Lush Places: Play misty for me
IF YOU’RE a stranger to these parts, you will one day be astonished by what is known as ‘The Beaminster Tunnel Effect’. It’s when you approach the tunnel in fog and mist from one end and come out in brilliant sunshine on the other.
You can be driving through a murky Mosterton, go through the tunnel and, abracadabra, emerge into a beaming Beaminster.
Dorset folk will say the weather is invariably better this side of the tunnel. Somerset Cuckoos – and I confess I am one – will probably say the opposite. But it works both ways.
You can be pootling up the twilight Tunnel Road and, bam, you come out into sunrise Somerset. It’s like a geographical time tunnel.
Here in Lush Places, however, more times than not we are surrounded by fog when everywhere else in Dorset is bathed in light. A veil of mist hangs over Bluebell Hill nearly every day, hiding the tops of the beech trees as they say hello to the sky.
People move into the village and then, after a month or two, the truth dawns on them.
‘It’s always so damp and cold here,’ they whine.
‘We really didn’t realise that when we first came here,’ they say, as the people who sold them the house rub their hands in glee and roar off in a removal van towards Salway Ash.
But there are advantages in living in a cloud. For one thing, we are mightily grateful when we get even a twinkling of sunshine. And for another, it can be very useful to head up the hill in the swirling mist when you need to make a quick getaway.
Like the time when four of us descended on Netherbury for a quiz in the village hall. We won the main prize, the beer leg and three raffle prizes.
And before the natives even had time to mutter, ‘now just who were those bloody people?’ (although they would never swear as they’re far too genteel), we swiftly jumped into the car and drove into the clouds, never to be seen again.