in dorset? yes, I certainly do

Next weekend sees us head off in Andy's Land Rover for the annual Swanage trip, a fixture in my social calendar for, ooh, ten years now. Or is it eleven? Or twelve? One of the problems with remembering the history of this sort of thing is that recollections tend to be hazy, for obvious reasons.

For instance: it was the generally received wisdom that the first year we did a "proper" Swanage trip was 2003, when we actually did two, in May and November, to coincide with the release of the second and third Matrix movies. However, evidence (i.e. some photos) recently unearthed from the depths of Andy's laptop reveals that in fact we (Andy, me, Robin and Harry) did a trip in October 2002. This is simultaneously fascinating, because we all look about twelve in the photos, and troubling, because it means that our proclaiming of the 2012 trip as Swanage X was incorrect, as it was actually Swanage XI. I suppose we can just do a bit of Stalinist revision of history and say that the 2012 trip marked the tenth anniversary of the first trip, and that therefore it was, in a very real sense, Swanage X. Whatever, I'm not going and changing all the photo captions now.

So it seemed like a good idea to capture some historical info before our descent into senility and incontinence is complete, probably any day now. The first thing I've done is to upload all the historical photos I've got, all the way back to 2002. Click on the year in the table below to go to the relevant photo gallery.

The Saturday pub crawl has evolved slightly over the years, so this list from 2007 is now slightly out of date. The canonical town centre pub list now reads as follows:

• East (formerly The Peverill)
• Bar Seven
• The White Horse
• The Purbeck (until 2009, now closed, but still the venue for a salutatory slug from the hip-flask)
• The Ship
• The White Swan
• The Anchor
• The Red Lion
• The Black Swan

Rather than list all those every time I've just noted where the crawl differed from that list in a way that any of us can remember, or if we visited any other notable pubs on our Sunday walk. The columns are hopefully self-explanatory; some of the cryptic notes in the "General Notes" column can be illuminated by clicking on the links (usually to a relevant photo), some are probably best left slightly mysterious. I've included the 2005 trip to Llangennith as a sort of honorary Swanage as it filled the same slot in the calendar and followed pretty much the same format.

As for attendees, Andy, Robin and I have a perfect 100% attendance record so far, Phil made his solitary appearance in May 2003, Richard joined us for the Llangennith trip in 2005 and has attended every one since, and Harry started in a blaze of glory attending the first three trips and then took a breather for just the nine years before rejoining us in 2012 and 2013 (and 2014, all being well).

Year	Dates	Transport and Pubs	General Notes
2002	18-21 Oct	Andy's Saab	Swanage 0! Andy's Mum's static caravan. Cheese racing. Port.
2003	23-26 May	Andy's Saab The Vista Bar	Phil! Matrix Reloaded. Rhythm Sticks. Table tennis in the Vista Bar. Phil’s Famous Backwards Golf Shot. Snow Flaps. Police layby interview with Carling tinnies. Phil being banned from Swanage forever.
2003	7-10 Nov	Andy's Saab The Vista Bar	Last trip to the caravan. Grappa and blue Aftershock. Matrix Revolutions. Harry asleep in the Red Lion. Table tennis and bowling in the Vista Bar aborted due to child invasion. Harry's wrist exerciser. Harry's "special interest" videos (aka wrist exercisers).
2004	3-6 Sep	Andy's Saab	Camping! Sunny weather. Train trip to Corfe. Russian porn model. Banged shins. Vomiting. Wurzels.
2005	14-17 Oct	Andy’s Scooby The Worm's Head The King's Head	Llangennith! i.e. not actually Swanage at all. Richard's first trip. Overloaded Scooby. Cats (small, far away). Quaver Dog. Barmaids. Angry snake. Herbal interruptions. Fireworks. Splintered/splinted tent poles.
2006	22-25 Sep	Andy’s Scooby The Mowlem	Seafront wave chicken. Lighthouse walk. Farty Globe. Ryder Cup climax.
2007	5-8 Oct	Andy’s Scooby Square and Compass The King's Arms Royal Oak	Blues Festival! Power cut. Caving. Fishing at Winspit. Fish supper. The Matraverses. The legendary 23lb carp. Stan being gutted. Weird starey kid in The Royal Oak. Pumpkins. Loganberry beer.
2008	19-22 Sep	Dave’s Mum’s Scooby Square and Compass Scott Arms	Richard's hole-in-one. More fish. No buses to Scott Arms. Taxi to Scott Arms. Chapman's Pool. Ryder Cup again.
2009	11-14 Sep	Andy’s Landy The Ship The (Studland) Bankes Arms The Village Inn The Crow's Nest	First trip in the Land Rover. Camo hats. Folk festival! Morris dancers. Bender in a Bun. Kyle. Kyle's Mom. Sandbanks. Bus on a boat. Nudists! Last of the (late) summer Purbecks. Will Killeen and his mum. Crazy Clogging Care in the Community Crystal Carl. Or was it Chris?
2010	15-18 Oct	Andy’s Landy The Greyhound The (Corfe) Bankes Arms	Green Bastards. Vote For Yourself! Train to Corfe. Demise of the Purbeck. Hypnocat. Appletise? Appletiser? Burning the fencepost.
2011	16-19 Sep	Andy’s Landy Various Wareham pubs The Square and Compass	Decaf coffee!? Orange women. Bus to Wareham. Pigs! Supermodels in the Old Granary. Pickle the dog. Barbecuing Andy's pants. Beaver Maintenance.
2012	29 Sep - 1 Oct	Andy’s Landy The Greyhound The (Corfe) Bankes Arms	Return of the Harry! Swanage X (or so we thought at the time). Ridge walk to Corfe. Exploding Party Grill. Ryder Cup smartphone updates.
2013	11-14 Oct	Andy’s Landy The Crow's Nest The Bull and Boat	Do Not Touch This Window. The Bull and Boat webcam. Very wet walk via Peverill Point.
2014	10-13 Oct	Andy’s Landy	Who knows?