The swans have been on this site at least since the 11th

The swans have been on this site at least since the 11th century, when the swannery was managed by Benedictine monks. The birds – known as “mute” swans despite making a variety of strange noises – live on the Fleet, a lagoon by Chesil Beach. The 18-mile beach is, for the eastern nine miles, detached from the shore of the mainland and separated from it by the Fleet – which makes a calm haven of wetlands that supports not just the swans but also a wide variety of other wildlife.
Abbotsbury Swannery is the only colony of managed swans in the world. An outstandingly beautiful nature reserve, it is home to around 800 swans which like it so much that they never leave – unusual behaviour, as swans normally move from place to place. Finding the Swannery at Abbotsbury in Dorset was uncannily easy. The AA had put up bright yellow signs directing us to “Baby Swans Hatching” at regular intervals for miles around. Such an official statement seemed bizarre – are we so disconnected from nature that we need signposts to direct us to every detail of rural life? But Abbotsbury Swannery is not a typical place.

Puddings include St Clement’s sponge and apple pie.Future plans for the large garden include a pets’ corner and a children’s play area.From the Egon Ronay Guide `And Children Come Too …’ (Bookman, pounds 9.99). This quaint and quiet 17th-century thatched country pub is located near the river Ouse, and is in a delightful village. The Swan’s extensive and varied menu includes a few pub stand-bys, such as ploughman’s platters and sandwiches, but predominantly features home-cooked fare using fresh local ingredients, especially fish and game, and is supplemented by good daily blackboard specials.
Choices include chilli-braised mushrooms on a bed of noodles for starters, venison in red wine, and unusual Oriental dishes such as teriyaki beef There are also vegetarian options. If you’re in search of a retreat from all that overhead noise, head for the Swan Inn at Radwell (01234 781351). Impediments such as the absence of roads in eastern Siberia and the considerable stretches of ocean are not mentioned, but helpfully “the world can be travelled the other way round or by a different route depending on circumstances like visa regulations and civil war”.. Beginning next month, pairs of hitch-hikers will compete for the title on a race through the former USSR, Hungary, Austria, Italy, France, Germany, Denmark and Norway, ending up next February at Russia’s northernmost city, Murmansk.This is merely a preliminary round for the real thing – a hitching race around the world.

A year from now, surviving teams will begin at St Petersburg and travel via Siberia, Nome (across the Bering Strait in Alaska), Seattle, New York and Paris. The plucky airline started up in 1923, even though the first airport in Finland did not open until 1936.Another acronym: PASL. This is an even more intriguing body, the (St) Petersburg Auto-Stop League. “Here,” says Daan Toner of The Hague, “is the electronic answer to the question about whatever happened to hitching races”. This bunch of Russian hitch-hikers has a Web site on the Internet, where you learn about its activities, such as “training hitch-hikers to travel fast even in the most difficult terrain and circumstances”.It is hard to imagine more difficult terrain and circumstances than present- day Russia, where some of the drivers are almost as malevolent as the climate. No problem: “The members of the league travel in yellow suits, especially designed for hitch-hiking 24 hours a day, seven days a week, world-wide.

Reflecting patches and flashlights make hitch-hiking possible through the night.”PASL’s plans for a world hitch-hikers’ trophy are ambitious. Which European airline was, until 1968, known by the name of a popular chocolate bar? The answer is not Air Galaxy, or Bournville Airways, but Finnair – which for the first 45 years of its life was called Aero. Within it, among the capsule descriptions of the 100-odd airlines operating to Britain, you find some splendid resonances of aviation history.
Sudan Airways, for example, which is celebrating its half-century this year, began life as a subsidiary of Sudan Railways. And Delta Air Lines, now one of the world’s biggest, started as the world’s first crop-dusting business: Huff Daland Dusters, based in the Mississippi Delta.In 1982, you learn, its employees decided they liked the company so much that they conducted a workers’ whip-round to buy Delta a Boeing 767; in the current climate, I can’t imagine British Airways cabin crew passing the hat around to present Robert Ayling with a new $100m jet.