By

Craig Ennew

—

Twenty-Two: The Shape of Sundays

This week : Craig, his wife and The Boy set out on a walk from Worth Matravers to Kingston

When I was a kid, I was never a fan of Sundays. Often, they were defined by the anxiety of anticipating whether Dad would meet the 1:30pm curfew for getting back to Mum’s Sunday roast from weekly ‘crib school’ at the pub. At best he would return on time, four pints of 6X down, and sleep through the afternoon until Bullseye came on the telly. At worst, he’d miss the curfew to return beyond 2pm to a cold or cremated plate of food. Like a kamikaze pilot returning from a failed mission, he would be consigned to Coventry, bar a few furiously-whispered dogfights on the stairs as he crossed Mum’s path.

the contrary ways of a twelve-year old dictate that routines are there to be undermined

I’m happy to say that, having reached the wrong side of middle age, I embrace Sundays – even more so now we’re settling in to living on the coast. These days are defined thus: a slow start; the prepping of the roast; a nice, long coastal walk; popping to the pub while the lunch cooks; returning home to enjoy the feasting and resting before another week kicks off. We are eager to impress the benefits of this upon The Boy. Although he’s keen on the great outdoors, the contrary ways of a twelve-year old dictate that routines are there to be undermined. We have yet to convince him of the pleasures of a roast dinner, for example. For me, it remains a keenly observed ritual, practised since the first Ennews stewed Bison in caves. The Boy, being The Boy, rails against tradition. Most insulting of all is his unfathomable aversion to my gravy.

On this particular Sunday, my wife suggests a short stroll to the nearby village of Kingston.  ‘Twenty-five minutes there, I reckon,’ she says, bringing Google Maps up on her phone.   

Within the hour, the three of us are striding away from the cottage in Worth Matravers, up and over the headland.  The Boy grumbles stubbornly.  He’s still telling us he never wanted to come on the stupid walk in the first place.  ‘It’s not like I don’t know what the sea looks like, is it?’  he grunts. 

‘What’s the matter with you?’ I ask.  ‘Embrace the fresh sea air!  Marvel at the bucolic scenery!’  As I wave my arms around enthusiastically, we meet two families heading in the opposite direction, one of the sons making much the same disparaging yodelling noises – presumably, they are at at the end of their exertions rather than the beginning.  All parents exchange knowing nods: we feel each other’s pain. 

But it’s a glorious day, and as we head along the path in the direction of Chapman’s Pool, we’ve taken off our coats and are tying them around our waists, enjoying the modest rays of the late-January sunshine. Passing through a car park and reaching the brow of the hill, we’re ambushed by the jaw-dropping panorama of tall cliffs, shingled beaches far below and a glimmering North Atlantic sea stretching into infinity. My wife suggests a ‘quick’ diversion to the shingles, but a deep valley yawns between the tides and our vantage point. Other folk trickle over the downward path like ants on track: the trail moves as a giant zig-zag, following the brow of our hill to traverse the long side of the valley in order to avoid any deep, treacherous descent.

Pointing the way: the signpost for Chapman’s Pool

‘There must be a quicker way to get across to the other side,’ says my wife, eager to ingest the sea air.

‘Not unless there’s an invisible rope bridge joining the two sides,’ I reply. I really don’t fancy going all the way down then coming all the way back up again

Mercifully, we decide against and turn to head back down into the valley towards Kingston village.  It’s a rutted mud track and I thank God for my wife’s initiative to buy us all new walking boots.  As we descend, the dense, fern-covered banks and shady bubbling streams are teem with the promise of Spring.  Here, The Boy has forgotten earlier woes:  he breaks into a jog, squelching through the mud, the tails of his ‘Dryrobe’ dragging through filthy tracts of puddle.  I watch him disappear round the corner, my legs getting wider and wider apart as I straddle his turbid wake.

a poignant reminder of our enforced separation during the working week

As we emerge from the valley’s shade, I’m struggling. It’s been a steady, steep ascent, and the claggy mud has sucked at my new boots every inch of the way. My hips ache and I’m out of breath. Every ten minutes sees my wife and The Boy move further ahead, a poignant reminder of our enforced separation during the working week. A wooden signpost declares ‘1 ¾ miles’ to Kingston’ and briefly, I perk up. This sounds achievable – after all, it was the length of my walk to work when we lived in Salisbury. I also have the incentive of that cool pint of cider at the other end. In my mind’s eye, I can already see the condensation trickling pleasingly down the outside of the glass. Twenty metres ahead, my wife points cheerily towards the steeple of the Kingston church – again, tantalisingly nearby. Onwards and upwards.

Striding ahead: my wife and The Boy

After twenty minutes, we pass a second signpost: ‘Kingston: 1 ½ miles.’  The two of  them wait patiently beside it while I catch up. 

I eye the post, and my voice rises to a squawk of outrage. ‘It can’t have taken twenty minutes to walk less than half a mile, surely to Christ?’

My wife puts her hands on her hips.  ‘The sign must have meant as the crow flies,’ she says.

‘As the crow flies, my aching arse,’ I think of all the twists and turns of the path, circumventing of fields and ditches.  ‘More like as the rapidly-deflating party balloon flies.’

As I approach them both, The Boy’s eyes narrow.  ‘What about all that fresh sea air and bionic scenery, Old Man?’ he crows.  

‘Bucolic,’ I spit.  Ever the English teacher. ‘Just you remember who’s buying the J2O and crisps when we get to the bloody pub.’ I wince.  Lame come-back, Ennew, I think, catching another glimpse of that wretched steeple over a hedgerow.   The bloody thing is as far away as it was before.

a good 50 minutes to sink a couple of Dorset’s finest

Come the final leg of the journey, we’ve completely lost sight of the footpath so we’re now walking the main road between Kingston and Swanage. Oblivious, The Boy marches ahead getting his eyebrows shaved by lorries. As usual. I bring up the rear, still wheezing. The good news is that we are now on a familiar route and the pub should be just round the corner. The better news is that there is a bus stop in the village – and the next bus back to Worth runs on the hour. This gives us a good 50 minutes to sink a couple of Dorset’s finest without the worry of the return leg. Truth be told, I’d already seen the bus stop but there was no way I was going to be seen as the one giving in by mentioning it.

Sitting at the pub table, we recognise the same couple of families we’d passed heading back towards Worth.  Glasses drained, they’ve obviously been settled here for a while.

‘How the hell did they get here before us?’ my wife asks.

‘Invisible rope bridge?’ I offer, unhelpfully.

I sit back and suck on my pint.  The view from The Scott’s Arms in Kingston is something to behold: a vast stretch of stunning Dorset countryside undulating towards the sea, the craggy drama of Corfe Castle rising like a beleaguered Lazarus among the rise and fall. If it was all about views alone, I think, the Scotts Arms might just pip The Square and Compass to the Best Boozer in Dorset Award.  But this is purely hypothetical – no-one’s ever going to beat The Square in my book. 

I could happily sink into the pub’s lazy Sunday vibes for the rest of the afternoon, but we need to catch that bus if we want to get back in time to cook the roastie. Once aboard, we realise the bus doesn’t go into Worth so, from the rear seats, we engage in a shouty conversation with the driver about which stop is the nearest to the village. As other the other passengers enjoying the show put on the by newbies, The Boy pulls his hood up and slides down his seat with embarrassment.

Room with a view: Corfe Castle from The Scott’s Arms

Disembarking at the recommended stop outside Worth, we thank the driver profusely for his directions to our village.  As the bus pulls away, I scan the other side of the road for some sign of a public footpath.   ‘What did he say we had to do?’ I ask my wife.

‘No idea,’ she says. ‘I thought you were listening, so I didn’t bother.’     

We find ourselves on something intriguing called The Priest’s Way which, given my cider-fuelled cursing, is somewhat ironic.   A couple just ahead of us hear us arguing about directions.   ‘We’re heading to Worth Matravers too!’ says the woman. ‘We’ll show you the way.’

Terry and Sue, it transpires, have lived in Wareham since their retirement.  Often, they’ll take the Purbeck Breezer over on a Sunday and embark on a walk that usually culminates in a four-hour session at the Square and Compass where’s often live music on.  Sounds like a plan.  Unlike our smug selves, though, they are not equipped with brand-new, all-terrain clod-hoppers.  Politely, we allow Terry and Sue to be our guides, politely ignoring the fact that they have no choice but to avoid all traces of quagmire, which means many circumventions across illicit fields and around an infinite number of hedges.  This seems to double the distance of our way back to Worth Matravers.

Terry apologises.  In a thick Irish accent, and apparently blaming his wife, he mumbles, ‘This is a bloody shambles, so it is.’  But they are a lovely couple: Sue is warm and outgoing.  As we walk, she engages The Boy in a variety of topics on his favourite subjects to distract him from the fact that he desperately needs a pee.   Irish Terry is more cerebral and the two of us indulge ourselves in talk of, among other things, psychogeography, poetry and our lessening capacity to drink vast amounts of alcohol over a single session as we near old age.

I like them both, and in another life would happily slip into The Square beside them to talk bollocks for a few hours over sprightly folk music and a few pints of your finest Purbeck Gold.  ‘Would be nice to bump into them again,’ I say to my wife.  But there’s a roast dinner to cook and, beyond that, an old saggy sofa I the front room of my cottage with my name on it.   

I smile with a trace of self-satisfaction at my lot. Perhaps I’m not that different from my old man, after all.

The sea.

©Craig Ennew 2025

Please feel free to leave a comment on this post!

Please feel free to leave a comment on this post!