After the success of our socially distancing-lockdown-staycation last month and now that our planned overseas holidays have all but been cancelled, although we’re still waiting to hear about Canada in September, we decided to continue the holiday theme with another Dorset staycation.
We’ve been keeping track of the weather all month, hoping to be blessed with sunny weather like last time, and what great news, it was going to be hot and sunny up until the Friday, the first day of our staycation that is, when of course the temperatures are going to drop from 32 degrees down to 18 and the sunny, cloudless skies are going to be replaced by thunderstorms and rain! Typical! But not to be deterred, and being the ‘go with the flow’ girlies that we are we‘re prepared to weather the storm in whatever form.
We’d planned a planning day for today, which as it turns out just happenes to be the hottest day of the year….. apparently. I must say it did feel like it when we set off to Overcombe but on the hill outside the Lookout café it was actually quite breezy. We’d come prepared. Our new ‘easy to carry, easy to assemble’ outdoor camping/fishing chairs had arrived from Amazon and were having their first outing and we’d brought the picnic blanket, maps, books and other materials to aid our planning session. I have to say the chairs took longer to assemble than the ‘seconds’ indicated by the instruction leaflet but after a battle getting the legs into the seat covers, which needed the two of us, we assembled the chairs into something that actually resembled the photo of what they should look like. What a result. Of course the proof of the pudding comes with sitting in them and we gingerly lowed our rear ends into the seat pads. Whereas Maice’s chair seemed quite stable mine was rocking all over the place so we had to dismantle it and start again much to the amusement of the onlookers on the hill. Finally all was well with the ‘easy to assemble’ camping chairs and so we moved onto the next battle which was laying out the picnic blanket. The wind must have thought we’d brought it along for its own amusement as every time we thought we’d got it grounded and held in place by bags, flip flops and books a gust of wind would hook itself underneath the blanket and there ensued the battle. We won, eventually, and settled ourselves into our new chairs, cappuccinos in hand, looking out to sea at the four cruise ships in the bay, the beach below, the hills to the left, the isle of Portland to the right, a lovely blue sky above and we looked at each and said in unison, as we always do when we go out walking……..’we’re so lucky to live where we do’. Ah, this is the life. All we needed now was a footstool to rest our feet on and we’d be well comfortable. Now, let’s see what Amazon has to offer!
After a while of just relaxing, taking in the scenery and soaking up the sun we thought it best to turn our attention to the real reason we’d come up here…..to make a plan for the next four days. We needed something that was weatherproof, something where we weren’t going to get wet if the weather changed and we’d be hit by a deluge of heavy rain or thunderstorms. Well, believe it or not, ten minutes later we’d come up with a plan. Hey, we’re getting good at this. First thing on the plan was a trip to Sainsbury’s to purchase some provisions for lunches but before we did that we wanted to stretch our legs and went for a walk along the promenade as far as Greenhill gardens and then back to the car. Whereas it was fairly quiet where we’d been sat on the hill, as we walked further along the promenade the beach began to get busier and busier. There were sunbathers everywhere, some socially distancing, others not. Are we getting old? We couldn’t think of anything worse than sitting in amongst a throng of people with very little space around. No, we like our home comforts and space! We made our way back to the car and set off to Sainsbury’s.
So, tomorrow is a walking day. We haven’t a clue what to wear as the temperature is going to plummet by 13 degrees……may need to pack a couple of jumpers and a sou’wester! Who knows what the ‘morrow will bring. We’ll just have to wait and see……..!
Until then….
M&A xx
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