Studland

What with it looking like the best day of the week, and after our glorious walk on Sunday, we were once again over Studland this morning...and it was lovely. Walking amongst the dunes reminded me of the hours I'd spent criss crossing this sandy landscape searching for Second World War features and finds; during the war the area saw anti invasion and coastal defences, later in the war the area was used for weapon experiments and D-Day preparation training. It reminded me too, that one of my many character flaws is a tendency not to finish things. Between 2002 and 2010 I spent thousands of hours on research, desktop surveys, field walking, plotting, photographing and recording. I'd identified and recorded hundreds of features from the monumental concrete features like pillboxes and Gun Batteries to the more ephemeral features such as trenches, weapons pits and other earthworks, as well as hundreds of small finds, all in all I’d written around 60,000 words, well, I am quite verbose. It, along with far too many other projects and countless drawings and paintings, must be added to my expansive  'to do' list...if I get round to finishing that! Another thing that struck me today, a weekday in early spring, was as with the forest, just how much busier Studland was, far busier than it would have been 15 years ago.