Beach Motocross

Sunday 14th October.

Today's post is written by Ian, who is a fan of motor sports, rather than me, who isn't!

Over a beautiful October weekend Weymouth played host to the annual beach Motocross event. This event which is organised by the Weymouth and Portland Lions Club and the Purbeck Motorcycle Club attracts over 250 top riders from all over England.

On Sunday afternoon, I followed my ears as they led me to the beach where the races were already in progress. A stretch of about a quarter of a mile of Weymouth’s sandy beach at low tide had been converted into a about a mile long Motocross course with a long straight along the waterside with the rest of the circuit comprising turns, 'Bomb Holes', 'Dare Devil' jumps and some chicanes.

Six races were run in the categories of Expert, Senior and Junior (15+) and several top women riders took part – although it was impossible to tell this when they were in all their protective gear. The bikers' leathers and helmets were in all colours which made the sight of the bikes queuing to take their places at the start a colourful affair. The noise of the racing hit you like a wall of sound and there were some fantastic sights as the bikes set off from the start line along the fast straight where the bigger 500cc bikes can hit 90 mph. There were plenty of thrills and a few spills – but no serious injuries thank goodness.

The seafront promenade was packed with the estimated 15,000 people watching and it was a fabulous experience. There was also a beer festival over the weekend – but I passed on that – for this year anyway.

A trip to Bridport, Osmington Mills and the Smugglers Inn

Saturday 23rd September dawned clear and bright with the promise of a fine day. With a forecast of heavy rain and gales for the next few days we grabbed our chance to make the most of the fine weather and went out for the day.

A trip along the coast road to Bridport saw us browsing the Saturday flea market there followed by a sandwich lunch sitting on a bench in the community orchard behind the pretty parish church.The market, marking out the T-shape of the main streets - South, East and West streets - is an eclectic mix of tools and gadgets, jewellery and clothes, cutlery and furniture, along with the more usual 'modern' market stalls selling slippers, tea towels and fresh produce. There are a few independent shops here, including a lovely lighting shop and a good old-fashioned hardware store, as well as some of the more common market-town shops.

On the way back we stopped to admire the view across Abbotsbury swannery and along Chesil beach towards Portland then drove down a long windy lane to the Moonfleet Manor Hotel and Restaurant. Always on the lookout for a good place to eat I asked to see the menu. At £49.95 for a three-course a la carte meal for non-residents I doubt we’ll be eating there too often!

A quick stop at home and then out again to Osmington Mills, seven miles by road east along the coast. This is down another very long and windy lane to the coast where the infamous ‘Smugglers Inn’ is based. At one time it was originally known as the Crown Inn and was home to the leader of one of the most notorious gang of smugglers. He apparently imported brandy that was so disgusting that none of the locals would drink it! In the 1920s to 70s it was known as the Picnic Inn, presumably so-named to attract the charabanc trade on day trips from Weymouth and Dorchester.

Later, in another wise marketing move, it was renamed the Smugglers Inn and the pub, now owned by the Hall and Woodhouse chain, still attracts holidaymakers and is busy all year round with walkers as the South West Coast Path runs through its garden.

After sampling some of the guest beer, we set off for a short walk down the path for a mile or so to Ringstead.

There we walked down to the beach and watched a cormorant fishing, a lady learning to paddle a canoe and a group of three young women setting out what would probably be a rather chilly late afternoon picnic.

Jetskis, powerboats, barrels.. and food

Sunday 16th September was an eventful day for several reasons; not all of them good. Around midday we set off towards Weymouth Pavilion where the Wessex Food Festival was taking place. Along the way we passed the tall ship Pelican of London which will soon be heading off on a journey to the Antarctic as the support ship for modern-day explorer Tim Jarvis’s attempted re-enactment of Ernest Shackleton’s epic journey across ice and mountains for help. See here for more details. Next along the harbour were moored the maritime equivalent of Formula 1 cars; high speed power boats gathered for the afternoon's P1 Superstock championships final race of the season.

In the Pavilion we squeezed our way into the already packed room filled with purveyors of Dorset apple cake and cider, buns, pies and cakes of all kinds, cheese and wine, beer and pickles, sweets and treats and few gadgets, too. We even saw a kitchen designer who we invited to come and give a quote on replacing our kitchen. For lunch I selected a rather unusual heart-shaped vegetarian patty made of grated beetroot and carrots and some other ingredients I can’t remember now. It was very tasty. Ian had rather scrummy-looking sausage roll and a cherry tart. We went outside to eat these and watched jet-ski racers competing in the final of the P1 AquaX Championship being held a little while before the aforementioned Superstock race. Whilst they were getting into place on the course (marked with buoys) in Weymouth Bay a jet-ski stunt rider entertained us with some very daring manoeuvres, including a complete mid-air 360-degree flip.

After lunch we walked into the town centre to do a bit of shopping. A little later, realising that the Powerboat race that he was keen to see had just started Ian went back to the Pavilion and I stayed on and browsed for a while. About 15 minutes later I headed off to join Ian and near the Pavilion it became apparent that something bad had happened, as the local air ambulance had landed on the beach and another helicopter was hovering nearby. Unfortunately, one of the powerboats in the race had hit the wake of another boat and flipped over, tipping out its two occupants at high speed. I’m glad I (or Ian) wasn’t there to see it actually happen. Sadly, the driver later died in hospital but the navigator has made a very good recovery and was discharged on 24th September. A sad end to a memorable sporting summer for Weymouth.

After another visit to the food fair to pick up a bottle of local beer (Corfe Gloriette from the Corfe Castle Brewery), we set off home but were distracted by yet another event on the far side of the harbour. We’d seen some strangely dressed people in open-topped decorated cars and vans had assumed that they were perhaps on a stag or hen do, but when we got over the town bridge we discovered that this was the end of the last leg of the third Dartmoor Barrel Challenge, supporting the MV Freedom (the disability-adapted boat that brought the Paralympic flame to Weymouth) and Help for Heroes.

You would think from looking at these pictures that everyone was dressed as pirates, but there was quite a variety of outfits. See more here. Never a dull moment in Weymouth, that’s for sure.

Music, Maestro, please!

As well as doing my paid work during the day and enjoying what seems to be a continuous diary of events in the town at the weekends, I am also keen to get involved with some local activities on a regular basis with, hopefully, the added benefit of getting to know some more people here.

With this in mind I contacted a couple of the local choirs and duly went off about three weeks ago for an informal audition at the home of the director of a small choir. After a bit of voice-warming exercises and singing through a couple of pieces along with the piano it would appear that I had done enough to be accepted. The following week I drove across town to the rehearsal venue and had a sing-through with the group. I haven’t sung with a choir on a regular basis since my days in Stamford and it felt good to be doing so. Sadly, though, after the second rehearsal I decided that the choir was not really for me; the style of music they perform not being my cup of tea.

With a second choir up my sleeve I went along to their rehearsal the following Monday (last week). This is a larger choir with a more traditionally classical repertoire and I enjoyed the evening. Best of all, they usually perform their concerts within walking distance of home! I have since been to the second rehearsal and still enjoyed myself and was warmly greeted by the other singers, many of whom are also incomers from as far afield as Sweden, Scotland and Wales. Next week, I have an audition (aaargh - I do not like singing solo), but it's supposed to be casual and only to check my range.

I have also attended a meeting of Enterprising Women Dorset, a networking group that meets every other month with a visiting speaker and on the alternate months meets at other groups or events. This meeting included a presentation from Popcorn Marketing, a PR company who helped to turn around the revamped Riviera Hotel in Weymouth - a large post-Art Deco grade II-listed hotel - from one of the worst-rated into one of the top ten rated hotels in the area in just a few months in the lead up to the Olympics. Julie Cleaver, who is also a governor of Weymouth College and will be president of the Chamber of Commerce next year, also runs Open 4 Business, a community interest company. They are organising a free Platforms for Growth conference and exhibition in mid-October at this hotel, so it should be an interesting day out in many ways.

The plague arrives

Saturday, 8th September.

Weymouth – or actually Melcombe, and later Melcombe Regis, as the town on that side of the river was known – holds the dubious honour of being the place where the bubonic plague, otherwise known as the Black Death, arrived in Britain in 1348, carried by people fleeing the plague on the continent. It was transmitted by the bite of a flea, the flea itself having been infected by the black rat upon which it lived. As the population fled the plague, unwittingly taking it with them and spreading it further, the plague went on to kill an estimated 30 to 50% of the country’s population. This fact is commemorated on a plaque attached to the wall of the Ship Inn on the harbour. We haven't eaten there, yet.

This, and many other fascinating facts about the harbour area, was brought to our attention by a member of Weymouth Civic Society who, with his wife, was conducting a free tour of the area on a very warm Saturday in early September (so warm and sunny that I ended up with a very red neck, having forgotten to go out with any sun cream).

We also learnt about the railway line which ran from the main station to the quay at the harbour's end, carrying passengers to the ferry terminal (see more here). Much of the original harbour was reclaimed when the current town bridge was built in 1930 but you can still see parts of the original harbour wall outside The Royal Oak adjacent to the south east side of the bridge. In a street leading off the harbour behind the Royal Oak there’s a replica of a civil war cannon ball that was lodged high in the wall of a building – the Royalists had captured the Weymouth side of town, including the Nothe Fort, were bombarding the Melcome side of town which was held by the Parliamentarians.

In nearby St Mary’s Street, the church boasts an impressive painting of The Last Supper by Sir James Thornhill, who was born nearby and also became a local Member of Parliament. (He was also responsible for the eight scenes in the cupola of St Paul’s Cathedral and for much of the painted ceilings and walls at Greenwich).

On the west, the Weymouth side, of the harbour is a mixture of residential buildings and old store houses. Many are much older than their Georgian and later frontages would suggest and in Cove Street, which at one time was the side of a harbour inlet, is one of the oldest remaining residential buildings in Weymouth. Following restoration by the Civic Society it was, until recently, let out to tenants on condition that they allowed tours of the building on a set number of days per year. It is no longer tenanted, but still open for tours which we have yet to go on. As well as other buildings nearby, it is, reputedly, haunted.

As our guide was revealing the history of the building a former resident came by and told us that although he’d never seen any ghosts, a friend of his had had a very strange and unexplained experience involving noises coming from the stairs. When he turned to look, there was no-one there...

The carnival is over

Bincleaves Green - 14th September 2012

The summer, which made a late comeback this year and for the last three weeks has been hanging on by its fingertips, has slipped away. Blackberries, which are normally ripe and juicy in mid- to late-August, are mostly small and red and unlikely to provide enough fruit for any pies or jam this year.

Today it has been raining steadily for most of the day but it is the first serious rain we’ve had here in weeks. A little while ago, the only things tumbling over the grass were the dogs being exercised up on Bincleaves Green, but now they are joined by browning leaves, swept off their branches by the chilly winds blowing in from the east. The normally calm seas in the shallows of Weymouth Bay are today whipped up into thousands of white horses and the distant hills are shrouded in mist.

I have been extremely busy with work over this period and haven’t had the energy to update the blog – very naughty of me – so I now have quite some updating to do, so here goes with the first report:

Paralympic success
The Paralympics have been, like their sister event, a huge success. Here in Weymouth the beach sports arena, which was created for the Olympics, was re-opened in a slightly modified format, allowing people of all abilities to have a go at accessible sports, including wheelchair basketball and seated volleyball as well as sailing and windsurfing. Such was the success of the two sessions that the local council is considering making the sports arena a regular summer activity.

The main competitive event here, of course, was the sailing. Unlike in the Olympics, Paralympic sailing is one of the few events where men and women compete together and one of the competitions was won by British sailor Helen Lucas – the only female competitor in the race – but a day early. Sadly, the weather was so calm on the last scheduled sailing day that there was no wind for sailing and the decision was taken to award the medals based on the positions at the end of the previous (fourth) day.

Saturday 8th September – the last competitive day of the Games – was a beautiful day under cloudless skies. The town was filled with people enjoying the end of the summer and groups of Morris men, women and children were to be found all over town. They had come from as far as Cornwall and were there as part of the Cultural Olympiad by the Sea programme to celebrate the end of the Paralympic Games.

The following day the Moving Tides procession, postponed from the opening of the Olympic Games due to the appalling weather, took place, featuring over 1,000 performers in costumes of themes ranging from Olympic sailing to Jurassic sea creatures. Unfortunately, Ian and I missed it. The carnival was due to start at 4pm on the Esplanade. We were a little late and on the wrong side of Weymouth Harbour. We keep forgetting that the town bridge (the only working ‘bascule’ bridge in the UK other than London’s Tower Bridge) opens every two hours on the hour to let large boats in and out of the marina, and four o’clock is one of those times. There is a rowing boat ‘taxi’ service that might have helped, but the last one was an hour earlier. We would have been half an hour late and probably missed most of it, so we turned around and walked the long way back home along the harbour and through the Nothe Gardens.

I have since discovered that this carnival is part of the annual Spirit of the Sea Weymouth and Portland Maritime Festival, so we shall be on the Esplanade, in plenty of time, waiting for next year’s procession.