A boundary stone reprise

14 July 2016

Today I planned to take CJ to see the boundary stone on Old Redbridge Bridge, then cross the flyover to Totton, visit Eling Tide Mill and come back via the boardwalk across the Test estuary. In the end, events conspired against us and things didn’t turn out quite how I expected.

Things began to go awry on the drive to Matt’s. The plan was to leave the car at his house and walk from there. Thinking I’d avoid driving through the centre of town I decided to try a different route. Unfortunately, I missed a vital turn and ended up on the roundabout under the flyover. This wouldn’t have been a major issue but the road from there to Matt’s turned out to be closed at the far end. This involved a three point turn, again not a problem but, from there, I was lost. A lot of driving around blindly finally got me to Matt’s house but my problems weren’t quite over.

CJ had never been to Matt’s house before and he took a shine to his two dogs and the resident tortoise. While I had a coffee and chatted to Jean, CJ stole my fancy pants camera and spent far too much time taking photos of them. By the time I finally dragged him away I knew we were running out of time for the walk I’d planned.

Walking out of the house was something akin to stepping into an oven. Hot didn’t even cover it. As we walked towards the bridge my mind was working overtime trying to revise my original plan. It really was too hot to walk so far but we could at least tick the boundary stone off CJ’s list and maybe visit the tide mill. If nothing else it would be a good test of how the new camera compared to the iPhone.

We scooted down the same shortcut Matt and I found when we visited the boundary stone. The slope wasn’t any less steep but we managed to get down in one piece. The puddle at the bottom seemed to have grown since last time, testament to the amount of rain we’ve had. It also had some kind of weird algae growing on it, acid green and slightly furry looking. After extensive Googling I’m no nearer to finding out what it was than I was before but it was eye poppingly bright.

Sadly the lovely poppy Matt and I found last time had finished flowering but there were several large seed heads. I sneakily broke one off and popped it into my bag. If I’m very lucky I might have some in my garden next year. CJ waited patiently while I was on my poppy seed gathering mission but I could tell he was itching to get on with the business of finding the boundary stone.

Although I’d planned to keep my last visit a secret from CJ I’d owned up, so he knew I’d already seen it. He took it surprisingly well. Obviously, I knew exactly where the stone was but, as CJ didn’t, I hung back to let him have the joy of discovering it himself. It didn’t take him long to find it. While he was taking his photos I had a better look at the bridge itself and the more modern road bridge above it.

While I was standing there a train sped past on the railway line that cuts the old bridge off from the road beyond.
“It seems a shame they couldn’t have built a bridge across the railway line so you could still get right across the bridge,” CJ said, coming to join me.
I had to agree. It does seem a shame that this pretty little bridge is a road to nowhere, especially with a nice little pub at the end of it.

Looking over the bridge across the estuary I could see a flock of gulls on the muddy shore. The zoom on the camera gave me a better view and I wished we had time to go walking there. Then I saw the cows grazing on the far side of the estuary, close to where the trail begins. Maybe today wasn’t the best day for it after all. CJ and I have a bit of a history with stray cows, or bulls after all.

It seemed to be getting hotter and muggier by the second. If it was this bad right by the water what it would be like walking through Totton to the tide mill didn’t bear thinking about.
“I’m not sure we should attempt the tide mill today,” I said as we walked back across the bridge. “It’s just too hot for it.”
“I was hoping you’d say that,” CJ sighed with relief, “I think I’m boiling to death.”

As we came towards the end of the bridge we could see horses moving across the field along some unseen trail towards the cows. We stopped for a moment and watched them feeling quite pleased we weren’t on the estuary as we’d originally planned, the place seemed to be filled with animals.

In fact, as we looked more closely, there were Canada geese between the horses and the cows. A little further on there were herons. Under the tall pylons, the place was positively teeming with wildlife.

By now we were almost back at the road. With one last look back along the bridge we plodded up the slope towards the speeding traffic. Leaving the quiet of the old bridge and the views across the reeds and mud flats it felt as if we’d slipped back into a gentler time and were now being dragged into the noisy, hectic present day.

It may not have been the longest walk we’ve ever taken together and it certainly wasn’t the walk I planned but at least we have now both seen the boundary stone. Next time we really will visit the tide mill and the estuary, well, if it’s not too hot and we don’t bump into those cows we will.

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