The haunting of Corfe Castle ...

Have you ever visited a place, and come away with the view that it really ought to be haunted? Well, for me, Corfe Castle down in Dorset is just such a place. The splendid ruins of a once grand royal castle look like the perfect habitat for a legion of spooks from the other side of mortality. Now I'm not saying that I totally believe all of this stuff, but I do enjoy a good ghost story for entertainment's sake if nothing else.

Just feast your eyes on the romantic ruin, and I think you'll agree that it takes very little imagination to conjure up a host of ghostly goings on that might take place here.

Fungus fetish ...

It's been a good autumn for Fungi down here in the not-always-so-sunny South West of England.

Yesterday morning I spent a happy hour out in the garden taking macro shots of all the fungal goodness nestling in the grass. Now I'd be lying if I pretended to know the names of these beauties - or, even more importantly, whether I can eat them without poisoning myself. So it's probably just as well that my interaction with them remained one that was channelled exclusively through the lens of my camera ...

Halloween tombstones ...

As Halloween draws nearer I've been enjoying some macabre tomb carvings. The carving below used to adorn a grave in St. Lawrence's Churchyard, Exeter. Today it lives in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter. It dates from the 1600s when such tomb ornaments were very much the vogue. They lived through some pretty tough times back then. There was the English Civil War (1642 - 1651), followed by the religious excesses of Cromwell's Commonwealth and Protectorate, the Black Death raised its deadly face in 1665 and, after the Restoration, there was considerable apprehension as to the direction in which the House of Stuart was leading the country. It was a time of intense religious debate and radical politics. And normal folk, convinced that they were living in the last days, and that the end of the world was nigh, took to the macabre to underline their own fragile mortality ... .

Like the sunshine after rain ... a spiritual journey

Isn't it wonderful when the sun finally appears after the rain? We've had a succession of  grey, wet days, down here in Devon. We've hunkered down and nested indoors, but yesterday afternoon the sun came out, and all of sudden autumn turned into something glorious again.

Only a day ago the field of stubble over the hill was a maze of maize. There's a ramblers' right of way that runs right through it, and it felt a little bit like hiking through a jungle. What a difference a day makes ... .

Forde Abbey, Dorset ...

Forde Abbey, Dorset

This is undoubtedly one of the prettiest houses in England. It's grand, but not in a draughty, haughty, pretentious way. No, on the contrary, this is a place with a cosy congeniality that invites you to linger longer. And the gardens ... well, don't get me started on the gardens unless you've got a good long time to listen whilst I tell you how much I liked them ... .

I often find with historic houses that there's one strand, one story-line from their past that speaks more loudly and more eloquently than the others. Now in the case of Forde Abbey there are many to choose from. This is, after all, a property that's got 8 centuries of history to boast about. But for me, the defining tale is that of Edmund Prideaux, who lived here once upon a time in the 17th century.