AT DURDLE DOOR

I’m not sure I fully realised how tired I’ve been. Sometimes it takes a holiday to do that; to show you how depleted your body has actually become.

I’m whacked out.

We went to two places today: Lulworth Cove, which is a delightfully circular harbour of sloping cliffs, and Durdle Door, a famous limestone and sandstone arch jutting out into the sea.

Lulworth was enveloped with cloud. Like Dragon Island, the mist swirled above the cliff tops, giving the impression that those long inclines reached into the sky forever. Below them, a crescent of sand and stones swept round the flat bay. Cool and green, the water bobbed against the shore, more pond than ocean. A handful of small sailing boats nodded with the gentle waves.

I think I’m tired because I haven’t been eating or sleeping well these last few weeks. Getting up and (often) sprinting for the bus has taken a toll, especially when I don’t typically get to sleep before midnight. I reckon I’ve been starting days with an energy deficit.

Add into that my appalling inability to prep food for myself (despite, admittedly, all the help I could ask for) and the result is a bit of a crash. I think that may have happened to me.

“Durdle DOOR!” shouted a man with a West Country accent at Lulworth Cove. He was standing on the jetty, selling boat rides. “Next sailing in half an HOUR!” he cheerily went on - gesturing to his rickety wooden boat. We looked out through the mist to the grey ocean. The horizon was missing. Probably best, we thought, to drive there and see it from the clifftops.

There’s obviously a lot on my mind too. The canyon dream shook me yesterday, and it still lingers. I don’t cope with loss. Also, it occurs to me that rewiring my life so that I’m eating, sleeping, exercising and travelling in balance could be daunting.

“Seems a bit cloudy,” my Dad said as we arrived in the clifftop car park above Durdle Door. Indeed it was. It was all cloud. There was grass and fence and people on the South West Coast Footpath. Then there was impenetrable white. The world ended and the fog began.

We walked through it. Down on the other side, Man o’War Bay gave me vertigo, then around the corner, we were suddenly looking at Durdle Door.

“It’s iconic isn’t it?” said a hiker strolling by. He didn’t wait for an answer. I was thinking about a few weeks ago when I’d seen Durdle Door on Instagram with the Northern Lights flickering over it in one of those fancy travel photos you get. Standing there, looking South over the arched rock, on the South Coast, from the South West Coast Path, it occurred to me that that insta-scene was entirely impossible, and had been thoroughly photoshopped.

Sometimes a thing can look real and not be. Sometimes a life can look in better shape than it is. I think though, having identified the three areas of difficulty, the reasons why I’m so whacked out all of a sudden, I ought to pick one, let’s say food, and do something about it. The adventure’s too grand to be undone by such a simple mistake as not packing enough food for the journey, right?

Iconic or not, there Durdle Door was. And far below, chopping against the waves, was a small, rickety wooden boat.