Trying to get everything into my rucksack has proved a strain this trip. Other hikers walk the length of the Caucasus with a 35 litre rucksack whereas I have trouble squashing everything into one of 60 litres. Risking the stitching or splitting my tube of toothpaste (I have done it before) I pushed the contents down hard to make space for one more item. I managed last summer, but my winter sleeping bag and other items included should the weather cool to freezing, are a bit more bulky.
Leaving the picturesque village of Sydling St Norman after noting its thatched, tiled, slated and flagstone roofs, I climbed steeply up to the ridge. Ghostly in the mist, sheep were feeding on turnips in a wintry scene. They gazed at me from behind a temporary electric fence. There was a section of good track, straight and floored with flints that took me north by green pasture. Turning east across an open field of stubble the grey whiteness of the mist enveloped me, hiding all but my immediate surroundings. Slowly a stand of trees became visible before me, their greyness gradually darkening as I approached. Dropping down into a valley, and below the main body of cloud, I could see more distant objects, but not the giant man of Cerne Abbas. This figure, created on the hillside by some earlier generation who dug up the turf to expose the white chalk beneath to outline the figure of a well endowed man, was either not visible from the route of the Wessex Ridgeway or the mist was hiding it.
The small settlement at Up Cerne consisted of picture perfect, thatched houses with walls of flint with lines of red brick. Their hedges were neatly trimmed (but not in entirely straight lines). Inside a small wooden shelter was a dry bench on which I rested, such opportunities being rare in the wet landscape. Maybe it had once been a bus shelter before the residents owned cars. As I ate a "Twix" I read the notices pinned up offering massage, dog grooming, carpentry (sash windows a speciality) and a warning not to leave items in cars. I read the lead item in the church newsletter slipped behind a notice which greatly saddened me. The vicar expressed the view that most of his sermons "completely passes most of you by" and wrote the spark of hope "dwindled in me too"...
With these melancholy thoughts I climbed out of the valley, the effort required by the steep slope pushing other thoughts aside.
After more miles, disturbing squawking pheasants, crossing lonely fields, walking through hedge and tree lined paths, I reached the Dorset Gap, a location where five trails meet. Inside a plastic box there was a book to write messages in. People recorded their walks from nearby villages, their plans to return to a pub for a good lunch and their joy at a fine, winter day (although not today). Soon after I diverted off the Ridgeway trail to go to my Bed & Breakfast, but not before admiring a line of trees.
That evening I walked through the darkness to the Fox Inn, the drizzle reflecting the light from my head torchlight back into my eyes. Water droplets danced in front of my head torch as I walked, collecting on my glasses so that I had difficulty seeing. I feared the Inn might be closed, and certainly thought it would be empty on a Monday night in this remote location. I was wrong. Tonight was quiz night and the bar was crowded with an older, country crowd in green and brown coats and a few flat caps. I decided on pheasant for dinner in recognition of the number I had disturbed today.
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