Workshops are soaper!

Discover the joy of handcrafting your own soap at a workshop hosted by Duir at Abbey Farm in Abbotsbury. A real feast for the senses, the half-day sessions will teach you how to create your own soap using your choice of natural oils, butters and essential oils, under the guidance of Jane Ward.

As a certificated member of the Guild of Craft Soap and Toiletry Makers, Jane will take you through a safety briefing and demonstration of cold process soap making, before you choose a complimentary notepad and pen to begin recording your own scent and colour choices over a tea or coffee.

After beginning work on your first batch of soap, the session will break at midday for a light lunch provided by the nearby Cherries Cafe. After lunch, you can return to the session to make a second batch of soap.

You can take the fruits of your labour home in an ecofriendly, disposable mouldready to be cut into 14 100g bars between 24 and 48 hours later.

Your hand-crafted soap will add a touch of true personalisation to your home or make a truly thoughtful gift for a loved one.

All of Duir’s soaps are palm oil and cruelty free and do not use parabens or sodium lauryl sulphate. All wrappings can be upcycled, composted or ethically recycled.

To book a half-day soapmaking session, including lunch, for £85 email duircrafts@gmail.com or visit duirsoap.co.uk included village halls, schools, a field centre, a retirement home and a doctor’s surgery. Visiting schools to explain the craft and to involve the children in artwork can be a great way to involve them in a local project. Jackie has more than 20 years’ experience teaching stained glass techniques. To commission Jackie or book a place on a course with her visit jackiehunt.co.uk

PAGAN VIEWS

by JO BELASCO

There’s a 20-minute ritual which takes place every seven years. While I cannot state it is shrouded in secrecy, I can relay that it is hard to find out about (especially when you are given wrong information) and even harder to get to… unless you are a dignitary officially invited to the event and ferried across the Chesil from the army bridging camp. Am I talking about a pagan ritual in the woods at midnight? Nope – the rite was led by the Rev Tim Gomm but does smack of pagan sacrifice with a schoolgirl leaning over a stone being “ritually” flogged! I am talking about the furtive Portland Beating of the bounds. I only saw it from a distance as I was one of the few (five) who