Ringstead

What a day. The air is clean and crisp, the sky is pale azure blue, few clouds are present and those that are are no more than ephemeral apparitions and the sea, all but empty of craft, is a Prussian blue mill pond. The nature reserve of Ringstead Bay, below the towering buttresses of White Noth, is wild and wind swept, untamed by the extremes of winter, it bides its time, preparing to burst forth when spring beckons. Tangles of brambles between tussocks of browning grass block our way, a new track's found, all animal tracks, over chalk bluffs, amongst the limestone boulders and stacks down towards the rocky shore and the sea, appetizingly glistening below.

The atmosphere was a juxtaposition of tranquil beauty, stillness, of absolute perfection; punctuated by the roar of fighter trainers, passing overhead before the sound wave indicating their arrival has reached you, loud explosions and heavy machine gun fire emanating from the nearby Purbeck ranges and the occasional distant toot of a hunters horn and excited barks of hounds eagerly chasing scent.