Yesterday’s walk was from Dorchester back to Milton Abbas, between twelve and fifteen miles the way I went.  It took six hours including a short siesta in the shade under some chestnut trees and a quick paddle in the river Piddle with my socks and shoes off.

I took the 183 bus from Winterbourne Whitechurch into Dorchester and looked around for washing up/waiter work.  I also sent a tweet out on twitter for appropriate work that didn’t entail bending forwards or driving-no replies as yet!

Washing up jobs have been a godsend on a number of my travelling jaunts in the past.  Washed up in a café in the Canary Islands’ Las Palmas, washed up in Ibiza, Cyprus and France, was a waiter in an Israeli restaurant in Bangkok, again in Las Palmas.  It was always usually cash paid daily so I was able to eat, rent a room and even save a little, day by day!

So yesterday I applied for a job for an up market café in Dorchester and one on Chesil beach, (ideal for litter picking after work!) and also signed up with an agency for any future work coming up.

It was a good walk back, hot, very hot, but I took 2 litres of water with me, put my collar up, sleeves down-and walked slowly.  Unfortunately I always seemed to end up walking on the sunny side of tall hedge rows.  The other side I would have had shade.  I found several pathways with hedges and trees either side of me, where with a little breeze a sort of wind tunnel was created and it cooled me down.

There used to be a dead straight Roman road leading out of Dorchester all the way to Tolpuddle, but now you walk through Puddletown Forest after having passed the cottage where Thomas Hardy was born, and also where he wrote his books, “Under the greenwood tree” and “Far from the madding crowd”.  There’s also a new Visitors centre close by, officially opened in February by Julian Fellowes of  Downton Abbey fame.

Five hundred words doesn’t give you much room for description.  I crossed three rivers, met a man (with a huge backpack) walking from Bristol to Weymouth, counted the slow revolutions of a wind turbine on top of a distant hill, three a minute.  There was very little wind!

The walking was slow, the air fresh, the sun appreciated.  I crossed the A35 close to a lay-bye I once made a litter video from, (link below).

I took a detour near home to pass by the burger van for a coffee and an egg and mushroom bap-but he was closed!

I often thought of the Human Beings that had just lost their lives in the desperate Migrant Boats of The Mediterranean, and wondered what I as an individual could do to help.  I was heartened to hear that Medecins Sans Frontiers are teaming up with MOAS, a Maltese privately funded search and rescue operation set up by Regina and Christopher Catrambone in response to the Pope’s plea for people to help save lives in the Mediterranean.

They are doing something.  Speaking for myself, what can I do?

(ps. Fortunately for me the sciatica seems to be improving…but it does take time doesn’t it!).