Tag: outdoors

The Lane to Hell

Joanna Corbet2 Comments

We found the lane to hell on a beautiful day in May.

Carved out of the earth by thousands upon thousands of pairs of feet and hooves, and countless twists of wheels, Hell Lane near Symondsbury, Dorset, is one of many ancient holloways hidden in the patchworked countryside of southern England. One of many, and one of the best (although as a local, I am very, very biased).

We started our journey to Hell Lane at Symondsbury Estate, the sun shining bright and the world bursting with flowers and colour and the promise of lots of lazy summer days ahead. We made our way through the estate, through the chocolate-box village, and up along Shutes Lane. Step by step, the lane transformed from pretty country path to a lush subterranean, otherworldly scar.

Plumes of feathery ferns nodded as we passed and late bluebells speckled the verge, hiding in the shade. All around was painted with a thin veil of bright, spring green. The air was still and quiet and cool, filled with ancient memories.

Carvings bloomed in the weathered walls; some plain, some whimsical, others intricate and haunting. Stony faces peered out from the earth, so many it was hard to shake the feeling of being watched along our way.

Webs of tree roots crisscrossed through the ground and clawed along the air. Ivyfalls framed the way ahead, blooming and spilling down towards the path.

Hell Lane, holloway in Symondsbury, Dorset.

The path lead upwards and slowly the world melted back to the cosy, traditional countryside of Dorset.

We took a left towards Colmers Hill. Sheep stared as we wandered passed, their faces as stern as the one’s carved along Hell Lane just metres away, but thankfully not as spooky. They chewed and baaed and scattered as we picked out our way across the grass. Sometimes, we baaed back.

The walk to the top of the hill was steep, but the view was worth the achy legs.

The descent back towards Symondsbury was much kinder on our legs, and the snip-snip of sun-baked grass brushing on our boots replaced the chorus of baas from the climb.

Back at the estate, we were greeted with a very cute and friendly face.

Well, what trip to hell would be complete without a meeting with a horned and hoofed creature along the way?

sunshine & snowdrops

Joanna Corbet3 Comments

Snowdrops and camellias are two of my favourite flowers.

Snowdrops, because they’re tiny pearls of light in the big midwinter dark – they set the ground on fire with the promise of spring. Camellias, because they’re the roses of winter – magical flowerfalls of colour sitting alongside the steely skeletons of trees.

Add a splash of glittering sunshine into the mix?

Well, that right there is a recipe for happiness and a heavy January heart made light.

❤

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a sea of snowdrops

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camellias in the sunshine

Remi Meets the Sea

Joanna Corbet1 Comment

My brother and his girlfriend are down from London over the holidays with their seven month old miniature dachshund, Remi.

Remi is ADORABLE. He’s cuteness and mischief and cuddles and fabulousness on four tiny legs; with a heart of gold, the smooshiest little face, the floppiest and fluffiest ears you ever did see, and a nose that’s perfect for booping.

On Sunday, we took him to Studland beach for his first trip to the seaside.

He loved it. And it was the loveliest thing to see him discovering a whole new world; see him sallying forth into a great unknown; see his first steps on the sand; see his nose covered in it too; see him meet the sea, smell the water, paddle along the bubbly edges of it and look out at the horizon. Probably the biggest and widest horizon he’s seen so far. Poole, Bournemouth, the Isle of Wight, Old Harry Rocks, the silky silver English Channel, cloud after cloud after cloud. He took it all in his perfect, wibbly wobbly stride.

The beach was busy – but Remi’s a city dog, a seasoned pro in busyness, so he wasn’t fazed. He made lots of new furry friends and won himself lots of human admirers too.

And watching him got me feeling all philosophical.

(What can I say? I just like overthinking.)

To be fair, the end of a year and the dawn of new one always makes me reflective. What did I learn? What did I do with my life? Did I make the most of the last twelve months? What do I want to learn and do in, and how do I make the most of, the next twelve? I don’t really know how to answer those questions properly. They probably aren’t truly answerable.

All I do know is I want to be a bit like Remi meeting the sea over the next twelve months – constantly curious, open to the unknown, finding joy in the little things, and quietly confident I’ll be up to the challenge of what’s in store.

I probably won’t look quite as cute as him though.

Here’s lookin’ at you, 2020.

❤

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fun and games

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boop, boop. making friends

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best feet forwards

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run, run as fast you can, you can’t catch me I’m a mini dachshund

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blurry and wriggly Remi cuddles

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one last look

Roses After Rain

Joanna CorbetLeave a comment

Lately, it’s been raining a lotta lot. It’s been cold and grey and cloudy a lotta lot.

On the one hand: it’s great weather for cosy, snug-as-a-bug-in-a-rug reading. It’s great weather for big, baggy, woolly jumpers – my favourite things to wear. It’s great weather for cuddles with cats. It’s great for cheeky hot chocolates and holier than thou herbal teas. It’s great for baths so hot they turn my ghost-white skin a radioactive-pink. It’s great for morning runs that leave my lungs fresh and clean, but my legs unable to cope with stairs. It’s great for irridescent road rainbows shining, bleeding, and swirling across tarmac. It’s great for lazy lie ins spent listening to the drum of raindrops against lush leaves and blooming petals.

On the other hand: it’s Juuuuune.

*folds away summer dresses and cries tears that turn to ice in the air*

Oh well.

*wipes away icicle tears*

At least roses still look beautiful after rain.

Mayor of Casterbridge rose
Mayor of Casterbridge roses after a June rainstorm…

Walking Off Winter

Joanna Corbet6 Comments

It’s only a few more days until winter is officially over here, and I am so, so ready to say goodbye to it. Readier than I have ever been. I’ve tried to embrace the last few months, tried to get on board with the constant tingle of cold gnawing at my bones. I’ve tried to appreciate sludgy snow, biting winds, silver grey skies, short sharp days, and spattering rain; tried to embrace my inner ice queen. I have so, so tried. Really and truly.

But my heart wants spring now, right this very minute, more than it has ever wanted spring before.

I want blooming flowers and zesty bright greens. I want long, long days and I want evenings spent laughing in slowly, gently, softly dying light. I want to lounge in warm, golden sunshine with a book, blossom tumbling from the trees, bees humming through the air. I want strawberries that are fresh and juicy and sweet. I want floaty dresses and flip flops. I even want SPF 50 sunscreen.

*sighs forlornly*

There’s just the matter of those tricksy few more days to get through.

I’ll be spending them how I’ve tried to spend the rest of winter: walking off the cold, walking off the grey, walking off the cabin fever.

And, of course, there’ll be the odd bit of reading thrown in too.

❤

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Green

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If you look too long into the green the green will eat you up. It will wind its way around your heart and its splintered roots will lodge inside your bones. Underneath your skull, a whole forest will unfurl and make your thoughts a muddle. You’ll try to leave it, try to live beyond it, but you’ll find your soul ensnared, find it calling you back, pulling you back, painting your blood and staining you through.

Smoky light beams in a woodland, Dorset.

Reads – Holloway

Joanna Corbet1 Comment

At 36 pages, Holloway by Robert Macfarlane isn’t the longest read on the planet, but it was one of the nicest reading experiences I’ve had in a long time.

It’s teeny-tiny and delicate and cherishable, something to be picked up and reread every now and then. Something to get lost in for ten minutes. Something ‘within which ghosts softly flock’. It’s kind of like a prayer book – one where God is south Dorset (biased? me? *waves hand dismissively but guiltily*), gnarly knotted trees, sunken many-lives-haunted pathways, friendship, and quiet adventure.

It made me want to escape to the real world.

Just maybe when it stops raining.

Holloway - by Robert Macfarlane, Stanley Donwood, and Dan Richards - book review.

 

At The Castle

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The castle looms like it always does, a tangling mess of steely grey rock studded into tufted grass.

I try to ignore my hands as they turn redder and redder, try not to worry about the purple blotches growing in amongst the red.

I collect a ticket and hand it back in a minute later, after the bridge, after the wobbly entrance arch, after getting attached to it and feeling like I don’t want to hand it in (the hoarder in me wants to keep it, as if not keeping it will mean I have never been).

Beyond the entrance, there are stocks to the left. A memory of sticking my head and hands in it years ago flurries round my head. My lungs remember how much my sister and I laughed that day.

Up, up, up goes the path, and I follow.

More paths, more steps.

The views are beautiful. Fields and trees and hills and tantalizing sunbeams falling far away.

Heart slowing, lungs calming, I stop with one hand pressed against a towering chunk of wall that’s angled very unhow a wall should be angled. The picture of it crumbling, the feel of it giving way, floods my head. Maybe it’s best to move on.

Walk, slip, trip.

Broken hallways hiss with icy gusts of wind. Walls are painted green with veils of moss and drip with sticky rain. Elsewhere, they are blotchy with lichen, a mix of grubby white and sickly yellow that blurs into the grey.

The sound of children playing on their lunchbreak twinkles all around the air, filling it with echoes of playful happiness. The sound of traffic buzzes like it buzzes almost everywhere. I wish I could eavesdrop on the sounds of five hundred years ago and five hundred years from now, wish I could know who’s stood here before and who’ll stand here one day.

I take a turn. It leads to a dead end. I head back, try to refind the main path. I attempt to take a shortcut and slide inelegantly between a rock and a hard place. I pray there are no cameras to record my momentary wedgedness between aforementioned rock and hard place. I wonder if walking/shuffling through (getting slightly stuck in) a wall makes me some sort of ghost. I worry I might’ve just frightened someone in the fifteenth century.

Soggy steps lead downwards.

I look up as the sun bubbles through a patch of clouds. It’s framed by one of the many derelict windows and I try to take a nice photo, but, no matter how many I take, none of them look better, none of them shine brighter, than the real-time thing. Away goes the phone.

I head back down the hill, trying not to slide down the cobblestones, trying not to surf down the grass.

The castle looks smaller than it feels in my head when I look back up, and I’m not sure if I’ve imagined it big or my eyes have tricked it small.

I came here looking for something. I don’t know what exactly. I don’t even know if I found it. I hope so.

I do feel better, lighter, clearer.

Colder, redder, and purpler, too.

Corfe Castle on a cloudy, rainy day in January. English castle ruins. Gothic style photograph effect.
Corfe Castle, Dorset, January 2018.

The Light Circus

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Roll up, roll up!

Come and walk where the trees burn with rainbows! Join us in a land of magic and wonder, where colours bleed into the sky and claw their way towards the stars, where darkness is made bright! Ladies and gentlemen, follow us to a place where the air is so cold your lungs will turn it white, a place so cold your skin will bump with gooses!

Roll up, roll up, and keep your eyes wide open!

And please, ladies and gentlemen, remember to stay with us on the paths!

For we cannot help you beyond the lights. We cannot help you in the dark.

And who knows what’s waiting for you there?

Christmas lights in Dorset. Colourful illuminated trees in December. Rainbow colours. Christmas illumination in a country garden, England.

Cobwebs

Joanna Corbet1 Comment

You know the saying “blow the cobwebs away”? After walking at Durdle Door today, I’m pretty sure I’m sorted on the cobwebs front for life.

It was so – so, so, so – windy. My face hurt. My ears hurt. My eyes hurt. My eyelashes even hurt, as the air tried its best to burrow into my eye sockets and brain.

Between the steps down to Man O’ War beach and the steps to Durdle Door, the air funnelled through so hard it was like being battered in the face and chest. I thought, at one point, my shirt and jacket might sink through my skin, tear through my ribs, and rip out through my spine, leaving a tangly mess of me and my clothes in the churning sea below.

Luckily, that didn’t happen. Which is good, because it means I can go again sometime.

Maybe when it’s a little less windy, though.

Man of War Bay, Durdle Door, Dorset, November 2017.