Category: Tales from the Vale

The Tales from the Vale section is best described as eclectic!

This is the archive of Andy Palmer’s popular ‘Tales from the Vale’ column for the BV magazine – meandering thoughts and amusing ruminations on life in the Blackmore Vale.

So when we describe this section as eclectic we mean it, it’s that and eccentric in all it’s glorious ways!

It seems as though Andy has been there and done that! And even if he hasn’t, he still sure to have a very big opinion on it anyway. So, you have been warned. Andy will take you there and back again, oh and did I mention the puns? Lord help us!

Dorset community news

Coffee and punctures Tales from the Vale

Coffee and punctures Great new coffee house in King’s Stag attached to the Green Man pub with an attractive almost Scandi-minimally-decorated interior. I was going to...

10 November 2021

Dorset community news

Off with his head | Tales from the Vale

The slow escape Big hoo-ha in Mappowder: a tortoise has gone missing (easily identifiable – it’s wearing a shell suit) which led my wife to...

3 October 2021

Dorset community news

Thomas Hardy too miserable to read | Tales from the Vale

I expected a storm of complaints about my last column which had a bit of a go at ‘famous Dorset novelist’ Thomas Hardy -...

10 September 2021

Dorset Charity

Why is Hardy so popular?

Why is Hardy so popular? A lot of locals revere the writer Thomas Hardy. I hate to be a party pooper but he’s just that little...

16 August 2021

Dorset community news

A letter from Her Maj

To get a birthday card from the Queen (my father in Law is 100, an absolute miracle – as you’ll read below) you’ve got...

4 July 2021

Dorset community news

Haggis, the Falklands and DFLs | Tales from the Vale

Great little farm shop and outdoor café up a dirt track near Milton Abbas owned by ‘Steve,’ but run by two self-confessed ‘smiley girls,’...

9 June 2021

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Popular

Equestrian Dorset

Where the horse work happens

28 August 20220

Margaret Millward agreed to help with the show’s equestrian classes – temporarily – in the 1990s. She’s still there and does most of the...

Dorset community news

Larmer Tree named South West’s best wedding venue

17 January 20260

One of the region’s most distinctive wedding venues has been recognised at the 2026 Wedding Industry Awards – with Larmer Tree named South West...

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