A Strange Sort of Day!

Readers will be pleased to know that Ille caught her 16-40 flight from Stansted yesterday, and 2 hours later landed safely back in Tallinn. Being no rest for the wicked (as the saying goes) she was back at work for a 12 hour stint at the UNICEF HQ in Tallinn this morning. Once again I would like to convey her heartfelt thanks to everybody she met while here in England.

A Pub or Ale House has stood on this site since 1346, but the present building is attributed to the 17th century.

There was always a slim chance of a 'post' yesterday, but that was dashed by South West Trains undertaking engineering works and diverting all Weymouth - Waterloo trains via Havant and Guildford. Adding a further hour to an already long 3 hours it was late when I arrived home so opted for a short visit to The Boot. The oldest pub in the town, I arrived to find, not surprisingly, many of my mates, and that Gilles has now left. New landlord and landlady Ken and Diane Russell have left their last project as area managers in the Bristol area for maybe a more sedate pace here.

While there was little of interest either side of the cemetery this morning, I did take to studying some of the gravestones. A little morbid you may think, but there lies some of the mason's craft at its best some dating back to the 1700's. Despite almost daily visits when I'm at home, I had never noticed this pyramidal monument before and on closer inspection realised it was one of my friends.

Lee Henville Cole was undoubtedly one of the finest guitarists that Weymouth has ever produced and believe you me there have been many. Being an albino, I used to refer to him as Weymouth's Johnny Winter and know what an influence the 'great man' had on him. I knew Lee (in passing) even back when he was a schoolboy diligently humping his full size Fender Stratocaster back and forth to the guitar lessons at Weymouth College, and taking every opportunity to plat live gigs around the town's pubs. An exponent of the retro-speed style associated with Joe Satriani, Lee would add these immensely fast finger movement to the guitar breaks in even the slowest of Blues numbers. He was killed on the Weymouth bye-pass during one of my long trips away and not knowing his family, never did get the chance to pay tribute to him so this is it. Long may those Pitchfork keep Rambling wherever you are!

John Dawson Winter III during his heyday.

This Wren was putting on a fine vocal performance in the cemetery

as was this Coal Tit, along with its partner now holding territory. This remains my boggy bird as far as capturing an image is concerned. Even the only obliging individual I encountered in the New Forest earlier this year, was so darn scruffy the shots were condemned to the 'delete' file.

Radipole offered up only a single Swallow and half a dozen singing Chiffchaff, while at Ferry Bridge there wasn't a single bird on the half exposed fore-shore, so I can only echo the words of Portland Bird Observatory Warden Martin Cade on his web-site yesterday "Roll on Spring".

A 'jack-up' barge of sorts secured alongside in Portland Harbour was the only new highlight from my short visit to the Island today.