So many times in the past I have paid over the odds for a dish that sounds delightful and then looked at the miniscule amount on the plate and thought "I'm still going to be hungry when I've consumed this."
So I'm delighted that on a trip to Dorset, from which we have just returned, I have enjoyed some stonking food.
Top of the tree was the New Inn at Shipton Gorge which was about 100 yards from where we were staying. First night I had bangers and mash. It was so good that we returned for Sunday Lunch which was tasty and plentiful. This was food how it's meant to be. No pretentions just good solid English grub.
Then we went to Lulworth Cove and had another good no nonsense meal overlooking the sea.
It's been a number of years since we visited Lulworth and Durdle Door and we forgot how tough it was walking to the top of the cliffs. The weather was outrageous for the end of October. It poured down early morning but then the sun came out and it must have got close to 20 degrees.
Being half-term there were plenty of people around. Also visited Lyme Regis - another place we frequented many years ago. The Cobb is where they filmed scenes from the French Lieutenant's Woman film.
Find of the trip was Poundbury which we came across purely by chance and had no knowledge of. We decided to visit Dorchester. Again this is somewhere we visited many years ago. There we found a blue plaque to add to my collection of plaques to fictitious people. This one informed us that The Mayor of Casterbridge once lived in Barclays Bank. Of course at the time it wasn't a Barclays Bank. Neither was it the home of the Mayor as he was from the imagination of Thomas Hardy.
I have mentioned before other fictitious plaques to Sherlock Holmes (in East Dean, East Sussex) and Matthew Shardlake (on the wall of Norwich Maids Head Hotel). When we went to Verona we visited the Romeo and Juliet Balcony which of course was fictitious. People were encouraged to leave messages to loved ones on post it notes and there were literally hundreds. What a strange world it is.
But back to Poundbury. We came across it by accident and decided to stop. It was like something out of a film set. The Truman Show sprang to mind. Vastly wide streets, architecture that wouldn't be out of place in Vienna or Spain. It was all very strange. There are no parking charges in Poundbury and oodles of on street parking. It's all on land owned by Prince Charles (The Duchy of Cornwall). It's a love it or hate it place.
We loved it and there was an excellent craft market with some very different crafts to the norm. We bought a wooden Christmas roundabout that is designed on a Victorian toy with a series of ribbons. When revolved it keeps spinning and rising and falling for sometime. It is very ingenious and we got talking to the very friendly man who makes them and various other wooden toys. All were exceptional value for money and he explained that he makes relatively small profits. Each of the roundabouts costs him £12 in materials and takes him an entire day to put together. He sells them for £20. Similarly he was selling wooden craft toys for just £8.
I will be putting details of the latest trip along with numerous photographs on the holiday section of my website. In the meantime I hope you enjoy a few of Poundbury. I will post some photographs of the Dorset coast tomorrow.
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Finally today I just wanted to share some exciting news with you. Last week I was contacted by Pen and Sword Books which has accepted my proposal for a book on Le Paradis Massacre. Now all I have to do is finish writing the narrative surrounding those who fought in that area of Northern France in May 1940 during the Second World War.