Alan Russell

There were two anxieties that unnerved us at the place where we checked in for a long weekend. Not in a Norman Bates way as in Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller ‘Psycho’; thankfully. The first anxiety was the lady owner. We were confident she would not sneak into the place with a knife while one of us was having a shower or deliver “some milk and sandwiches” at the dead of night. She just gave off this air of knowing all our movements and appearing out of nowhere. The second anxiety was her Yorkshire terrier. Such a little thing with a face like a gremlin crossed with a Tasmanian devil and the attitude to match.

During the last week of January my post prandial period of relaxation was interrupted in a most abrupt and disturbing fashion. Just as I was going into my light sleep there was a knock at the front door. I was unceremoniously bundled upstairs into a room that I had to share with Lady Servant and Mitzi. While there I heard the front door open, footsteps back and forth, some thudding sounds that came through the walls and “Left a bit, back…….to you….yeah, that’s it mate”.

They looked like a small army of men walking the length of the car park at the railway station. All were carrying fishing rods, pulling trolleys carrying steel boxes and wearing different types of camouflage jackets and trousers. It was their casual uniformity that made me think loosely of an “army”. They were in a loose formation but purposefully all heading in one direction to a destination so far unknown to me. Possibly they were all getting on a train?

As the crow flies, or given the location, as the seagull flies, the distance from Durlston Castle to Anvil Point Lighthouse is about 1000 metres. Without any foreknowledge the walker can see the lighthouse from the castle and, as in my case, set off in high expectation of a reasonable walk.

I must apologise as it has been over a month since I last updated everyone about life here at Omar Towers. Since then there has been a General Election (the less said about that the better), Christmas, New Year, rain and mysterious viruses afflicting the Servants.

I have been on Facebook for six years. In that time, I have not stated that I am a supporter of the Conservative Party. The nearest I have got to expressing such support is when I have openly declared that I have agreed with what a Conservative Member of Parliament has said independent of the party line.