This is a tradition on this blog: the first post of the year (or occasionally the second) is always devoted to my Christmas Adventure with Tom on either the 27th or 28th December. There are two rules: first, we always go to the coast and second, there must be wine. However, this year’s adventure got a bit muddled up and for the first time ever, there was no wine! You see, normally I drive and Tom drinks the wine but this year, my car was in a state (overdue a service, check engine light on, big hole in windscreen, potentially dodgy tyre but also potentially let down as a prank but you never know) and so Tom drove. In theory, that’s the first opportunity since these adventures began in 2014 for me to drink the wine. But I don’t like wine! I’m utterly wasted as the non-driver!
On the other hand, I’m the local; Tom more or less moved away at 18 and although he comes back every Christmas, I’m the one who knows where everything is so as passenger, I was in charge of directions. That’s fine, I knew where we were going, I’m just not very good at recognising that we’re about to come to a junction where I need to say those directions out loud and once – once – I got my left and right mixed up and that’s more because I wasn’t 100% sure where we were going at that particular small roundabout that I couldn’t quite see than because I don’t know left and right.
It was a beautiful day when we set off and we spent the entire drive doing the back-and-forth “what a lovely day for an adventure”, “couldn’t have picked a better day for it”, “it’s such beautiful weather today!” and when we arrived in the car park at Portland Bill, there was an icy breeze trying to blow us over sideways. I admit, the sky was so blue and it all looked so beautiful that I didn’t take as many warm layers as I should have – and also because I had the most spectacular rainbow fleece for Christmas which I wanted to be my bright and visible outer layer at all times.
We stopped for coffee at the Lobster Pot. This beachside cafe was a possibility for lunch but it’s hellishly expensive even by local standards. The coffee was acceptable (well, so Tom said – it’s another thing I don’t drink) and we walked down to take selfies with the lighthouse. It’s 41 metres tall and has been keeping shipping safe since 1906. Because Portland sticks out quite a way into the Channel, and because there’s a large sandbank called the Shambles three miles off shore, there’s a tidal race there powerful enough that it’s named as an example in Wikipedia’s definition paragraph, so even in the 21st century, the lighthouse is still needed for its original purpose, although it’s been automated since 1996. I climbed up its 155 steps in 2020, back when we were allowed to do things but still had to wear masks, and you should try climbing a 41m lighthouse in a mask.
The Old Lower Lighthouse is now a bird observatory and the Old Higher Lighthouse is a couple of holiday cottages. I was trying not to talk about its time as a holiday home for eugenicist Marie Stopes but one of the cottages, the smaller one, is named after her. Both cottages have shared access to the old lighthouse itself as a sitting room with a view and to the outdoor swimming pool. Even in winter, you’re looking at £520 for two nights for either of them, and double that in summer, so my dreams of views and pools will remain unfulfilled. We agreed that it was probably an incredible view, just up the slope from the Bill, with views out across the navy sea but I’ve lived too near the sea for too long to be anything but cynical about it. On many a winter day – or even many a summer day – this view will be, at best, grey and dreary, if not outright miserable and terrifying. The sea is a terrifying thing.
Which brings us to our next stop on our little stroll around Portland Bill, Pulpit Rock. I was under the impression this was one of various coastal features inevitably destroyed by the violence of the sea but it seems it’s still intact after all. It started off as a natural arch but in the 1870s, the arch was cut down and a massive slab of rock leaned against the remains, like an open Bible leaning against a pulpit. I didn’t spy that; I was too busy absolutely believing that the feature collapsed a decade ago but judging by the pictures on the internet and the pictures I took, nothing in particular has changed. I imagine the quarrymen of the Victorian age didn’t bother cutting footholds into the “Bible”. I wouldn’t climb it myself, especially with the sea booming away underneath it, but clearly people do. There’s a sign up warning that climbing is at your own risk but the four little beflowered plaques dedicated to people who’ve fallen to their deaths are probably a better deterrent.
At this point, we’d scrambled over some big rocks and found ourself on an oddly warm sheltered ledge out of the biting east wind. I’d had plans to abandon the Bill and go and investigate the beaches and castles and history on the east coast but realising that was exactly where the cold wind was blowing from, I changed my mind. The sea, ten or so feet below us, was by no means rough but the sea is a terrifying thing that splashes and crashes even on relatively calm days and I absolutely didn’t want to get too close to the edge.
You can’t get any further along the cliffs from here, because the ledge we were walking on just runs out here but the cliff itself is so unstable further on that it’s all fenced off so we turned inland and walked up to the MoD installation here. Tom speculated that it’s doing something with aliens, since it’s a tiny place without the usual military paraphernalia. I speculated that it’s an old war base converted into something for the 21st century, since the next thing over the horizon is the north coast of France. It turns out it’s used for magnetic measurement, for calibrating compasses for naval and RAF purposes. Portland limestone is non-magnetic (I thought all rock was pretty non-magnetic) and it’s also remote enough that traffic and civilisation and whatnot doesn’t disturb its magnetic cleanliness.
Having inspected the cliff, the military base, the coastguard station and the Old Higher Lighthouse, we walked back down to the Lobster Pot. The old abandoned Pulpit Inn might have been a good place for lunch if it hadn’t closed in 2023 or 2024. There are plans in place to maybe turn it into apartments and holiday homes as well as a campaign to save it as a pub but for the time being, it’s just abandoned. We looked at the menu for the Lobster Pot but it turns out I was absolutely right about the prices (£13.95 for a crab sandwich, £17.95 for battered haddock) so we sat out on the benches with another coffee and a hot chocolate and made other plans.
It turns out lunch on Portland over Twixtmas is hard to come by. Down in Chiswell, where Chesil Beach joins Portland to the mainland, we found the Cove House Inn open but we’d arrived right as lunch was ending and there would be no more food until about 6pm. We stopped for another drink there, this time looking down the west coast of Portland and along Chesil Beach to Weymouth but there was no food available. We tried everywhere. The Little Ship pub was open for drinks only, no food at all between Christmas and New Year and everywhere else was closed, even the takeaway across the road. We were this close to just going to Lidl and getting some bread and cheese and ham and making sandwiches.
We eventually found food at the Fat Badger, on the Pebble Bank caravan site in Wyke Regis, just across the causeway from Portland. It also had the outrageous prices but they came with a spectacular west-facing view out to sea just as the sun was setting – although the moment of sunset itself was obliterated by a bank of cloud on the horizon. And it was inside, so we were out of the wind and the late-afternoon drop in temperature. I had some very cheesy garlic bread, scattered with crispy fried onions, and Tom had haddock and chips with an unusually tangy tartar sauce which he deemed “not bad” (if not worth the extortionate southern price).
We made one more stop on the way home. We do traditionally stop for another drink after we’ve left the main site of our adventure but we were heading back to mine, rather than Tom’s mum and I live a bit further out in the sticks, so once you’re past Weymouth and Dorchester, there was really only one place left, so we planned our stop instead of seeing what caught our eye. One more drink – still no wine – some gossip (I’ve seen some old friends and acquaintances in 2025 so I know all!) and then it was time to go home.
I Am A Polar Bear 