DORSET & GLASTONBURY IN LATE APRIL

It seems we have been on a constant tour of the old castles, churches and ruins of England. We have spent each of the last 5 weekends away and numerous weekends before those. In almost all cases we have been very fortunate with the weather. Newspaper reports suggest that the weekend of April 24^th – 25^th was the warmest April weekend in 60 years. This April has recently been declared the driest and warmest April since records began. The Brits are now talking about their dam levels being 20% lower than this time last year. Drought.......??? When parts of the UK ‘sweltered’ in 26 degree heat (!).We were lucky enough to be down on the south coast of England at Dorset for Easter staying at the holiday house belonging to our friend Jane and her husband Nigel. Mark lodged with Jane in 1991 in London and we have kept in touch.

Sally climbed  the white horse on the hill behind the village before breakfast.

Not some fossils on the beach !

We then we spent the day searching for fossils   

 (legally allowed) on the World Heritage Jurassic Coast and looking around little towns.  The beaches down this way are almost all pebble beach and can, after some time, be comfortable to lay on.

The next day, Saturday 23^rd, had us on our way to Glastonbury via a 2 hour stop at Studlands beach – ranked 6^th best in Britain. 

We wondered what the best might be like and understand why the Poms go elsewhere for beaches! For a British beach it was quite unusual being a 100% sand beach with not a pebble to be seen. It was very crowded and, while the water was very cold, we all went swimming although not for very long.

Lyme Regis is not too far down the road. This is where a young Mary Anning started unearthing fossils from young age in the early 1800s. She and her brother Joseph found the first ichthyosaur skeleton to be correctly identified, which when she was just twelve years old, as well as the first two plesiosaur skeletons ever found.  We will organise an autumn or winter visit there as William wants to go ‘hunting’. Winter rains constantly bring new fossils to the surface and discoveries are made almost weekly. 

We made friends with Rachel who was learning Arabic at the same ‘Mahad’ as Mark in Damascus. Rachel, then 21 and already fluent in at least 5 languages, was a class, or maybe two,  ahead of Mark.  Since last seeing Rachel in 1993 she had married Danny and had three kids whom we had never met while we had our two whom she had never met. At Glastonbury we visited Rachel’s mum Valerie who stayed with us for a few weeks in Damascus while visiting Rachel. Valerie has a fantastic house just outside Glastonbury in Somerset. We were able to crash their Easter weekend and had a great time.