June already

How did that happen?  All of a sudden it's June and beginning to get summery.  On Saturday David and I took ourselves out for the day to Weymouth and Portland.  We've visited Weymouth a few times before but never ventured to Portland and it was such a nice day we just had to go.

At Weymouth on the South Harbour is Nothe Fort.  In history the south coast was strategically import to ensure that England wasn't invaded by the French, so there are quite a few fortifications built along the coastline.  This was a fascinating place also with not only canons and guns, but also World War II memorabilia and also contained a Cold War bunker.

Oh yes, we both managed to leave our cameras at home, so photos were taken with mobile phones.  Mine managed until I had such a flat battery that it switched itself off!  Anyway above is the view of Portland from Nothe Fort.

 Some big guns

 Looking at Weymouth's tower with a raised glass viewing platform (this was a feature for the Olympics)

A bit sunny, but this was David in front of one of the guns.

After lunch we drove down to Portland and visited Portland Castle, this time another fortified castle built during the reign of Henry VIII (he didn't want the Spanish to invade either).  I took some photos from the upper gun deck.

 One large cannon

 The concrete blocks to the left centre are 2 caissons that would have made part of the Mulberry harbours for D-Day, but they never made it to France.

 Looking down at the gun deck

David again, by a cannon with Weymouth in the background.

 And the outside of the castle.  Just before we left the nearby Coastguard helicopter was scrambled and we just had time to leave the grounds and head to where we could see the helicopter take off.

It then on to Portland Bill lighthouse, which wasn't open so couldn't see inside.  The land around it looked desolate with boulders of Portland stone nearby.  The purple patch inside the fenced area had some Thrift growing, hadn't seen such a large quantity of this growing.  It was then that my phone decided to die on me.  It was a super day and another reminder about how lucky we are to live in this lovely part of the country.