An hour's walk yesterday with Pip led me this magnificent spot that I so often frequent. Lambert's Castle is the site of an Iron Age hill fort constructed by the local tribe dating back some 2,500 years. In the early 1800's, it was part of a chain of signal posts from Plymouth to London to warn of a French invasion during the Napoleonic war. It is a place that, for me, wills peace and perspective, in many ways. To sit atop it and watch the seasons change is to be truly humbled and I often find myself thinking of all the others have stood to admire the view across the Marshwood Vale for past millennia.
So much of the county of Dorset is considered an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and the remnants of medieval times are visible almost everywhere you look. During my trip to Vermont, we found ourselves struggling to describe the landscape; the open expanses of pasture and arable land,, intermittent with ancient woodlands, the banks and hedgerows that line the lanes, that are only just big enough for one car. How they change throughout the season, with the primrose and elder and meadowsweet, rosehips and hawthorn and blackberry. The tunnels weaved through the branches by badgers and hedgehogs and pheasant. How beautifully the spring wood grows skyward after the hedges are layed or topped and the wind that so sweetly or strongly tunnels through the lane like a breath.
The flat expanse at Lambert's is home to ancient crab apple trees and wild gorse, heather, and in the summer and autumn months, the moss is embellished with jewelled wax caps that litter the ground. Turkey tail fungus still grows upon fallen trunks in the coldest of months and lichen feathers the branches completely. Even in the dead of winter, there is so much joy to be absorbed by a simple wander in the woods, an exploration of an old den, a game of hide and seek with my dog and a long cold breath that smells like home.
