Jurassic Coast (part 2) Colmer's Hill (50.74°N, 2.79°W) Colmer's Hill. Stand in the town's main street and its summit is perfectly framed on the near horizon, a silhouette so simplistic it's what a child would draw. Get closer and it looks even better. The hill is an uplift of sandstone about two miles west of the town on the Symondsbury estate, technically on private land but with multiple permissive tracks to the top. If driving leave your vehicle in the free car park by the bijou barn/shop/cafe cluster and try not to be too distracted by the bacon rolls and willow weaving workshops. The tiny hamlet of Symondsbury somehow supports a pub and primary school, beyond which turn right past the circa 1449 farmhouse and keep climbing. It is tempting to aim for the summit prematurely but that gets ridiculously steep, plus the footpath ahead is arguably more amazing than the hill. Shutes Lane is a 'holloway', a sunken footpath following a fault in the clay which climbs in a shady notch between two fields. It looks like somewhere hobbits would live. The sides of the holloway are dark with green ferns and gnarled roots, and the higher you climb the steeper they get. The rock is also very easy to scratch so heavily inscribed with names, patterns, designs and even in one location the face of Homer Simpson. Our groom and best man insisted they were not responsible for one particularly prominent act of nominative graffiti. I first learned of the holloway's existence in an episode of Radio 4's Open Country, which you can listen to here, although they didn't get the dappled light and sprinkling of bluebells that added even further to the eerie experience. Continue west and Shute's Lane becomes Hell's Lane, another holloway descending to the village of North Chideock, but for Colmer's Hill you need to dogleg back at Quarry Cross and follow the sheep track across open pasture. excellent views across West Dorset on the way up. The summit alas is surrounded by a ring of pine trees which may look excellent from a distance but blocks much of the highest panorama, plus goodness knows how the Ordnance Survey see much from the trig point. When you're ready to descend watch out for bluebells and sheep on the way down, plus currently a lot of the cutest lambs, and you could easily have the entire circuit completed on half an hour flat. Bridport (50.73°N, 2.76°W) Bridport is a Saxon town with a former penchant for ropemaking, so much so that a nickname for the hangman's noose was once a 'Bridport Dagger'. You can tell it's old because it has a North Street, West Street, South Street and East Street, three of which meet at the town hall, which is also where the Tourist Information Office resides. Bridport peaked historically when King Charles II stayed here while fleeing to France in 1651, overnighting in an old inn that's now a charity shop. Where the town continues to score highly is as a cultural hub with multiple festivals and arts events throughout the year, plus a steady stream of minor musical acts and Radio 4-friendly comedians taking to the stage at the Electric Palace. We turned up on market day with the main streets lined by veg-sellers and crafty stalls, which proved invaluable for wedding-present-purchasing reasons. It also meant a live band was playing 70s classics to toetapping pensioners in Bucky Doo Square (and no, nobody knows for sure why it's called that). Food is another Bridport plus, not just the fact there's a Waitrose but also the wide variety of local produce and baked goods available at all price points from hearty sausage rolls to elegant seafood dining. For the full backstory to everything try Bridport Museum on South Street - that's a fiver - or for a longer explore try the three mile Bridport Green Route circuit - see free leaflet. All that's really missing is some seaside, and thankfully that's only a brief hop away. West Bay (50.71°N, 2.76°W) West Bay is Bridport's slightly down at heel cousin, a place for chips and crabbing, but also rightly renowned for maritime pleasure and as the site of 'that' beach. The East Cliff is a stunning hump of golden sandstone, best seen in sharp sunshine, and also the site of the first death in Broadchurch which was totally filmed here. Stomp out across the pebble ridge and you'll soon reach the site where Danny Latimer's body was found, thankfully no longer roped off with David Tennant and Olivia Colman taking notes. These days the clifftop is barriered instead, the wiggly path up the grass slope now untrodden as safety concerns over subsidence take precedence. Walk the beach and you can see the evidence - multiple small rockfalls and the occasional massive slump where an entire stack of sand has collapsed exposing more of the rock behind to inexorable weathering. The most recent large fall was overnight on 30th December, depositing a huge orange mound all the way down to the water's edge and blocking shoreward passage. The power of the sea has inevitably cleared away the landslide re-enabling an exhilarating beach stroll with a sensational backdrop, although you can already see the cracks where the next chunk of golf course might fall next. The heart of West Bay is a small harbour at the mouth of the River Bride, a refuge for those who enjoying messing around in small boats and dipping for crabs. Around the edge are souvenir shops and a few sturdy pubs, including The George which appears to be where all the bikers end up after they've roared into town and pulled up by the bus turnaround. Ice cream is available in a variety of locations and forms (I plumped for the Purbeck Lemon Ripple) but the true common denominator is fish and chips. Of the six kiosks by the harbour bridge five sell chips and four additionally fish, all I think owned by the same local franchise so it doesn't matter which you pick. The battered cod was soft, flaky, delicious and still sub-£10... and best of all the seagulls stayed well out of reach. Other sights to see in West Bay include a small but lovingly-compiled museum, officially the Discovery Centre, which is based in a convenient Victorian chapel. As well as exhibits they do a four page leaflet in case you want to identify the chief Broadchurch locations from all three series, most of which are within a five minute walk, including the amusement arcade where the local newspaper was supposedly based and the apartment block that doubled up as the police station. The detectives often walked out along the East Pier because it meant the TV cameras could get the iconic cliffs in the background. And this is also the precise point where Chesil Beach begins, the breakwater cutting off any further longshore drift, should you be a pebble starting your long journey down to Portland. My Jurassic Coast Flickr album: Now with 50 photos! (newest first)

Jurassic Coast (part 3) Hive Beach (50.70°N, 2.72°W) Hive Beach just down the coast is much quieter. It's accessed down the beach road from Burton Bradstock, another picture postcard Dorset village, where a National Trust car park nestles in the sandy gap between two sets of cliffs. The amazing ones are to the west, three-quarters of a mile of ridged honeycomb which you can choose to walk over or under, or perhaps head out one way and come back the other. The bright colour comes from a layer of Bridport Sand Formation, a grey sandstone laid down 180m years ago which lightens and weathers when exposed to air and seawater. Stronger sandstone beds occur throughout, poking out in parallel ridges, all overlain by a thinner cap of delightfully-named Inferior Oolite. As with much of the Dorset coast it's relatively unstable and has a tendency to come crashing down after particularly wet weather, hence the sight of orange rockfalls slumped down onto the beach at occasional intervals. A particularly large fall killed a holidaymaker in the summer of 2012 so you probably don't want to walk right under the base of the cliffs, hence the warning signs, although at any one time you're almost certainly completely safe. That large white house up there on the clifftop used to belong to Billy Bragg. We did the westward beach walk, the tide not being fully in, crunching along the gravel below the monster sandpile. The power of erosion was fully visible, from slight underhangs to full collapse, plus cracks in the cliff that birds occasionally flew into. From down here it's hard to imagine that up top is all grass and fields, although if you wait long enough everything up top will eventually be down below. You can walk all the way to West Bay via a footbridge over the River Bride, getting your full cliff fix, or you can tromp back to the car park and seek refreshment in the sprawling Hive Beach Cafe. A takeaway window is available if you don't want the full sitdown seafood treatment. Beach webcam here, if you fancy a peek. Chesil Beach Chesil Beach is one of the UK's most extraordinary geomorphological features, a shingle bank that stretches 18 miles along the Dorset coast (the equivalent of linking Wembley to Bromley). It starts at West Bay and curves gently towards the Isle of Portland, cutting off a lengthy saltwalter lagoon called The Fleet. At its western end it's fed by rockfalls, as previously referenced, and spreads by means of longshore drift which hopefully you once had a geography lesson about. The pebbles are gravel sized at West Bay/Hive Beach and more akin to small potatoes at the Portland end, inexorably sorted by the relentless swash of the waves. And the best view is probably from the layby at the top of Abbotsbury Hill, which thankfully had a few spaces because it was May and not July. The beach is clearly seen, a high pebbly ridge separated from the shore and protecting the lagoon behind. If you want to walk this section, which is approximately 10 miles long, be aware there's no way off the beach until you get to Portland. It's also heavy walking underfoot so not to be attempted lightly, plus out of bounds during the summer for nesting reasons, but if you time it right and feel resilient it's a great way to get away from it all. Chesil Beach is perhaps most easily accessed at the Portland end where a Visitor Centre exists, but I dropped in there in 2010 so return on this occasion. Abbotsbury Swannery (50.65°N, 2.60°W) Abbotsbury, another picture postcard village on the coast road, was once the site of a medieval abbey... the clue's in the name. The monks kept swans as far back as the 14th century, mainly for their meat, encouraging the formation of a breeding colony at the western end of the brackish Fleet. Today their swannery is home to 600 mute swans and thus the world's largest managed colony, and sometimes the majority of them all turn up at once. Mass feedings occur at noon and 4pm, two times the avian population plainly anticipates, when a swanherd wheels a huge barrow of wheat down to the lagoonfront. Expect an illuminatingly lengthy talk about history and natural history before being let loose with a bucket and encouraged to chuck your feed in the general direction of multiple craning necks. Children are invited up first, impressively close to the seething throng, with adults of all ages encouraged to follow. It's an unforgettable sight. This is also an excellent time of year to visit because it's breeding season. In spring around 100 pairs snuggle down around the water's edge and surround themselves with straw, into which the female drops a clutch of eggs on which she duly sits for five weeks. What's astonishing is how close together their nests are, given that mute swans are usually insanely territorial, but the joy of Abbotsbury is that the birds have learned to live together in a community because they're no longer competing for food, it's delivered to them. The first cygnets emerge in mid-May, i.e. right about now, although we alas turned up on the day the season's first egg cracked open so saw none. My top tip is to wait until the AA puts up yellow 'Abbotsbury Baby Swans' signs at all the local road junctions, which they did two days after our visit heralding the start of the cute grey fluff-fest. Other things to see here include a bird hide (because swans don't have the monopoly), a historically significant decoy trap (a net tunnel used by the monks to funnel their dinner) and a small lake (inevitably called Swan Lake). Nearer the entrance is a small display about bouncing bombs (because the protypes were tested here on the Fleet), a large willow maze in the shape of a swan (it's surprisingly hard) and a fairly lacklustre patch of go-karts. The Swannery also has a sister attraction on the other side of the village, an 18th century hollow of subtropical gardens which you can visit with a reduced combined ticket. But mainly it's all about the swans and how incredibly close you can get to an incredible number of them, incredibly. Weymouth (50.61°N, 2.45°W) before and during the Olympics so I won't expound again, but I did drop by to catch the Jurassic Coaster bus and can confirm that the beach was considerably emptier this time. Portland Bill (50.51°N, 2.46°W) Isle of Portland is a 4-mile long rocky teardrop connected to the mainland by a pebble beach and a single road. It's highest at the northern end and then slopes south across a strange grey landscape of suburbia and open cast quarrying. This is the origin of the famous Portland Stone which, because it's both weather-resistant and readily sculptable, was used to construct Buckingham Palace, St Paul's Cathedral and thousands of other iconic buildings. Alas the Fortuneswell viewpoint was closed for maintenance so we drove all the way to the tip of the island and its landmark lighthouse made famous by a 1980s animation, Portland Bill. Trinity House first warned off ships in 1844 by means of a stone obelisk, still extant, with a trio of lighthouses following of which the big stripy one is from 1906. For £9 you can go up top on a guided tour or you can wander round the tiny shop at the base for nothing. We plumped instead for an ice cream from The Lobster Pot, their chips being a bit pricey, and also a short walk around the thrift-covered rocky hinterland. Waves crashed against the shore, fairly gentle by prevailing standards, and an old winch suggested that exporting chunks of rock was once a risky business. I assumed the MOD compound by the lighthouse would be coast related but it is in fact a magnetic measurement centre used to test and calibrate the Royal Navy's compasses, a site selected for its remoteness and because Portland Stone is conveniently non-magnetic. I also somehow failed to take a photo of Pulpit Rock, a lofty quarried stack of some repute, but thankfully thousands of other people have so you needn't miss out. And this is as far along the Jurassic Coast as we explored during our week in Dorset so I'll end this three part series here, just rest assured that Lulworth, Kimmeridge and Swanage exist and are undoubtedly worth coming back for. My Jurassic Coast Flickr album: 21 photos so far

Earlier this month I was lucky enough to eat probably the best burger I've ever had in my life. It was a smash burger, cooked quickly on a flat-top to a good crust, placed inside a toasted sweet bun and dressed with little more than deli cheese. And before I get accused of being deliberately misleading I'll say now - it wasn't at Whole Beast. The Friendly in San Diego is a slightly bizarre little operation serving just two things - decent, if unspectacular, pizza by the slice in the New York style, and probably the greatest burger on the West Coast. It's a simple concept but then the greatest things often are - good, coarse, high fat content ground beef, smashed onto a searing hot flat top and aggressively seasoned. Deli cheese is melted on top, and then the single patty goes into a wide, flat bun. So far, so 2025. So this is a tale of two burgers. Or to be more accurate, three burgers across two burger joints. It's not Whole Beast's fault that I had a life-changing sandwich made to a very similar spec in California four days before I found myself heading up Blackhorse Road towards their residency at Exhale taproom, but then I'm afraid life isn't fair. Just ask Dick and Mac McDonald. Whole Beast are clearly burger-lovers, and burger aficionados, as they are doing pretty much everything right in the construction of their offerings. Both have a generous amount of good beef, smashed out flat and wide, spilling attractively outside of the soft toasted buns. The cheeseburger (£13) is a thing of wonderful simplicity made with care and heart - the toasted bread and crisp beef crackle deliciously as you bite down into it, and the melted cheese eases the whole thing along. It really is a superb burger. I like the green chilli cheeseburger slightly less, perhaps because the chilli element comes in the form of a kind of smooth, cold chutney, and there's quite a lot of it, which throws the delicate balance of textures in the smash burger off slightly. I did appreciate the hit of chilli though - they didn't hold back on that - and this was, all said, still a very well constructed burger, with the same crunchy, almost honeycombed beef patty and squishy soft/toasted buns. Their crinkle-cut chips are also excellent, every bit as good as those served by Shake Shack (the only smash burger chain worth bothering with), and holding a nice, greaseless crunch right to the very bottom of the bowl. Smoked chicken wings had a fantastic hearty, bouncy texture that spoke of very good chicken, and a lovely note of smoke accompanied every bite. I will forgive them for leaving the wing tips on (why serve something you can't eat? You might just as well leave the feathers on) because they were so fun to get stuck into, and the "wild leek ranch" they were coated in was a refreshing counterpoint to the smoked meat. The only slight disappointment of the lunch were these cucumbers, which despite the addition of "whipped tofu dressing, chilli crisp, furikake" and something else obliquely referred to as "GGG" (your guess is as good as mine) mainly tasted of, well, what they were - plain, unpickled, chopped cucumbers in a vaguely Japanese salad dressing. And I don't know about you, but I can prepare raw cucumbers fairly easily myself at home. And they don't cost £7. So again, it's hardly a disaster that Whole Beast's version of the smash burger isn't quite on a par with what is regularly spoken about as one of North America's greatest (just ask Reddit) - it's just sheer coincidence I managed to try both in the space of a week, and there was only ever going to be one winner in that battle. The fact is, the E17 variety is still, by any measure, a smashing (pun intended) achievement and a lovely way to spend your lunch money. And London's burger scene is all the better for its existence. I forgot to take a photo of the bill but the damage per person came to about £33 with a pint of Exale beer each. And yes, that is a terrible photo of the Friendly Dirty Flat Top Cheeseburger, sorry - you'll have to take my word for it that it looked a lot better in person.

A wedding is a long time in the making. A decade in the making, all the way back to the winter of 2015 when the bride and groom first met. Their academic studies had taken them to the same corner of the country but not to the same city, in one case a last minute decision when expected results fell through. Had studies gone to plan they would never have met, had technology not progressed they would never have met, had so many other incredibly unlikely things not happened they would never have met, but meet they did one fateful day and that first meeting turned into many more. Two years in the making, because that's how long ago the engagement took place. Not only were there rings but also bended knees and, as we subsequently discovered, a bespoke photoshoot on a deserted beach which essentially gave the wedding photographer a test run. The starting pistol duly fired, the key decision became where to host the wedding, the bride's geographical preferences plainly winning out which is why I've just spent the week in not-Norfolk. I remember the family discovering the proposed location for the first time and excitedly watching a video of the venue on YouTube, which looked lovely but only now do I fully understand how lovely it was. her away from them, the most convenient coach company, the songs the band really shouldn't play, the colouring book for the flower girl, the shoes, the suit, the dress. There was of course a spreadsheet. Things only run like clockwork if you underlay the seeming ease of the wedding day with a full scale military operation. A morning in the making, because the effort that goes into wedding day preparations is insane. A dawn dash to get the make-up done, a synchronised timetable for elegant hairdressing, urgently Googling "how to attach a pocket watch", all the sartorial prep, and all while the photographer snaps incessantly to capture the pristine results. Someone needs to say "you have got the rings haven't you?", someone has to ask "where's the something blue?" and somewhere unseen the rookie vicar is hoping all goes well. In most wedding day dramas the tension comes from either the bride or the groom being unexpectedly late whereas in this case the congregation arrived after the designated time which certainly delivered added tension. A moment in the making, whatever the precise moment of marriage actually is. Most probably the time when the vicar wraps his stole around your hands and declares you man and wife. Pedantically just before that because "those whom God has joined together" is past tense. Perhaps the first utterance of the new surname to general amusement. Legally speaking I suspect the signing of the register. Or maybe the moment the beaming couple process out into the wider world bearing witness of what just happened behind closed doors, moments before being pelted with confetti. Whatever, they walked in fiancé and fiancée and they walked out man and wife, invisibly transformed. A full day in the making, stretching late into the evening with a crescendo of a party. The first dance isn't what you thought it'd be, nor has it gone unpractised. The sliced cake turns out to be either raspberry or full-on chocolate. The videographer sends his drone up while we all wave our sparklers. Old school friends bounce as if they were adolescent teens again, i.e. gauche and excitable. Black and white Polaroid photos are stuck into an increasingly jolly guest book. The bar is free until we hit a prearranged tab, which perhaps predictably we never do. Abba are a surefire draw when the band switches to Spotify, whereas Evacuate The Dancefloor has precisely that effect. And suddenly the cleaners are at the back of the room, the taxis are on their way and the new-found extended family dissipates. A wedding is all in the preparation but a marriage is all in the outcome.