So I journeyed down to the huts today, a small village of individual huts placed right by the Old Lower Lighthouse which is now known as the Portland Bird Observatory. The huts are mostly owned by people who don't live in Portland, however a few can been seen using the huts as a workplace/workbase. One hut I noticed was running their maintainence company from there. However, I believe the huts are predominantly used by people who live further afield and that like to come to Portland for a holiday.
The Old Lower Lighthouse, I have been told, also acts as a sort of hostel, with rooms available.
So for anyone interested in the great outdoors, bird watching, long walks, the sea, etc click here for a link to their website.
The huts are a cross between what we all know as a beach hut and a shed. They are a lot more spacious than some beach huts I have seen (from the outside, I've never actually been inside a beach hut before) and of course most sheds. But today I did go inside a Portland Hut. And some of them look as though they have been there for quite some time. It is quite visable that quite a fair few of them have been standing on that land for a lifetime. Some are rusting, some have alterations, add ons, new shutters etc. The hut I was able to visit today has had it's ceiling lifted, it's floor alterated, walls removed,
It is quite clear that these huts are a labour of love. They are hand-me-downs. Family heirlooms. They feel as though they have been passed down in generations. Perhaps not for many generations, no. But they do feel like they are seeded within family inheritance. Each hut has a family attached to it, a group of people that have laboured over it, who have made and mended it over time. I think that is what is so interesting about the huts. Many of them have stood there for longer than I have been present on this earth, and many of them give you a taste of when they were made and who they belong to.
So this morning, whilst wandering through the land of the huts, there was a group of helicopters flying overhead. A group of 5, flying side by side, in uniform, enacting a ceremonial flight, a flypast.
They circled around together as one helicopter watched on. It reminded me of the type of ceremony a soldier would have been given after dying at war. It was a flight delivered with precision.
After a little bit of research I have realised that the helicopters were Royal Navy helicopters enacting the Sea Kings final flypast. I guess that's why it reminded me of soldiers and war. For more information, click here to see what the BBC said about it. To see the pictures I managed to capture scroll down.
After the helicopters left, it was silent. The noise had stopped. That was the end. And although having no idea, really, what was going on, what this meant, or anything like that, I felt sad.
It's almost as though I had just witnessed a funeral delivered in the sky.
Soon after this I walked down to the cliff edge and overlooked the large stone and the sea that was glimmering so brightly with the suns rays. It was a wonderfully warm morning. I even think I might have caught the sun a bit! I sat and listened to the sea, soaked in the sun, overlooked what I thought might be part of a ship wreck and relaxed. I wonder what else Portland will behold.
Here are a few photographs I took this morning:
