A Day On Portland Bill

If we are not careful, John and I can find that we've worked for 2 or more weeks and not had a day off. So, we now try to build days off into our week. We had been fortunate with our b&b in Weymouth to get 3 nights for the price of 2, so were able to stay over on the Sunday night and have some free time on Monday. I had said that I wanted to go over to Portland Bill, as I hadn't been there before and Tyson offered to show us around.

We met him at the highest point on the island and spent almost 6 hours looking around. He had lots of interesting information about what we were seeing and knew of all sorts of hidden vistas. For example, we climbed a bank and there below us was a working quarry. We visited the Victorian High Angle Battery, which looks like a series of grassy mounds, but when you get up close reveals itself as concrete tunnels and gun emplacements. We naturally visited Portland Bill and were treated to a heavy hail storm - after a morning of glorious sunshine. We took refuge in the cafe and had a meal, with a beautiful rainbow as a background. The remainder of the day was cold and reminded us that it was almost November.

We ended our tour with a visit to Chesil Beach - one of my favourite geographical features ever since I first visited it as a student. Again it didn't disappoint. We spent quite a while there and I must admit that by the time we got back to our van and set off on our way home I was very cold. However, it had been a lovely day with no work, no chess, just a time to relax and rejuvenate.