A slight cock up in the medal department and a ten mile walk

27 April 2016

The Southampton Half Marathon was over and Commando and I were both chilling over a cup of coffee. He’d run thirteen point one miles and I’d walked more than half that trying to spot him. In fact I’d even run a little bit but I’m keeping that to myself in case he starts expecting me to run all the time.
“Have you got my race pack and my medal,” he said.
“I haven’t even seen it,” I said with a sinking feeling. “You didn’t leave it in the pub did you?”
“I don’t even remember having it in the pub. I thought I’d given it to you.”

After a flurry of slightly frantic phone calls we established the medal wasn’t in the pub. Later we discovered it had never even made it that far in the first place. Somewhere between picking it up at the end of the race and the pacers buffet he’d put it down and not picked it up again. All was not lost though. The people who’d cleared the VIP changing room had found it and, thanks to the white hat he’d stuffed inside it, they’d identified it as his. Let’s face it, not many people are absent minded enough to leave their medal behind after finishing a half marathon so there was hardly a glut of unclaimed race packs to choose from.

On Monday afternoon we drove to Eastleigh where the medal and race pack was supposedly languishing in an office. It should have been simple but, when we eventually found the building, we couldn’t find the right office and no one seemed to know anything about it. It began to look as if this was one race medal that wouldn’t make it into Commando’s collection.

Long story short. It turned out we’d been in the right place all along but the office had only just relocated to the building and hadn’t yet put up any signs. In a moment of madness I said I’d go and pick it up for him today. Of course, I could have taken the car but that wouldn’t have put any miles into the woefully empty April bank. CJ said he’d come along too.
“It’s a ten mile round trip,” I told him.
“I know,” he said. Maybe he really is turning into a walker. Then again it could have been the lure of the Costa at the Swan Centre.

To be honest, the sky didn’t look too good when we set out and there were a few moments of wondering whether I should have taken the car after all. The sun was out when we got to Riverside Park though, even if there was a big black could overhead. The flag of St George was flying from a flagpole I’ve never noticed before, perhaps left over from St George’s Day. It made me smile.

As we walked towards the jetty we looked across at the place the black swans had hidden out with their cygnets last year. We knew there were two new cygnets but didn’t really expect to see them.
“Isn’t that a black swan over there between the wooden jetty and the yellow boat?” CJ said, squinting into the distance.
I took my glasses off and rubbed them on my t-shirt then looked where he was pointing. He was right, there were two black swans and two little grey dots that looked decidedly cygnets shaped.
“Look, there are the cygnets!”
It would have been nice to see them close up but at least we now knew they were really there and you can’t have everything.

Two of the previous batch of five cygnets were hanging around the jetty but it looked like someone was already feeding them and we really didn’t have time to stop. Surprisingly there were a whole group of mute swans gathered at Woodmill. Lately it’s been nothing but seagulls.
“Perhaps they’re nesting behind the reedbeds or on the opposite bank?” I suggested.
Another flag was fluttering on another flag pole I’ve never noticed before at this end of the park. The poles don’t look new so I guess, without a flag flying, they’re easy to overlook.

Last time we walked along the river I’d taken CJ through Monks Brook and this time we took the same route, at least at first. We didn’t stop at the church though and, once we’d crossed the green bridge, we turned left towards Swaythling rather than back towards Mansbridge. There’s a nice firm gravel path for the first part of this trail but, after a hundred yards or so, it suddenly stops and becomes a mud fest.
“I’m not sure why they didn’t carry the path along the whole trail,” I said as we picked our way along the least muddy route.
“Maybe they ran out of gravel?” CJ mused.
The first buttercups of the year almost made up for the mud clogged boots.

It’s been a while since I last walked this way. A little further on a new mushroom chainsaw sculpture has appeared, or maybe it’s been there all along and I’ve not noticed it. We stopped for a closer look at the saw marks and the gnarled bark. It certainly looked new and unweathered. There was another stump behind it that was crying out to become a mushroom too.

Spring is the best time for walking these trails because there always seem to be new flowers to see. Today there was a huge clump of squills and some nettle flowers to point out to CJ. Soon we’d reached the blue bridge, set off wonderfully bu the bright green new leaves on the weeping willow behind it. Now we were almost back at the road.

On the other side of the greenway we could have followed the brook through Monks Brook Meadows as far as Stoneham Lane and cut through Lakeside to Eastleigh. It was a tempting alternative to road walking but I thought it would be too muddy and it was certainly longer, so we gave it a miss. The road may have been noisy and busy but there were advantages. One was the beautiful pink blossom in a garden we passed.  It made me think of ballerinas with layered silk tutus.

The road route also took us past the old Ford factory. It was a surprise to see most of the buildings demolished and we crossed the road for a peek through the fence. Once this was a thriving hive of industry, making Southampton the home of the Transit. The car park was always full and I remember passing during a shift change and having to wait ages for all the cars to come out before I could carry on. Now there is very little left of it and, what there is, is slowly being dismantled. Ironically, the workmen are using Transit vans that were almost certainly built right there.

The Jamais Remarqué phenomenon was working overtime today. Beside the factory fence we stumbled upon a Lucy box, like the ones along the Avenue by the Common. I’ve only recently discovered that these green boxes were electrical feeder pillars used by the tram system, so I imagine trams must once have run along Wide Lane towards the Airport. They’re called Lucy boxes because, originally, they were made by the Lucy Foundry in Oxford. Perhaps I’ve never noticed it before because I usually walk on the other side of the road?

Wondering how many more of these green boxes there were languishing on the city streets we carried on to the airport. By the roundabout, with its iconic Spitfire sculpture, the hawthorn was bursting with flowers. Despite this the sky looked to be laden with rain and I was glad I hadn’t left my coat at home.

Now we were just a mile from the Swan Centre and we hurried along without stopping. Costa was calling and after five miles of walking we both thought we deserved a coffee before we went any further. While we drank I rang the lady who had Commando’s race pack to tell her we’d be there soon. Worryingly, her phone went straight to voicemail and I had a sinking feeling. What if we’d walked all this way and still couldn’t get Commando’s medal?

On the way to Market Street and the office I tried again with the same result. It didn’t look good. Outside the office I wondered what to do next? The day before we’d established that pressing random buzzers didn’t really work. In the end I resorted to Google and found the main phone number for the office. A lady answered. She wasn’t the person Commando had spoken to but, thankfully, she knew all about the race pack.
“I think it’s still in the van,” she said. “I’ll come down and get it for you.”
There were a few heart stopping moments when it looked as if she wouldn’t be able to find it but, eventually, she did. A quick check told me the medal was inside, along with the white hat Commando had been wearing throughout the race. What a relief!

With the bag safely stowed in my rucksack we turned for home. THe rain held off and, when we reached the green bridge, we turned left towards Mansbridge. The path was lined by masses of dandelions. CJ kicked a ripe clock as he passed ensuring an even wider spread of dandelions to come.
“I hope you don’t do that to the ones in our garden,” I said. “We have quite enough of them already.”

As the path moves away from the brook there’s a dead tree. It’s been there for as long as I’ve been walking this way and it’s covered with shelf fungi. The inside is slowly rotting away and parts of it are now more empty bark shell than tree. We stopped to look at it and, instead of heading straight along the path, turned off to the right to walk the gravel trail through the meadow.

Soon we were back at the river and, after a quick game of Pooh Sticks on Mansbridge, homeward bound. The ducklings we saw last time were still in more or less the same place but not at all the same size. How quickly they lose their cute ball of fluff look. Near Woodmill the greylags were dining on seed someone had left on the bank and an old, slightly grizzled mute swan cob gave us a curious stare.

At the other end of the river the two black swan cygnets we’d seen earlier by the jetty were hunched in the shallows and the snow geese glittered in the trees.
“Nearly home,” I said as we climbed the slope out of the park. “Just a mile to go now.”
“So, with the detours and the walk to the office, how far will we have actually walked?” CJ asked.
“Probably eleven miles or so by the time we get home,” I said.
“So we will have walked almost as far to pick dad’s medal up as he ran to earn it,” he laughed. “Maybe we should just keep it.”

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