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58 The West Dorset Magazine, June 17, 2022 Health & Wellbeing Walking West Dorset

with retired Dorset rights of way officer Chris Slade

FROME VALLEY TRAIL: 7th WALK

This is a six mile circuit and parts of it are soggy so you might wish you’d worn wellies. Park on street at West Hill, Charminster and walk west to join the A37 which has a pavement/cycle track that takes you south to a roundabout at which you take the first exit. All the land on either side is Access Land which you are allowed to explore on foot. After a while you’ll see a blue road sign stating that there’s parking in half a mile. Cross the road here, enter the water meadow and head towards the large bridge taking the railway line over the Frome. When you get to the riverside you can enter the fenced off anglers’ path and follow it downstream towards Dorchester below the north bank of Poundbury Hill Fort. Old maps will show you the public bathing place on the other side of the river. It’s on Access Land but difficult to get to nowadays. I’m told that the water’s quite deep there. Carry on until you get to the weir at the former West Mill then turn left and shortly scramble up onto the road near Spar. Turn left past the garage, cross the bridge then turn right and follow the riverside path. I sometimes went for a lunchtime swim there in my working days. At the end of the path turn right then, at John’s pond, left and follow the path down to the White Hart, possibly diverting for a short circuit around the Local Nature Reserve. Cross the main road and take the path for about a third of a mile taking you down Mill Street where I remember my relatives had no electricity but did have gas lighting. Cross the road by the bridge and enter the playing field which has recently been planted with hundreds of trees each with a plastic! wrapper. Follow the boundary of the field which is alongside the Frome until you get to the kiddies’ play area. There’s an old steam roller there, the chimney of which I stood on in about 1960. Rejoin the road, cross Grey’s Bridge, turn left along the path that takes you past the old swimming pool, over the hatches and past a cottage. Then join a path leading west past Coker’s Frome Farm through a couple of fields until it joins a track by a ford. Turn right and head north to join a road where you turn left and go west for a quarter of a mile and join a path to the left that takes you south west past a pumping station and across a field to join the road at Lower Burton, just north of the Sun Inn. Take the path westwards through the Ilchester Estate yard and head north west across a couple of fields, the site of a medieval village, to Wolfeton where a path takes you north past some old cob walls to join the road at Charminster. Turn left and go down to the Church, diagonally across the Churchyard and up an alleyway to join the A352. Turn left then right, passing (or pausing at) the Three Compasses and soon you’ll be back at your car.

The very brightest and most talented

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.

Imposter syndrome: The persistent inability to believe that one’s success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of one’s own efforts or skills. People suffering from impostor syndrome may be at increased risk of anxiety. If you’re troubled by this do me, and yourself, a massive favour and Google ‘Famous people with impostor syndrome’. Or just check this out linkedin.com/pulse/57famous-people-reveal-howovercome-imposter-charlesstevenson Read. Think. Who and what do you see? Try to tune into the possible usefulness or benefits of impostor syndrome. What is it for? What is it trying to protect you from? Now consider the opposite, its uglier relative: DunningKruger effect, in psychology, a cognitive bias whereby people with limited knowledge or competence in a given intellectual or social domain greatly

The West Dorset Magazine, June 17, 2022 59 Health & Wellbeing Celebrating outside helped us all heal

Andy Cole is a reiki healer based in Middlemarsh. He specialises in planting for healing. The recent jubilee celebrations have given a much-needed boost to everyone’s wellbeing. With all the negative things in life at the moment with inflation, fuel increases and a general squeeze on household incomes, the respite of a few days’ celebrations has been welcome. This has given much needed healing to everyone, especially during those activities organised in parks and gardens – what better place to relax and receive the healing of plants and the great outdoors? When we are outside at these events, or just enjoying the green space outside, it is not unusual to see many people with their shoes off, walking on the lawn in bare feet. During the time walking on the grass, they are receiving healing that they are unaware of, in the form of natural reflexology and energy transfer from the grass and the ground. You become connected with nature if only for a short while, but feel so much more content in your surroundings. Most people class the lawn as just a lawn, however the texture of the grass on your feet will aid in the relaxation process. The effect of this is calming and will help to relieve you of the stresses that you are carrying around with you. The lawn not only provides you with a place to relax, receive healing and natural reflexology, but is also a haven for wildlife, it provides shelter for bugs and small mammals, if allowed to go to seed it provides food for birds and the flowers are a source of nectar for bees. The clover family, being legumes, help to fix nitrogen in the soil. The grass clippings make excellent compost and provide a habitat for worms and other insects as well. This compost is a source of nutrition to put back onto the garden, and all the positive energy within this is returned to the ground to start the cycle of healing again. Nothing is more satisfying than getting your hands dirty when working with the soil and compost as these provide a natural source of energy healing. Soil is the life-giving gold of the earth, its health and fertility support all life, one way or another its health is the health and well-being of all life. Without the earth and its energies nothing would flourish, it is vital to promote sustainable growth in All aspects of the natural world. By putting the compost back into the soil, it uses the unused

energies from the plants to recharge and fertilise the soil. By working with the soil, the energies we absorb will help to prepare out inner selves for the journey ahead. Plant of the week: Wisteria This plant can live for more than 100 years, it is seen as a symbol of everlasting wisdom. The vines are seen as searching and reaching out for new knowledge. It is viewed as a symbol of longevity and endurance, too. The energies from this plant encourage us to keep going when things get tough and helps us acquire the knowledge to overcome the currant adversity. Colour therapy based on the flower, white aids in our spiritual enlightenment and the purple restores the chakras by cleansing and balancing them. Mainly grown as a climber but can also be grown as a standard, often highly scented. Pruned twice a year, the long tendrils to keep it in check during the summer and the main prune done in the winter after the first frost when the leaves have dropped. Prefers a sunny position and free draining soil. people can suffer imposter syndrome

overestimate their own knowledge or competence in that domain relative to objective criteria or to the performance of their peers or of people in general. So instead of embarking on a neverending mission to prove something to or about yourself, to be absolutely certain that you are always right, why not just forgive yourself for not knowing everything, and recognise that what you do know still has the potential to help others? There is no need to worry about being exposed as a fraud or impostor if you hold what you think you know lightly. In some way you’re an expert to someone, and people can still benefit from what you know.