Hardy Ha Ha

This is the view from our cottage - Little Glebe.

We went to church at 11.00 at St Christopher's C of E.

It was a holy communion service so it was remarkably similar to a mass. The priest was different because it was Nicola, who is an ex-actor with the National Theatre - and female. She appears to be a CofE trouble-shooter. I thought she was great value. Everybody we met had a connection to Australia. Cricket was discussed.

For the first time on this trip it rained all day. We headed to Dorchester - to find it was closed. Slight exaggeration, there were shops open for retail therapy. I found their "world famous" Tutankhamen Museum open. I paid £9 because I just had to know. Now I know.

Lyn bought things. Then we drove off in search of what Jane Austen would have called “a diversion”. Our guide was a tourist pamphlet about Dorset. We went to Cerne Abbas to see the giant. This is a chalk carving on the hillside. It was grey and raining so I stole a better photo from the www. to give you the idea.

In one of the lesser moments of historical research, the information boards said it was either Heracles from about 1700 years ago, or a local 17^th century send-up of Oliver Cromwell. My theory is that this is what the 14-year-old boys were doing while everybody else was working on Stonehenge.

We had one more excursion left in us. Hardy's monument was marked on the map, and as Lyn is a fan of that gloomy novelist, we set off again. After a brilliant piece of navigation we found the monument atop a height with a glorious view over the downs. (It would have been more glorious on a sunny day.)

Not what we saw ...

Yup

Then Lyn wanted a picture of herself READING next to the monument.

You are probably thinking to yourself, "That is an odd-looking monument to the author of the Wessex Tales" - unless you are one of our children, in which case you are thinking, "Who is Hardy?" We thought it seemed odd. So we wandered across to the information boards. Turns out this is the monument to the OTHER famous Thomas Hardy from Dorset, Admiral Hardy, who was Nelson's Flag Captain at the battle of Trafalgar in 1805. I exclaimed, "It's 'Kiss me’ Hardy". (Nelson was mortally wounded at Trafalgar. Knowing he was dying, he said, "Kiss me Hardy".) My attempts to explain this story were about as successful as you can imagine. Anyhow, I promised to find Lyn the less-kissable Hardy's statue tomorrow.

We also hope for blue skies and temperatures above 12 degrees.