Dorset Day Trip

'Whenever I see  Badbury Rings I think of childhood picnics', commented my friend Archangel Janet on these pictures. Mum and I were not far off a picnic on Thursday, huddled in the car with our fish and chips as the clouds scudded past driven by a stiff wind across the east Dorset downs. I did get out for a short stroll up to the Rings, which were quite soggy as well as windblown. The crows hung in the air, making very little headway.

The view of the towers of Wimborne Minster along East Street is a classic one which hasn't changed significantly in a century and more. One change in the offing for the town is the refurbishment of my former workplace, the Priest's House Museum. This is in the process of being transformed into the Museum of East Dorset which is exactly what my boss the then curator dreamed of turning it into. It's set to lose its characteristic double-bow-window frontage (much to his chagrin, I know), but it's only had that since the last reconstruction. I wonder whether the Tinsmith's Forge will retain the little labels I put on all the objects when I was documenting the collection in 1992 and which were still there in 2013 ...