BLEAK POST

There's a causeway running between Weymouth and the (almost) island of Portland on the south coast of England. It isn't a 'desert' in the technical sense of the word but it's not an easy place for plants.

Alongside it runs the back of Chesil Beach.

'Beach' is a confusing a word. Forget ice-cream and donkeys. Think a seventeen mile stretch of pebbles which starts from the west of here with little stones lying against the land. As the 'beach' runs east, the stones get bigger and little pools appear which gradually merge into a brackish lagoon defended from a raging sea by a massive rampart of smooth, flattish stones. At its eastern end, the water of the lagoon flows away, under a bridge, and the 'beach' swerves south to follow the causeway. Thousands and thousands of tonnes of pebbles  keep the sea from the road; from the flat, straight, grassy path of an old railway line and the calm of Portland Harbour.

'Harbour' is almost as misleading a word as 'beach'. This isn't a cosy place where fishing boats unload against a jetty or children drop crablines into the water - think 'sea' - with a wall crossing the horizon; it's a massive wall but it's so far away it looks small.

The stones along the
east side of the causeway
are interesting and irregular.

Imagine you are standing on a narrow stretch of land; two miles of stones and dryness and bitter winds and no houses. There are seabirds and windsurfers and a harsh white light and a road with no stopping places. It's hardly ever quiet.

When the wind isn't roaring, the cars and buses and lorries hum away irritatingly - unless one drops down over the edge of the bank to walk by the water - and there the noise drops.

I expect there is somewhere like it - but I have never been there!

At its start - an empty carpark sets the scene.

At its ending - a prison on a hill, an ex-naval base, a new marina, boat building factories and workshops and acres of land to keep boats out of the water, and a sailing academy which will be the base for the sailing events of the 2012 Olympics.

This is not going to be a tree post!

Plants, to survive here, need to be tough and low growing and their heads need flexible necks.

It's astonishing there are plants here at all. But there are - many of them specialists.

Soon, there will be flowers. Indeed, there are already some.

I'm not going to risk saying what these plants are just yet. (Well, there's a dandelion!) I'll add their names if and when I'm more certain.

Rather, I'm setting a scene so, when the spring gets further under way and the summer comes, if the wind doesn't shake everything about too much - you'll be able to appreciate what happens.

Hurray for Lichen!

P.S. One day, I'll post about Chesil Beach itself - but I'm waiting till the weather is warmer!