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The West Dorset Magazine, July 15, 2022
Health & Wellbeing
Walking West Dorset
with retired Dorset rights of way officer Chris Slade
FROME VALLEY TRAIL: 9th WALK This walk is just over four miles around the water meadows near West Stafford. There’s usually parking space in the street by the Wise Man. From there head up the road and eastwards passing the gateway to the Manor House. A furlong beyond that, on the left hand side of the road, is the start of a track to the Dairy House. Here begins a path heading ENE across a field or three. It’s well trodden so you won’t get lost. When you get to Lewell Mill Farm, join a byway that takes you northwards crossing many bridges, footbridges, a ford with stepping stones and one large deep ford where the path makes a small diversion upstream over a bridge to rejoin the byway. Eventually the byway curves round to the northwest and wriggles its way up towards Norris Mill Farm. In one place youcantalk.net is a new wellness and mental health resource launched by Bridport-based duo Kerry Miller, pictured, and Alex Fender. It features lots of free resources to help people relax and take stock. “I just wish I knew why I’m like this?” I hear variations on this theme a lot, and in private practice we have the luxury of time, so we can take as long as it takes to work this out. From the outset I ask a lot of
there’s a really massive fallen willow blocking the route but it’s easy to walk round it. At the farm there are helpful signs on a barn pointing you in the right direction, towards Bockhampton. The path now curves southwest round the side of a hill, then heads west through Duddle Farm until it meet a steep slope alongside which you walk
southwest to Bhompston Farm, then west again to Knighton Dairy where you join the road at Lower Bockhampton. Turn left and head south over the bridge (and many more) ignoring the turn to West Stafford and continuing southwards as far as Frome Farm where there’s a footpath that takes you eastward across a couple of fields and alongside a
stream until you reach the road by a stone bridge. Turn right and head back towards the village, visiting the ancient Church if it is open, then back to your car.
Take care of the basics and questions; we talk about thoughts, feelings and physical sensations, current concerns, recent events, past events, diet and exercise, drugs, alcohol, day to day life, future hopes and dreams, and so on. Many people have complex and messy lives, or very demanding jobs, difficult relationships, and/or issues from the distant past that will have shaped them for better or worse. A thought that often strikes me
is: “What would it take for me to feel just as bad as this person sitting in front of me now?’ One day of not drinking enough water? Followed by maybe two days of not eating, or only eating rubbish? Three nights without any quality sleep, followed by a day or two indoors without any exercise? Then add a hit of caffeine in the search for energy, or a drop of alcohol to relax, ease a craving, and/or some sort of
illicit substance in the hope of a bit of an escape, or maybe just out of habit. Already the old biochemistry is really struggling, and the results can be quite confusing … a list of ‘symptoms’ that look and sound very much like anxiety and depression in fact. Or exhaustion, or burn-out, or an anger problem. So, without any external or historical source of stress (as if!) there’s already enough there to explain and understand a
