Consequences

28 September 2015

Having handed in my notice and walked away I didn’t feel the relief I’d expected. What I felt was numb and sick. A rash of job applications ensued. For me, working is mostly about being independent and my savings would only last so long. Probably I should have been outside in the beautiful Indian summer sun but I felt I had to keep plugging away. Never before have I intentionally left a job with no new job to go to and, even though Commando was incredibly supportive, it was terrifying. At least having a driving licence meant I could look a little further afield and, with that in mind, I made sure I went out in the car every day, trying to push the boundaries a little further each time.

On Sunday I took Commando to the White Swan for a drink. Obviously he was the one doing the drinking. Afterwards we took a short stroll along the beginning of the Itchen Navigation. As I was acting as guide no photos were taken but I think Commando enjoyed it. He said he’d like to walk the whole thing with me one day. Maybe we will. That night we drove down to the shore, marvelling at the huge super moon. If we’d stayed up until the early hours we might have seen the eclipse turn it orange but we didn’t. Instead we sat on the fence by the car park, listened to the water lapping and looked at the lights of the docks shimmering on the water. Although I had a series of evening lessons a while ago, I’d forgotten how different it is driving in the dark but I did it and we got home safely.

On Monday, while Commando and CJ were still asleep I took the car keys and left the house heading for the shore again. In the daylight everything seemed a great deal easier and I was soon pulling into the car park at the end of the shore. The shoreline in front of the car park was filled with gulls and crows and I stopped for a moment for two to watch them soaring and squabbling above the waves. The sound of the sea was soothing and I lifted my face to the warm sun trying to let the worries of the last week slip away.

With no real plan I began to wander aimlessly towards the benches where I often sit, crunching across the gravel. A fisherman sat on a chair in the shade looking out at the water and, in the distance, I could see the towers and spires of Fawley. I thought of Commando’s words from the night before, “it may not be the best shore in the world but it’s ours.”

It felt odd to be in this place without the walk that usually proceeds it. Stranger still to be walking away from my little car parked on the edge of the shingle and I kept looking back at it to make sure it was still there. Soon I’d passed East Lodge and the car was out of sight. Tall willowherb towered over me along the fence, mostly gone to seed but with a few bright pink flowers still clinging on. Seeds borne on silky parachutes drifted across the path in front of me.

A small white dog sat watching me as I headed for the sailing club lookout tower. Down at the bottom of the slipway I could just make out his mistress. When I stopped to take a photo of the tower the dog scooted past me along the path, his mistress in hot pursuit. For a while I lingered there listening to the waves and giving them a chance to get a good head start before I too set off along the gravel path behind the crumbling sea wall.

The dog and his mistress were nowhere to be seen when I got to the path. Maybe they’d gone through the gate, over the gaps in the wall onto the shore or crossed the bridge to the wide field behind the trees. The tide was lapping against the old stone wall as I passed Netley Castle. I felt a little salty spray in the air and began to wonder how far up it would come. Just that morning I’d been reading about super tides, extra high tides caused by a combination of the normal Autumn Equinox high tide, the super moon and the lunar eclipse.  Suddenly leaving my car in the car park right on the shore didn’t seem like such a good idea.

In the spring of 2014 I remembered the car park and the road itself being completely flooded. This was when the sea brought the old wall down and, further along, the path along the sea front as well. So far the waves weren’t coming over the wall so I carried on a little further but with one eye on the sea. It occurred to me that it might be all very nice driving somewhere and going for a walk but the pay off was worrying about the car. What would Commando say if I came home without it and had to tell him it was sitting in the sea at Weston Shore? Maybe it will get easier the more I do it?

When I reached the place where the path had crumbled into the sea I got a big surprise. At some point since I last came this way back in July, someone has repaired the path and the wall supporting it. Now, instead of a wall of old, irregular stones there’s a straight, smooth concrete edifice. It may not look as nice as the old stone wall but at least someone has taken the trouble to add a row of decorative stones along the top. Then again, they could be there to stop people sitting on it, they looked pretty sharp and uncomfortable.

Obviously I had to give the path a try so I walked a little further, as far as the place the old met the new. The sea seemed to be getting higher still, waves were crashing and bouncing back off the new wall. If it got much higher it would overwhelm the path. Once again I began to worry about my car way back at the car park on the promenade. Peering back along the shore I tried to see what was happening back there but the bend of the bay meant I couldn’t see it at all. Anxiety made me turn back.

So I began to march back, slightly nervous about what I might find when I got there. There was a stop to look at the ripening fruits on the strawberry tree. They’re such unusual looking things and I’m told they’re edible but I’m not sure I’d like to try them somehow. Maybe the birds and squirrels will polish them off when they’re ripe.

One more short stop to snap the boundary stone, half hidden amongst the nettles and some walkers coming towards me gave me odd looks. They probably wondered what I was doing crouching in the undergrowth with my phone in my hand. Then the car park was in sight and, to my relief, the sea was nowhere near the car.

To celebrate I trotted over to the ice cream van and treated myself to a small cone.
“Did you see the blood moon?” The ice cream man asked me.
“It was too far past my bedtime,” I told him, “I did come down to the shore last night though and the moon was huge. Did you see it? I should think it was impressive when it turned red.”
“I got up to look at it but it was much smaller than it had been earlier in the evening. It was really red but it wasn’t much bigger than a normal moon.”

As I sat on the old wooden fence eating my ice cream I thought about actions and consequences. Parking on the shore had seemed like a good idea at the time but the incoming tide had spoiled my enjoyment of the walk somewhat. Maybe I need to learn to be less worried about things because it all turned out well in the end. Either that or I need to park in the car park at the other end of the shore which is further away from the sea.

Then there is the job issue. Quitting my job wasn’t something I did lightly. It was never really the job for me but I feel I made the best of it. Maybe if there hadn’t been so many changes of management, if the latest managerial incarnation hadn’t asked me to do things I felt were questionable, I’d have stayed. The end may have come suddenly, perhaps a little sooner than I’d planned, but a great deal of thought went into it first and the job searching has been going on for a while. The consequence of quitting is a double edged sword. There is more time to practice my driving and to walk but my savings will only last so long so a great deal of that time has to be devoted to getting some kind of paid employment, if only for my own independence. Perhaps, like the parking, I need to stop worrying so much about it and hope it too will be alright in the end.