Hengistbury Head

Zoom in to see the Needles

I travelled down to see my mum yesterday afternoon. There was an urgent need because I've not seen her since January and she's about to travel to Hobart in Australia to spend Christmas with the elder of my two younger brothers. He has two young daughters. On her return at the beginning of February she will be turning around quickly and jetting off to Boston in the States where my youngest brother is expecting the arrival of his first born (and my mum's eighth grandchild - my sister having had three daughters). We call her our globe-trotting grandma! She's nothing short of amazing is my mum. For being just a few years shy of eighty, she's doing very well indeed. I dearly hope I have inherited her robust health and longevity!

She lives on the south coast at Christchurch in Dorset. As a family we moved down there from South London when I was ten years old. Today we have been revisiting a few special places from my childhood. We went to see our old house and the adjacent common that was my adventure playground as a youngster. That was actually quite a shock because it was not at all how I remembered it. It was a much wider open space in my imagination. It had a wilder and more overgrown feel to it today, partly due to the fact that a lot of young trees have clearly now matured but also because I suspect it is much less used. Where people once walked across the common to get to the shops because it was the quickest route, they now use their cars.

The place I most wanted to visit was Hengistbury Head. When we first came on holiday to Bournemouth, just down the coast from Christchurch, this place held a certain special magic for me. The view from the top overlooking Christchurch Harbour on the one side and across to the Isle of Wight on the other was possibly the first truly panoramic view I had ever seen as a young kid growing up in London. I don't know for sure, because I was only eight or nine at the time, but I suspect it was this experience that may have triggered my lifelong love of the hills and mountains, what manifests itself as a need to get up high and take in the view from the highest available point, wherever I am in the world.

Anyway, it was a lovely day to catch up on all the family gossip and have a gentle wander around with my mum. The sun shone and it was very mild for late November. This blip is of the head looking east, with the Isle of Wight and the Needles in the far distance. My head is now full of memories. I think living here was more formative than I'd realised. I should try to get back more often.