My kind of seaside

Hasn't the weather here in the UK been fabulous recently?  On Friday we decided to go to Portland  - we went by car to Dorchester where we parked and got the bus to Weymouth where the beach was busy with people enjoying the sunshine.  We got the bus to Portland Bill from here.  Free bus travel is one of the benefits of getting older!

Last time I went to Portland was for a school visit when I was at college back in the 60s - it was wintertime and my abiding memory of it was of somewhere grey, dismal, bleak and cold.  Today was very different!  This is one of the 3 lighthouses on the southernmost tip of Portland and was unmanned back in the 1990s prior to that it must have been a bleak place to live during the winter months but lovely on days like this. This lighthouse is still functional although the other two are not now used for their original purpose apparently. Portland is famous for its stone  which has been used in building many famous buildings including St Paul's cathedral and Buckingham Palace in London and the United Nations Building in New York.

 The close cropped grass was covered with lovely pink sea thrift and above was the sound of skylarks in the clear blue skies - bliss.

Not the sort of seaside for youngsters who like bucket and spade beaches with ice creams and donkey rides (though that is just what is available at Weymouth) or for parents who don't want to be on the alert all the time in case their little dears take a tumble but I thought it all very beautiful and just look at the colour of the sea!

Here are the other 2 lighthouses.

No words needed here!

We had planned to get the bus back to Ferrybridge and walk along the disused railway track to Weymouth but having waited for 45 minutes for a bus which didn't arrive (good job it wasn't raining as there was no bus shelter!) when the bus did come it was an open top one, not a normal service one, which didn't accept our bus passes!  However the driver told us that if we walked along the coast path for a mile or so we would reach Southwell where buses ran every 10 minutes to Weymouth - what a shame we hadn't known this in the first place!

The coast path was lovely and we had sea views on both sides and across the water to Weymouth which you can see in the distance in this photo.When we reached Weymouth we just had time for a quick cuppa in M & S before they closed the cafe and then it was time to make the return trip to Dorchester.   We will have to go back another day to do the railway walk.

The wanderer leaves for pastures new at the weekend so I hope normal service will be resumed soon afterwards. It has been lovely having her and now that we all have an end date we seem to be getting on so much better together.  I will miss the stimulating conversations and having my way of life and my opinions challenged.