Could be Medusa

We walked in a very secluded spot this afternoon, around a small hamlet called Toller Whelme.  We very nearly didn't manage the walk since a local (37 years in the village) buttonholed us a we passed his driveway and the chat lasted a fair old while.

He must have lost his partner since he kept mentioning him but no one else was around, so it would have been churlish to move away.  And his stories were very interesting, from his playing the organ in our local church (before we arrived) to the shady dealings to bypass the planning system and build an eyesore of a house in front of his property, ruining his view.

And the stories of the beavers introduced to the lake a little further down the lane but which creatures had disappeared into their lodge and had not been seen since.  We saw the lake, run by the Wildlife Trust and it looked like a prison for beavers, with a high fence around the whole perimeter.

And this photo is of a beech hedge, with the huge old limb visible through the serpentine twigs and branches where it must have been laid aeons ago.  Mrs B's late father had often told her of the play that was possible in these gorgeous and huge hedge, dens to be built, accessible the length of the hedges as they were so deep, often with a clear passage in the middle.  Halcyon days of childhood in the Dorset countryside!