Grandma Goes Coastal: West Bay to Abbotsbury

First a word about B and B's. Some have little hot water and skimpy towels, some have almost no hot water but great big towels, and some have hot water and teeny tiny towels. We have stayed above the bar and in a little building behind the bar. That one was a hoot. The toilet would not flush. Wendy had learned from her husband that in such a situation, one pours water into the bowl. Using a tea cup, which seemed to be the only vessel at hand, took quite some time, but then Wendy realized we could use the waste basket in the room as a receptacle, which proved to be much more efficient. I That establishment had beds with an iron bar across the middle and pillows that would not have been luxurious even during the war.

Perhaps the oddest feature of of the just previously described B and B, which, without exaggerating, was pegs below a Motel 6, was this attachment to the wall? Guess what it is!

Why it is a pants press, of course!

Now onto the sights and activities of the day. Here are two photos of the bottom bit of the cliffs. Ain't never seen anything like these before! They look like a dinosaur park. These cliffs have a very thin layer of soil on top--maybe all cliffs do, but here you can see how new that top section is.

Along the beach, was a sprawling, dare I say, ugly caravan park. We learned that the caravans are allowed to stay for only a certain number of years after which they must be replaced with new ones. The old ones are shipped off to Ireland!

There is nothing like a pal to give you a good scratch when you need one.

The shadow interferes with a good view of the side of the cliff, but the point is that it is very soft along this coast, which, of course, is why there are so many major slippages and consequent diversions of the path:

Looking back along the morning's walk:

And looking ahead:

This little dog was doing his chores. He fetches plastic bottles and crushes them for easy recycling:

A bit of flowering gorse (?) adding colour to the pebbly expanse:

The day's official walk was only 9 1/2 miles (and for once the quoted mileage was correct) but two major attractions awaited, adding another 5 1/2 miles to the day's total. Who's counting?

The first was the famous swannery, which one might assume would be in Swanage, but, no, it is in Abbotsbury.

The monks of yore were vegetarians but they did eat the cygnets. In an argument, which does not exactly border on the Talmudic, they reasoned that since the birds were aquatic, they could be classified as fish.

None of the photos do justice to the elegant birds, but then again, they lose some of that regal quality when in penned conditions:

A male, me thinks. How does one know? The cob is bigger, has a deeper orange beak and a bigger black "thing" above the beak and is about 20 % bigger than the female.

Cygnets:

A pen prettying herself up for the day. That is totally not true! This is molting season and all the swans are doing this and maybe they do it all the time any way:

Anna Pavlova came with her troupe to visit the swannery. How better to be inspired for a fabulous performance of Swan Lake!

More interesting facts about the swans:

There is a sick bay for ailing swans:

Over the hospital bed in the picture below, there is a sign, which reads: Nil By Beak!

Swans are not the only fowl at the swannery.

After the swannery, it was off the the subtropical gardens where not all of the specimens were subtropical but it was a gorgeous gorgeous huge garden offering much pleasure to the visitor. The few pictures here do not do justice at all to the gorgeousness:

In the garden, a sword was discovered at some point during the digging of a bed. Perhaps a bit more sleuth work could have identified the date of the weapon: