David Ennals, 56, of Toller Porcorum, has been exhibiting cacti and flowers at the event and accumulating accolades since 1994, when he first won the top prize in the cactus class.

For the past two years, his incredible cactus displays – which are made up of 80 or 90 cacti – have also won the Townsend Perpetual Cup, in the open horticultural display section.

David Ennals receiving The Townsend Perpetual Cup from horticultural chairman Robin Pitcher for displaying cacti in the ‘Open Horticultural Display’ at the Dorset County Show 2009.

Mr Ennals, who is chairman of the parish council for Toller Porcorum, has been interested in cacti since the age of 12 when his mother brought one home for him.

He said: “I grow the plants, and my wife Jane does the arranging – it’s a bit like flower arranging, only spikier!

“I won first prize for exhibiting cacti in the cactus class in 1994, when the Show was held at Came Down and believe I have won the class every year since then.

“I have always had a passion for cacti but got more seriously into it when the children left home.”

Mr Ennals said it can take five years to grow a cactus to Show standard. His plants live in a greenhouse and in his conservatory and grow at different rates – he has tended some of them for 15 or 20 years. Some of the cacti grow to six feet tall.

Mr Ennals enjoys seeing the cacti flower and even eats the fruits of some of them.

He said: “It is a way of life. My fascination stems from growing the cacti from seeds and seeing them grow into mature plants, with the shape of the spines and the arrangement of its flowers.

“You can eat the cactus fruits – I nibble away at them, but am careful not to eat the seeds, which can be sown into more plants.

“I only do it for the love of the hobby. It is not about winning prizes, but it does give you a lift to see the reaction of people when they see the display, and at least over the past two years, I hope I have encouraged others to grow some of these fascinating plants.

A winning display of cacti grown by Mr Ennals.

“This year I will be coming back to see if I can defend my trophy – it would be nice to see if I can do it 17 years in a row.

“But I’m not sure how I would rate my chances, it’s been a bitterly cold winter and cacti don’t like the frost.”

Mr Ennals is a member of the British Cactus & Succulent Society and also on the Dorset County Show’s horticulture committee.

The closing date for members of the public who wish to enter any of the horticulture classes at the Dorset County Show is Tuesday 24 August.

Cash prizes and trophies are on offer for the winners. As well as cacti, the flower classes also include pot plants, hanging baskets, dahlias, roses, and chrysanthemums. Competitions in the vegetables and fruit classes include the longest runner bean, the heaviest onion, heaviest pumpkin and the heaviest marrow.

Children can have lots of fun over the summer holidays practising for the junior classes such as fashioning an animal or alien out of vegetable or plant materials, decorating flower pots, making edible necklaces or growing the biggest sunflower head.

Junior classes cater for three age ranges: seven years and under, eight to 12 years and 12 to 16 years. You can view a full list of classes and fill out an online entry form by clicking on the schedule at http://www.dorsetcountyshow.co.uk/pdf/Homecraft/index.html

Show Secretary Sam Mackenzie-Green said: “There really is something for people of all ages to see and do at the Dorset County Show.

“Come and have a look at some of the fabulous floral displays or marvel at the enormous fruit and vegetables.

“Perhaps this year’s Dorset County Show will get people inspired to roll up their sleeves and get cracking in their own veg plot or back gardens next year!”

Editor’s Note: From a press release issued by Dorset County Show, published here in full, because I like the idea of Toller Porcorum being a haven for cacti – or even, when it’s not frosty, a heaven. And I love the line about how he got into cacti more seriously when his children left home. Indeed – you’d want to be careful not to have any mishaps with a six foot cactus.

THE WORLD FAMOUS RAF aerobatic team have appeared in the skies over Paris, New York and Sydney. Now at 12.30pm on Saturday 21st August for one very special time the Red Arrows are coming to the sky over Drimpton in West Dorset! It’s true! Why? To help open the village Fun Day.

Mike Saunders, the leader of the village Youth Club, and formerly with the RAF, says: “We had the idea last year when Zane (Red 5) and Monte (Red 7) joined the Red Arrows and I was thinking of ways to raise funds to maintain the momentum of our new Youth club.

“Zane and Monte had spent a great weekend in Drimpton meeting the locals the previous year and were keen on the idea of supporting our Fun Day. Zane came to stay at the beginning of the year and the plan was set in motion.

“I spent my last 3 years of 42 years in the RAF as a Reservist teaching our future fast jet pilots at RAF Valley on the Hawk aircraft. It was here that I got to know some fine young fliers, four off whom, Ben Plank, Kirsty Moore, Zane Sennet and David Montenegro (Monte) are currently with the team.”

The Fun Day is for everyone. Parking and entry is free.

Gates open at 11.30am and events run non-stop from 12noon to 12midnight.

During the afternoon the Recreation Field will be full of activities for all ages, including the Homemade Fair, Football, Tug-of-War, Archery, Steam Train and Pony Rides with refreshments and BBQ.

At 5.00pm the free Children’s Party and Disco begins, followed at 8.00pm by the Summer Dance with live music from well-known local band, The Sidekicks.

For full details of the programme, go to www.drimptonfunday.org.uk

Editor’s Note: The Red Arrows have made over 4,000 appearances in 53 different countries. They’ve just been waiting for the chance to visit Drimpton. (What people think of Drimpton is a revealing test of character). 

There’s masses of detail, including this, in passing, about West Dorset.

“When one of the Greenes (Hugh) was involved in interviewing captured Luftwaffe pilots during the war, we are told: ‘His life was made easier by the fact that Luftwaffe crews often carried diaries and letters in their pockets, and he made use of his fluent German and his knowledge of their country: a dead Luftwaffe officer on Chesil Beach was found to be wearing pink silk women’s underclothes and carrying lipstick and a powder puff.’

It’s a good thing, notes Collini drily, that “Hugh was on hand to bring his knowledge of the country to bear.”

Has this episode ever been reported before? I suspect probably not, because it’s the kind of story that sticks in the mind and gets repeated (as now).

Mull it over and it raises many questions.

I wonder where the officer’s grave is?

The wading birds have raised four chicks at Chard Junction Quarry.

Site owners Bardon Aggregates and Dorset Wildlife Trust turned a disused part of the quarry into a community nature reserve about a year ago. 

Bardon Aggregates are still extracting gravel from are another part of the quarry, but when the company heard of the plovers’ nest, quarry manager Tony Pearson ordered an exclusion zone to make sure the pair weren’t disturbed. 

He said: “It’s fascinating see how these birds have progressed, considering the natural predators that share the same area, including foxes, badgers, crows and buzzards. We just hope they will become regular visitors now.”

Dorset Wildlife Trust’s Joy Wallis said: “The birds could leave any time now, possibly to winter on the coast, but we hope they will be back to breed here next year.”

Ringed plover. Photograph by Monique Vanstone.

Ringed plovers have increasingly chosen to nest inland on sand and gravel pits, even sometimes on old industrial sites, as well as on coastal beaches.

The species’ future has been concerning conservationists; ringed plovers have amber status, indicating they need places to feed and breed.

Chard Junction Quarry nature reserve is near Chard Junction, at grid reference ST 345045. Open daily, free of charge, it includes a path, bird hides, woods, ponds and establishing grasslands. There is no other nature reserve nature in the area.

Reserve leaflets are available from Chard Tourist Information Centre.

More information can be obtained from Bardon Aggregates on 07730 832767.

Mr Grigg is on top form as a lunatic football fanatic: devastated when his second team (Greece) were knocked out last night by Argentina and hoping against hope that England will put their best feet forward in this afternoon’s match against Slovenia.

For the benefit of those who neither understand the game nor care, today’s match is crucial. Winning it means England qualify to be knocked out in the next round instead of getting it over and done with and knocked out now.

To be honest with you, I’m of the ‘don’t care’ variety, although it would be good to have the buzz of winning in our ears instead of those damned vuvuzelas. I remember 1966 with a warm glow. Geoff Hurst was my pin-up and those pink and yellow flying saucers were my favourite food.

I was only four at the time.

Yes, it would be nice for the England team to defy the odds and live to emerge from the tunnel another day, skipping hand-in-hand with their coach.

But I can’t helping thinking the coalition would seize upon it as yet another victory for the ConDems.

No, surely not.

Hush my mouth before Mr Grigg tapes a St George’s cross over it.

Come on Inger-land!

The aim is to get 16-25 year-olds developing business ideas that will improve the local environment.

Ros Kayes, the director of Bridport Local Area Skills Training (BLAST) has asked the European Rural Development Fund Local Action programme for £210,000.

Ms Kayes thinks that agriculture, horticulture, renewable energy systems and tourism could all benefit.

Kingston Maurward (photograph by Chris Shaw, reused under Creative Commons licence). The college is one of the partners in a scheme which hopes to encourage more environmentally-friendly forms of tourism

BLAST’s partners include local FE colleges at Kingston Maurward and Yeovil, and private training providers at Windmill Training, Monkton Wyld and Trill Farm.

Subject ideas for courses and diplomas include:

generating energy from waste

anerobic digestion

wind and solar power technologies

wood fuel technology and developing supply chains for solid fuel and water heating systems

setting up a smallholding

permaculture

organic growing

creating herbal products

biodynamic techniques for farm and garden

food preparation

sales and product development

reuse of materials

design and marketing

promotion of eco-tourism

rural business skills

the  use of composites in sustainable construction

and animal husbandry.

The aim is to reshape West Dorset's rural economy and encourage growth. (Photograph of topiary at Kingston Maurward by Chris Downer, reused under Creative Commons licence).

Ms Kayes, who is also a West Dorset district councillor and Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Spokesman for South Dorset, said the project embodied “an audacious vision for transforming the rural economy”.

Ros Kayes

She went on: “West Dorset has always been a hard to reach area for further education, because of the high numbers needed to make a college sustainable financially.

“As a result in Bridport we have very low levels of qualification post-16.

“That’s the rationale behind BLAST. We decided to find a way of bringing in colleges to provide training without colleges having to invest in premises or do the recruitment or have the overheads.

“We find the students, we identify the training needs through liaising with employers and schools, and we liaise with the colleges to deliver courses they can afford to deliver.”

Ms Kayes said that Blast had so far focused on helping post 16-learners Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEETs) through its successful ASPIRE educational outreach project, and on the delivery of E2E (education to employment) at its new West Dorset skills Training Centre in Bridport, funded by Nacro.

But she continued: “Rural Dorset has also historically had a problem with developing its economy beyond traditional agriculture. We have poor transport infrastructure which means that our tendency is to support light industry and agriculture, but the latter has become increasingly unprofitable in a global economy, which is why so many small farmers are turning to organics and local food markets.

“Bridport has become known as a town which specialises in local food production (with our excellent farmers’ market) and the community and town council have very strong environmental leanings.

“Many, many people have moved here in order to live more sustainably. The town has many allotments, a zero waste group and a renewable energy group.

“I felt it was time to add some of these things together – our genuine desire in the town to live more sustainably; the excellence and expertise available, and the importance of developing the rural economy here.

“We think it ticks all the boxes”

“The bid is designed to support members of the community who want to live more sustainably but also to train up our young people to be entrepreneurs in areas like eco-tourism, renewable energy, sustainable construction and organic farming which have been identified as the growth industries of the future.

“We are linking the courses with mentoring and business support and hope to be setting up a business incubation centre with another of our training partners as a follow up to the project.”

She added: “My experience of working in South Dorset over the last 18 months has convinced me that this is a model that can be rolled out across Dorset as a whole, especially in the Purbecks where there are similar problems with access but a huge interest in sustainable technology and local food markets.

“Also if you look at somewhere like Portland, with its proposal for an academy to rejuvenate the economy and a huge windfarm about to be located off the coast, there is clear potential to roll out something like this there as well.”

Bid partners have been supported by West Dorset District Council, Dorset County Council, Bridport Town Council, the Learning and Skills Council and the South West Regional Development Agency.

“We think it ticks all the boxes,” said Ros.

“We had a big hold up because I was standing in the general election but now that’s over we have finally managed to get it finished.

“Now we just have to keep our fingers crossed and see whether it’s successful.”

You can be driving through a murky Mosterton, go through the tunnel and, abracadabra, emerge into a beaming Beaminster.

Dorset folk will say the weather is invariably better this side of the tunnel. Somerset Cuckoos – and I confess I am one – will probably say the opposite. But it works both ways.

You can be pootling up the twilight Tunnel Road and, bam, you come out into sunrise Somerset. It’s like a geographical time tunnel.

Here in Lush Places, however,  more times than not we are surrounded by fog when everywhere else in Dorset is bathed in light. A veil of mist hangs over Bluebell Hill nearly every day, hiding the tops of the beech trees as they say hello to the sky.

People move into the village and then, after a month or two, the truth dawns on them.

‘It’s always so damp and cold here,’ they whine.

‘We really didn’t realise that when we first came here,’ they say, as the people who sold them the house rub their hands in glee and roar off in a removal van towards Salway Ash.

But there are advantages in living in a cloud. For one thing, we are mightily grateful when we get even a twinkling of sunshine. And for another, it can be very useful to head up the hill in the swirling mist when you need to make a quick getaway.

Like the time when four of us descended on Netherbury for a quiz in the village hall. We won the main prize, the beer leg and three raffle prizes.

And before the natives even had time to mutter, ‘now just who were those bloody people?’ (although they would never swear as they’re far too genteel), we swiftly jumped into the car and drove into the clouds, never to be seen again.

Every cloud has a silver lining.

The clean, lime green of the beech trees, the swathe of bluebells, an ocean of them, oh so blue. And then very occasionally, a white one pops up out of nowhere.

This place is magical at the best of times and May is the best of times.

A hollow tree where a goblin sits, a fallen trunk inscribed with names going back 15 years when university students were still at primary school, a couple sitting on a grassy bank, soaking up the sun and enjoying the view.

The patchwork fields, cosy hills and an undulating ridge underlining the millpond sea.

Welcome to real west Dorset.

Editor’s Note: Maddie Grigg is a Google Blogger of Note.

You can read more from her at The world from my window, about West Dorset village life, and Manor from Heaven, about Mapperton House near Beaminster.  Affectionate, amusing, strongly recommended.

The council today published a notice inviting construction companies to bid for the job of building a new 4-storey office block, library and adult education centre on the Charles Street site in Dorchester town centre.

The value of the contract is said to be between £8.3 million and £9 million.

The deadline for applying for the job is June 21. A shortlist of between five and 10 contractors will be announced in August, with a final decision expected to be made before the end of the year.

The notice says that work should take 60-70 weeks, with completion scheduled for May 2012.

There is, of course, one big potential obstacle; the scheme has not yet received planning permission. Indeed, an application by Simons Developments was only submitted to West Dorset District Council at the end of April and it is likely to attract substantial opposition.

To read the legal notice, click here.

It is performed to the smell of petrol and set to a score of swear words.

On the village lawns and workshops, the strimmers suddenly take on lives of their own, like the broomsticks in Harry Potter. They even have names. Our neighbour,  Eugene, has three adjectives for his and one noun, all beginning with ‘B’. Oddly, Mr Grigg’s strimmer, which has just been thrown into the skip, has the same name.

The local agricultural engineer tells me that each spring he is besieged by ‘bastard strimmers’ as the village’s menfolk try unsuccessfully to start them up again for the season.

Just across the road, though, an elderly neighbour’s spanking new mower cuts through the grass like a warm spoon through Waitrose ice cream. He is preparing the ground for the croquet lawn. Croquet – something I thought was played only by posh people and Alice in Wonderland.

Anyone for croquet? Picture: Meagan Jean, used under Flickr's Creative Commons attribution licence

I think he might be trying to get as much exercise as he can, after reading in his Daily Telegraph today that charities and councils have accused the new coalition Government of ignoring the need for reform of care for the elderly.

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley is reported to have said the Government is committed to ‘long-term reform based on prevention, partnership, personalisation and protection.’

Within this catchy four-Ps soundbite – which when spoken is not dissimilar to a strimmer spluttering into life – the one word that worries me is  ‘prevention’. Is the coalition seriously considering the prevention of old age? Now that is scary.

It reminds me of the Gobblers in Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights only in reverse. These were the sinister folk who snatched children off the streets to remove their souls for the greater good.

On second thoughts Mr Grigg, get that strimmer back out from the skip.  You just might be needing that to fend off a Government Gobbler. Hit me with your croquet mallet.

Editor’s Note: Maddie Grigg was this week picked out by Google as a Blogger of Note, a distinction which - when discovered – prompted some entertaining exclamations on Twitter. Such as:

OMG, as the young people say, I’ve been chosen as a Blogger of Note. Lots of Oscar-style thank yous and a dead rat. http://ow.ly/1KOlA 9:49 PM May 13th via HootSuite

@Laales – many thanks. I have new enthusiasm now. I feel something big is about to happen. Oh, Mr Grigg is in the toilet. 1:55 PM May 15th via HootSuite in reply to Laales

@greendrawers – I’m trying not to let the award go to my head, but, honestly, you can probably see my head from out at sea now. 2:47 PM May 15th via HootSuite in reply to greendrawers

You can read more from her at The world from my window, about West Dorset village life, and Manor from Heaven, about Mapperton House near Beaminster.  Affectionate, amusing, strongly recommended.