this really made my knees hurt, and Stephen said his calves hurt. Again, the town seems nice, with plenty of interesting shops, cafes and restaurants. We found a spot on the seaside, somewhat but not completely out of the wind, and had our baguettes, biscuits and cake. Then we walked further along the beach to the breakwater, the one made famous in “The French Lieutenant’s Woman”. Quite probably it was famous before that, but not in my little world.

Beyond the breakwater are some of the cliffs that contain some of the fossils that made the town famous first. We went fossicking, and found some interesting stones: some worth picking up, some worth taking a photo of. After a while we went back into town, and headed towards a museum (“Dinosaurland”!) that we had passed earlier. We showed the proprietor the stones and he told us about them: not fossils, but examples of a phenomenon called “beef,” so named by a Lyme Regis man in the 19th century because the crystals in the stone look like the texture of the beef he’d just had for lunch. So at least there’s a local connection.

We tackled the hill back to the B&B, and uphill took a bit longer. I wanted a bit of a rest, but Stephen wanted to check out the local pubs in order to enjoy today’s FA Cup

semi-final (Arsenal vs Reading) in a traditionally British way. He found a pub just a block away, and he was happy to go and watch the football on their TV without me (thank god), so that’s what happened. I joined him at 7, but it was a 1-1 at full-time, so I had another half-hour to watch, during which Arsenal scored. Neither team being local, the pub patrons were split: two minorities supporting one side or the other, and a majority of punters who were making fun of the supporters. No one (except Stephen) was watching just for the sake of watching a game of football – if it wasn’t their team playing they weren’t interested. I guess there’s simply too much football happening to watch it indiscriminately.

The pub we were in didn’t do dinner, so we went down the hill again (via a less steep slope) to find somewhere else. In the town we found another pub – actually a fully-fledged hotel – that suited. It had some pictures in a frame of the town during the time of the filming of “TFL’sW” (see above) when it was all decked out in Victoriana: cobblestones, earth colours and so on. Apparently people liked it so much they left it that way throughout the following holiday season. And apparently during the film Meryl Streep’s character was seen emerging from the hotel we were in. So on this trip we’ve been walking in the footsteps of the likes of Edward II, William the Conqueror, Queen Victoria, and now Meryl Streep. Swoon!