Glamping in the snow

Posted on by Juliet Frost

Yesterday I talked vaguely about having a lazy weekend. Hot tub, children’s books, biscuits, that sort of thing. Well, today let’s do the “what did I do?” post.

Friday doesn’t count. I arrived Friday and stargazed from the hot tub. Very nice.

Me, with my hair down for once, sitting on my bed in the shepherd's hut. THe place is lit by a single bulb at the far end, a candle in a lantern next to me and a string of ice-blue fairy lights above my head. There's a lot of stuff on the table next to the bed and on the walls are two crates filled with various vintage plates and cups.

On Saturday, after an early-morning snow flurry, I went to Yeovil in the hope of finding a new camera, as I mentioned yesterday. No luck, but I did go in Hobbycraft. I’m going to make a wreath and a felt star tree decoration – when I’m home from Germany – and I bought some red fleece and some proper fluffy white fleece to make my mum some mittens for Christmas. Don’t tell her. She’s made vague noises about warm mittens after I made my cow print/astronaut ones. These will be really cosy!

Snow outside the hot tub on Saturday morning, big enough flakes to catch on camera. The snow cloud is blocking out most of the spectacular countryside view.

I came home through Halstock, my ancestral village, which is only about 15 minutes away. My mum’s side of the family are from there and I think there are still distant cousins living there. I planned to stop and do my 2km there but first, there isn’t really anywhere to park and second, it isn’t big enough to walk 2km. So I came home. Last time I was here, I bought a custom mini OS map with the fine intention of doing some nice country walks. Ha! I didn’t do that! So this time I did. I walked a whole kilometre away. A fifth of that is just walking down the drive. I followed the footpath through the woods to Beaminster Down, which is open access land on the map but clearly cultivated in real life. I don’t want to do a Theresa May and run through a crop so I kept to the path around the edge until I reached the tumulus at the top. Wikipedia says merely that it’s “prehistoric”. If there were people living on that hill, maybe they lived on this one too. Maybe a Stone or Bronze Age settlement had that big spectacular view once.

Blue sky over a cultivated field. Along the edge of the field is a brown wintery hedge with brown wintery trees and bordering the field is a line of mud which is where you can walk without damaging the crop.

By the time I got home I hoped to be in the hot tub before it got dark. And I was, but only just. I got a bit of slightly pink (but not quite as pink as the picture on Instagram) post-sunset sky then some more star- and moon-gazing. I got out at 8pm to discover that my glass of fizzy flavoured water had frozen. I like to take a tall thin glass of something fizzy into the hot tub but I don’t like alcohol. This weekend it was Tesco Apple & Raspberry fizzy water. Anyway, everything was frozen except me in the warm water. I was cheerfully oblivious.

Me in the hot tub drinking a transparent drink from a champagne glass. The sky is slightly purple tinted and you can tell it's actually a tiny bit dark from the graininess of the photo. I'm wearing a polar bear swimsuit.

On Sunday I was reasonably determined to go out and get my 2km in so I could be in the hot tub by the afternoon. I opted for West Bay, which is the closest seaside town. It’s not very big and it’s particularly quiet out of season and post-Broadchurch mania. The big sandbank on West Beach was well-frosted. As I slither-surfed down towards the sea I thought about how this could be slippery if it wasn’t atop thousands of tons of sand and grit. Snow on the beach, nearly.

An orange-ish beach, curving round to a sea wall made of boulders. The sea is calm and the gravelly beach is frosty.

West Bay often has quite violent waves but it was pretty peaceful. If there wasn’t frost on the beach I might even have considered paddling. Instead I contented myself to enjoy the waves and then to walk around the harbour and out on the harbour wall on the other side. A few of the kiosks were open and I might have stopped for a cheese toast is if it was later in the day. As it was, I went into the gift shop in search of proper British seaside rock. Yes! They had the correct pink mint and rainbow-striped fruit alongside more modern cocktail flavours. By now I’d done my distance and was keeping half an eye on the sky. Got to get back. Need at least two hours to heat up the hot tub. Will I be in it before sunset?

Looking across the harbour at West Bay to the Victorian terraces opposite and the cafe you may recognise as the police station from Broadchurch. The buildings are reflected in the calm water.

Well… yes. But the weather was bad. There was cloud over my view and an hour or two after I got in, there was cloud over my hut. No pretty pink sunsets nor stargazing today. And by my third dip, the water was looking a bit unappealing. That’s partly my fault for dropping the cover in every time I try to put it back on. It’s unwieldy for one person to handle.

Another selfie in the hot tub. This time there's a hint of blue sky under the cloud and it's full daylight. The photo is taken from a little lower down and I'm sitting there holding up my champagne glass of transparent fizz.

I was back in the hut very early. I washed my hair so I’m half-respectable for Guides. The main leader has the plague so I’m in charge. I’m not sure how I feel about that. I have fifteen years of experience plus qualifications in three sections but I’m also brand new to this unit. Our third leader will be there – even though she’s only been at this a couple of years and is still working on her qualification, she’s technically senior to me here. I don’t want to come in and trample on her. Anyway, my hair is clean. The rest of me will stink on woodsmoke again by the time I leave but I guess that’s not the worst smell to take to Guides.

I spent my evening eating toast and lounging on the bed. I’d put three logs in the burner, making it pretty hot pretty quickly and that made me sleepy, particularly as I was spending my evening alternately scrolling social media and picking up my Kindle (but not actually reading anything).

A selfie in bed holding up my Kindle. The reflection of whatever I'm reading is glowing blue in my glasses. My hair looks reasonably clean!

That takes us up to right now, from my perspective. Tomorrow I’ll have to pack up and be out by 10:30, which is fine this time. Got lots to do before I go to Germany! But that’s what I did on my winter glamping holiday. Bit of walking, lots of hot tubbing, lots of laziness and keeping warm by putting too many logs on the fire. It was glorious and I’ve remembered all over again why I keep coming back here in winter and never in summer.

Nelly, a blonde and slightly damp standard poodle running around playing with her sister Harley and whatever toys are at hand. This is the only photo I've got where she appears to be posing nicely (she isn't).