June 2020 - Part Two - Visiting Corfe Castle

June brought a continuing decrease in Covid deaths, and the gradual re-opening of life continued. The weather was beautiful, and continued to be, and people flocked to the coast. An estimated half a million people flocked to the Dorset coast on the weekend. Causing a major incident to be declared by the council, with concerns it may be a possible super spreader event. We continued to avoid crowds, and stayed inland, visiting Petworth Park. 

The house remained closed, but we had a lovely time exploring the gardens and the enormous lawn that form part of the deer park that is spread out in front of the house. We didn't see any deer, but we did see plenty of geese!

There were geese everywhere, all the way around the ornamental lake and beyond. They didn't take much notice of us, instead they were enjoying the water and the shade.

This was the last photo I took there, because I was stood thinking about how I'd love to feed them, but there was so many we might get mobbed. As I was processing that thought, James had opened the bag of birdseed and thrown some down, and suddenly we had a hundred hungry geese charging at us, and it suddenly got very ugly, there was hissing, pecking and one tried to steal my shoelaces. James ended up throwing the birdseed one way, as we ran the other.

Lesson learned, don't try to feed a big flock of geese!

The government announced that areas with high levels of covid cases would be put back under individual lockdowns, and announced that Leicester would be the first city put back under lockdown to reduce cases. This combined with the fact the track and trace app was delayed again, made me think that perhaps things were not going as well as they could be.

Both me and Jame had the week off from work, so we had a couple of days in the garden, before going out to visit Corfe Castle. I had been as a child, but that was donkeys years ago. English heritage had a complex but surprisingly effective system of booking tickets to visit places. You then got to the entrance, had your name ticked off a printed list, and inside you went. Easy peasy.

It's no surprise so many artists have been inspired by Corfe Castle, the fact it rises up on the hills, its grey stones that contract so beautifully with the green grass and blue skies. The fact it seems to glow in the light as well.

Up the stairs into the former keep

Here's the view around the castle, with the viaduct for the heritage steam Swanage railway to pass over the road.

What a stunning view!

The ruins just seem to have this artistic quality to them, especially with the sun shining on them.

Sat on the platform of the Swanage Railway, a heritage steam railway that runs past Corfe Castle. We weren't catching the train, I just needed to collapse on a bench for a bit, it was getting very hot!

James then suggested we go down to the beach, but he purposely chose one further along the coast that was much quieter. So quiet in fact there was more cruise ships parked out to see than there was people on the beach! It was an eerie sight to see, the cruise liners sat out at anchor. Obviously cruises had been cancelled, and for some reason I just assumed they were all parked up in ports.

We had a lovely picnic on the beach, and enjoyed a pot of our home grown strawberries. 

What a simple Pleasure!