Holmesley Bomb Store

Whilst out walking it's common to see building debris poking through the tracks.  What do you think of when you see it? Do you consider what it was, or whether it's in situ or does it not really register, do you wonder what history lays beneath our feet.  This just looks like building rubble, what it is, is the scattered remains of the bomb store of Holmesley's World War Two Airfield.  Located off a dispersal track, away from the main airfield, all that remains of the storage area are areas of level-ish ground bounded by earthen banks, and occasional patches of exposed rubble. During the war they would have safely stored a variety of munitions, under camouflage netting, with the surrounding trees and shrubs  providing perfect cover.

Burley Old

Burley Old, majestic!

Baby Ceps

Early doors. A cluster of baby Ceps (Boletus edulis).

Kangaroo Moon @ The Square and Compass 27.7.2017

Ah, the Square and Compass, you don't know it? Man, you need to rectify that. The Square and Compass is a sturdy Purbeck stone built inn set on the brow of the ridge, at the head of the valley which runs down from Worth Matravers to Winspit Quarries on the coast. Good cider, good food, a museum (yup, there's a cool museum in one of the rooms) and tonight great live music in the form of the magnificent Kangaroo Moon.

Kangaroo Moon are a versatile bunch of musicians, who appear in different forms, with different musicians, playing all sorts different flavours, funky, rocky, folky, influences from every style and from around the world; the consistent feature throughout though is they're always fantastic. Tonight manifestation was what I think of as the more traditional manifestation, as their music is on a more folkier, earthier tip. I saw them back in April at The New Avalon Ballroom Weekender, where they were on a heavier funkier trip. Tonight the band are Elliet MacKrell on violin and vocals, David Williams on things with strings, other things and vocals, Gem Quinn on drums and Mark Robson on keyboards, Didgeridoo, whistles and vocals.

The performance space at the Square isn't large, lets call it bijou, and it soon fills to the brim. The band begin to play, and instantly there are smiles all round. There's a real warmth to Kangaroo Moon's music, which always draws you in, it's joyful. It's not long before the crowd begins to move, as one by one more people connect with the music. It's so easy to connect to. Many of their songs have traditional themes and flavours, which resonate deeply. On every track Elliet's violin soars, whether lamenting or raising us to the dance, it sings to your heart. Violin is such a emotional instrument, you really feel it, and when played as well as Elliet, you're under it's spell and follow where it leads. With what appears a perpetual gentle smile of deep contentment, David Williams exquisitely plays a succession of stringed instruments and tiny things (of which he has an extensive collection laid out on a bench), which harmonise with Elliet's violin beautifully. Together they create a swirling musical sound-scape, which rises and falls, as we're taken on our musical journey. The songs keep coming, and the audience are transported. Driving everything along are Gem Quinn's drums, the beating heart of the songs, to which all our feet thump. I recently saw Gem perform with Here and Now, he was bloody good then too. That's what you notice with this calibre of musician, their versatility. Finally there's Mark Robson (also long time Here and Now member) surrounded by instruments, multitasking throughout, providing wonderful keys, whilst twiddling things, breathing a bit of didg here, and a toot on a whistle there, all the time delivering soulful vocals as he steers us through stories of gardening, amongst other things. I look around and all I see are smiling dancing folk, people having a proper blast. Lovely!

There's a brief break for people to refresh themselves and natter excitedly. Then the music resumes and by now the audience were totally engaged, I mean totally! Everyone's dancing, individually or together. I see there's a guy dancing whilst playing the spoons, the entire room are now up on their feet and dancing wildly, and the band just kept taking us higher. Gem's driving us along, then drops a marvellous solo, stirring the crowd right up. All the band member laid down stunning solos at one point or another. What an atmosphere! So much joy in the room. Music like this stands outside of time, it's eternal, if civilisation crumbles and people are scattered to the winds, music like this will continue as it always has. This is real music, it resonates in ways other music doesn't. The band look like they're having fun too. At one point I see Gem laughing at the antics of the audience. It's a proper Cheshire Cat grin type of a gig, and people are going for it, and why not. When times are dire (as they currently are), music takes on even more importance, it's a means of transportation. And, man, Kangaroo Moon were out of this world tonight, and they took us with them, what a performance! The audience would have taken more, though after noisy calls for such came to nought, we settled for bathing in the warm afterglow of a really fantastic gig.

A memorable evening for sure. I hope they return this way again soon, you can never get too much of what they bring.  In the meantime check out their site, buy some of their music, you'll be glad you did. As for The Square and Compass, bijou as it is, is an excellent venue, as well as an excellent inn, check it out. I thank the performers, the venue and the other audience members for a blast. Cheers y'all!

Winspit

Purbeck is also known as the 'Isle of Purbeck', and there is a definite sense of other in the place. Standing on the high ridge of hills which stretch from coast to coast, and looking across the Great Heath, across the expansive harbour to the creeping metropolis whose nucleus is Poole, Bournemouth and Christchurch, though now spreads well beyond, inching into the countryside, you feel you're on an island, the difference so striking. And, even more striking is when you stand on Purbeck's rough grassland coast with views over the rugged limestone cliffs where land abruptly meets sea. Magnificently wild and exposed, a foreign land, and yet so close to the south coast's biggest conurbation. The older houses too are rugged, telling of hard lives lived and worked in this hard landscape, on the land, on the sea and underground in the warren of shafts, galleries and quarries providing dressed stone of quality for high status buildings around the world. That industry, though still going, is on a considerably smaller scale than its hay-day, all that's left of that now are scars in the form of abandoned and decaying workings. It's a landscape worked and shaped by man for millennia, though through it all its wild spirit remains unbroken. 

Scrumping

Hey, found a neglected orchard out in the woods today. Apples, both cookers and eaters, and pears, although they, like other pears I've seen, are not doing so well this year.  Apple pies it is then! Whatever this place was, something went on here, there's a lot fencing of various heights and types, though what ever it was it stopped a while back as much is ruinous. I remember walking this way many years ago and there was something here, but I can't remember what. Patches of wetland foliage suggest there were ponds, now overgrown, and there maybe a bigger pond through the undergrowth.  More exploring to be done. 

Trio

Colour is brought into an old deserted forest gravel quarry in the form of water lilies which grace the quarries ponds. Radiant aren't they.

Strange days

Still solidly entrenched is summer, and yet autumn comes knocking. A bit previous if you ask me.  The air shouldn't be damp and filled with the aroma of petrichor and autumn, mushrooms shouldn't be poking out all over, though that's just how it is. Strange days indeed, man.

Puffy

Mosaic puffball (Handkea utriformis)

Clouds

Clouds, man.

The Chase

Cranborne Chase is such a wonderfully rich landscape, it's a diverse landscape too. It's high chalk ridges and hills rise from a rich undulating agricultural landscape of thick hedge bordered fields and isolated copses, through parcels, some extensive, of ancient woodland which cascades down  many of the combes and promontories that punctuate the two long ridges which straddle the Wiltshire/Dorset border. The land looks carefully sculpted, it's sensual curves, rounded and smooth.  At every turn are views that stop you in your tracks. And, throughout the diversity in flora and fauna, plant and insect life, in birds and mammals, and reptiles too, is extraordinary. I find it's a good environment to keep my wild plant knowledge (limited as it is) up to scratch by saying the name of a plant I see, recalling and reciting its properties or uses. There are just so many. It's not just nature which is abundant out here, but also our impact on it, from the affects of farming practices, through centuries of occupation, to monumental constructions, the Chase is packed with human history from our earliest of activities.  What a fantastic place to walk. I never get bored of threading the Chase's tracks.

Adder

First Adder (Vipera berus) I've seen this year. Lovely as it is to see, and it is, man, I'm so glad we live in a region with few poisonous stingy bitey things.

Woolly Thistle

The Woolly Thistle (Cirsium eriophorum) is one of our rarer thistles.

Rusty Shoe

A rusty Horse shoe from a long forgotten ride. That's archaeology, that is!