Mansbridge, last minute shopping and making up the miles

21 December 2014

Somehow Christmas has crept up on me when I wasn’t looking. Perhaps this has something to do with losing four days to flu. So Sunday found me with presents to buy and lots of miles to walk if I wanted to make the hundred by the end of the month. It seemed a good idea, then, to combine the two things and walk the five miles to the Swan Centre in Eastleigh.

Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t too good, dull grey skies and a slight hint of rain in the air. Walking down towards the river I was surprised to see yet another rose blooming in another garden, some of the outer petals slightly burned by the cold but otherwise it might have been spring. When I got there, the river was quite high, lapping at the stones at the bottom of the slope, but nowhere near as high as it has been. With luck I would get through Mansbridge unscathed.

As I approcahed the swans gathered at the jetty I walked through a mass of low flying gulls. They wailed and flew around my head, some close enough to make me duck. There were no bread throwers but I suppose they thought I might have some. Of course I didn’t. With so many miles ahead I didn’t dally along the river, just marched on at top speed with the gulls and wind whistling around my ears.

On I marched, past Woodmill and the next part of the river. There was no sign of the orphaned cygnets but I supposed they were further up the river by the White Swan where the pickings are rich, especially on a Sunday at around lunch time. At Mansbridge I stopped for a moment. A few days ago I saw an old photograph on the Southampton Heritage Facebook page of the bridge with traffic flowing over it back in the days before the new road bridge was built.

One of my very early memories is driving past the White Swan with my Dad in his little Hillman and I suppose we must have gone over the bridge but, standing looking at it, it’s hard to believe it ever carried the A27, one of the busiest trunk roads in the UK. There has been a bridge at this point since at least 932. In King Athelstan’s charter to the prior of St Swithun’s in Winchester it was referred to as Mannysbrigge and in the Doomsday book it was called Manebrige or Manesbrige Hundred, within the county of Hantscire.

Originally there was a wooden bridge here and the current stone bridge was built in 1816 by the county council. For many hundreds of years it was the lowest crossing of the River Itchen but the old stone bridge was barely wide enough for two cars to pass and became a notorious bottleneck for traffic. The parapet was often damaged by collisions. Even going under the bridge wasn’t plain sailing as there is less than six feet of headroom even when the river is at its lowest. The barges that went up and down the Itchen must have had a few problems when the river was in flood and may have had to be winched through against the current.

In 1975 the new bridge was built along with a new stretch of road bypassing the little bridge and the road that ran in front of the White Swan. The ruined parapet was replaced on the old bridge. Now the only way to drive past the pub and see lights twinkling on the water as I did as a child is to drive through the pub car park and along the short stretch of dead end road that remains. Of course you’d probably run over a few fishermen if you did as the banks are almost always full of them. These days the only traffic going across the old Mansbridge is on foot or by bicycle.

Leaving Mansbridge behind I made for Monk’s Brook, pleased to see the path wasn’t too muddy for once. Heading towards the Green Bridge I was puzzled to see a woman and child coming towards me. The woman was pushing a muddy supermarket trolley, dripping and covered with river weed.
“If you’re embarassed, walk the other way,” I heard her say to the little girl trailing behind her.

It was an odd sight as the woman was well dressed, although her nice coat and trousers were covered with mud. I couldn’t help wondering what she was up to. Had she some plan to use the rusty old trolley as some kind of Christmas decoration? I didn’t have to wonder for long. As the woman came face to face with me she shrugged sheepishly.
“I thought it was about time I stopped swearing and moaning about it every time I passed and got in and fished it out,” she said. “It’s my Christmas present to the community.”
“What a brilliant thing to do,” I smiled. Goodness knows what she’s going to do with the old trolley though.

It felt a little mean to take her photo but I did capture her poor embarassed daughter’s back as they disappeared into the trees. All alone again I looked for fungi as I walked. There was none to be found but I did stop twice to look at interesting old stumps rotting beside the path. Something felt odd though and it took me a moment to work out what it was. There was more light than normal and several piles of sawdust a little way off the path. Then I spotted a row of stumps. Someone had been cutting down trees. The houses of Brookside Way that had once been hidden by trees are now intruding on the peace of the little trail. I’m not sure why they cut the trees but I wish they hadn’t.

As I approached the Blue Bridge I had the strangest feeling I was being watched. For a while I thought it was because of the houses now overlooking the trail but then I spotted the culprit. On the far bank, perched on a tree right at the river’s edge, a black cat was watching me. Maybe it was doing a spot of fishing although, knowing how much cats hate water, I doubt it would be too keen to dive in to catch anything it saw.

 

Soon I was crossing the marsh land where the dark seed heads of bulrushes were beginning to burst showing the cottony fluff of seeds. Even here there seem to be less trees and I could see the houses on Mansbridge Road. Maybe I’m imagining things and it’s just the lack of leaves. Soon enough I was on the road myself heading towards the airport and Eastleigh. The fun part of the walk with water and woods was over.

The Swan Centre was heaving with Christmas shoppers and I knew my tolerance to crowds wouldn’t  hold out long so I set to work looking for presents straight away. There was some success, although not enough that I wouldn’t have to go out again. Every shop I went in was jam packed and every till had a long queue. Perhaps if the place had been empty I’d have stayed longer and got everything. Maybe not though as I’d have had to carry it all five miles home. Next year I swear I’m doing it all in September. Then again I think I may have said that last year too.

With so much stuffed into my rucksack I couldn’t close it properly I gave up. Thankfully there wasn’t much of a queue for Costa. By this time lunch time was long past and breakfast seemed an awful long time ago. In lieu of a proper lunch I bought myself a coffee and a salted caramel and chocolate cake. There was even somewhere to sit and eat it, probably because everyone else was too busy buying stuff. Somewhere in all this mad consumerism people seem to have forgotten the meaning of Christmas.

Fortified by coffee and cake I set off for home. Originally I’d thought about going across Lakeside and back along the old Stoneham Lane but, with a heavier than usual backpack and a knee that had unaccountably started aching, I decided against it. Every time I’ve taken this route I’ve ended up taking wrong turns and adding miles and, much as I need all the miles I can get right now the last thing I want is a knee injury.

Instead I retraced my steps. This also gave me a chance to take pictures of a few things I’d noticed on the way but been in too much of a rush to examine closely. First there was a shrub in a front garden that I thought had been flowering as I sped by on the opposite side of the road. This time I crossed and, on closer examination, the colour I’d seen turned out to be tinsel. Not quite as interesting but pretty enough.

Just past the entrance to Lakeside I thought I’d seen dandelions on the verge. They were there alright and I was surprised to note how the tiny petals on the bursting buds spiral around before they fluff out. Funny how I’ve never noticed that before. Close by butterbur flowers caught me by surprise. Butterbur usually only grow on riverbanks or marshland and these were a long way from either. They also normally flower in spring, with the flower spikes emerging before the leaves. These had both leaves and flowers, telling me they’d been growing for a while. The poor things must be very confused indeed.

There was no missing the tall stand of teasels near the airport roundabout but I’d been I’d been in too much of a hurry to take a picture earlier. On the way back I couldn’t resist. There’s something about teasels I find fascinating. While I was there I thought I might as well capture the clematis vitalba seed heads and the mass of berries on what I think is probably cotoneaster, not to mention a ragwort flower swaying in the breeze. All but the ragwort are expected sights for this time of year but it does feel as if there are flowers of three seasons all growing at the same time right now. All we need are a few summer flowers to complete the whole year.

This was the last stop. My knee was really beginning to hurt, reminding me of the injury I picked up not long before my last Moonwalk. Back then I had no idea what I’d done to it and this time was the same but it was certainly getting worse. It seemed to me the sooner I got home and rested it the better. The last four miles were spend painfully limping. This is not good news for the hundred miles in December.