Yesterday I told you all about the Spitfire factory and the old Floating Bridges. My plan had been to walk down to the shore and have a look at the Royal Princess from the other side of the water, trying out a different route in the process. Passing the old Supermarine site and the remains of the Floating Bridges was purely incidental but, as so often happens, I got a bit distracted and it was an interesting diversion. It’s good to make plans but not if you stick to them too rigidly, I prefer to go with the flow. Next stop, Weston Shore to see if I could get a better view of the giant ship.
8 June 2013
Still smiling over memories of childhood rides across the Itchen on the Floating Bridge, I carried on through Woolston. Lots of the shops in this once bustling village are empty since the big Vosper Thorneycroft shipyard closed down. Hopefully the new flats overlooking the water will revive the area again. Every time I come this way I am amazed by the progress and a little jealous of the views the new owners will have if I’m honest. When I reached the grassy area by the sailing club I got my first view of Ocean Terminal and the huge new ship. Well my first view since Friday lunchtime anyway. From a distance she looks bigger if anything and now I could see her prow rather than her rear end as I had from the quay. It’s probably quite rude to stare at a Princess’s backside I should think.
A little group of people were on the shore preparing to launch boats and boards and one little boat, with a bright yellow sail and rainbow stripes had just set sail. I stopped for a while to watch the activity before carrying on towards the promenade. My intended turning point was about half way along the promenade, close to the tall flats but, when I checked my time and distance on WalkJogRun, I could see the new route was actually much longer than the one I normally take. At the beginning of the promenade I’d already walked three miles and, with all the stops to look at things time was running away if I wanted to get to the butchers while there was still some meat left.
It seemed a shame to walk all the way down to the shore without at least having a little look around though so I decided to allow myself a few minutes to explore. Amongst all the clumps of grass I spotted a perfect umbel of wild carrot with pale pink flowers growing in the shadow of a huge piece of driftwood. Most wild carrot flowers are white but they can be pink and this was one of the darkest pink I’ve ever seen. Scanning the rest of the foreshore for other interesting plants I was disappointed to see nothing but flowering grasses. Perhaps if I’d had more time I could have looked a little further along.
Instead I walked down to the tide line to have a quick look for interesting shells or stones, as if I don’t have enough already. By this time the little yellow sail boat had caught up with me so I sat on the shingle for a while and watched her accompanied by the sound of the lapping waves. Although I didn’t find any interesting shells I did find a stone with a hole all the way through so I pocketed that. Mother always said holed stone were lucky and it’s fairly rare to find one. This was not just one of Mother’s stories either, they’re a well known lucky charm called hagstones, witches stones, adder stones, serpent’s eggs, Glain Neidr (In Welsh), Gloine nan Druidh (“Druids’ glass” in Scotland), milpreve in Cornwall and that’s just the British Isles, almost every country has a name for them. These strange stones are proported to have magical powers not just of protection against evil but also to cure all sorts of illness. Apparently, if you look through the hole you can see through witches and fairies disguises. I did have a little look but I didn’t see any hiding fairies.
Mindful of the time I didn’t stop too long and, as I turned to make my way back, suitably protected by my hagstone, I noticed another big liner in dock. She must have been hidden by the huge container ship when I stopped by the sailing club. In the short pause while I squinted and tried to make out which ship she was a cabbage white butterfly fluttered by. Since I said I have hardly seen any butterflies I keep seeing them but none of them stays still to let me take a photo.
With getting to the butchers in mind I didn’t dally too much on the way back up the hill to the village. I did manage to find out the name on the second ship in port though. It was Queen Mary II, so we have a queen and a princess at the moment. Of course there was no way I could make it all the way back without stopping for photos at all, especially when I saw a nest of garden spiders in a hedge. That’s not a sight you see every day after all. The spider eggs would probably have been laid in late autumn, after which the female spider would have died. The baby spiders hatch in spring and stay together until they are big enough to fend for themselves. Looking at a big brown garden spider you’d never think they all start life as colourful little black and yellow fellows would you?
My next quick stop was to take a picture of the big feather sculpture. It looked so lovely in the bright sun I couldn’t help myself. This little area was actually one of the bomb sites I talked about yesterday until local residents raised over £150,000 to commission the little Millenium Garden. Local artist Pete Codling created the lovely sculputres and the garden is designed to commemorate the Supermarine Spitfire factory and the local shipbuilding industry with a theme of Flight and Float.
The steel wall behind the tall feather is based on the design of the Spitfire’s wing and Vosper Thorneycroft’s innovative trimaran, Triton. The paths are shaped like a propeller. There is also a memorial to local people who died on board the Titanic, sky sea and land themed gardens and paving blocks carrying the names of local people past and present. I should probably come back another day and do the whole thing justice but for now one photo will have to suffice.
When I got home Commando was laying on the grass on one of the old sunlounger cushions because the lounger has broken, again. For the last few years we’ve had a succession of cheap and, frankly, rather nasty sunloungers all of which seem to give up the ghost long before the summer ends. The flimsy canvas material has an unfortunate habit of suddenly ripping without any warning. A couple of years ago there was an incident, I ended up being dumped unceremoniously onto the floor. To be fair I deserved it, I’d been laughing at Commando who, moments before, had been similarly dumped. That is what you call Karma!
This time I was adamant we didn’t buy any more cheap sunloungers. Not only are they a false economy but we really don’t have enough sunny days in this country to waste them with nowhere to sit. So last night I had a look online for some decent wooden loungers that would last. I was hoping for something a bit like the lovely comfortable ones we had in Agadir last summer and I found some. They were affordable and they were in stock. Obviously I ordered them and, as the shop was local, we went to pick them up this afternoon. The loungers were waiting for us on a big trolley along with the cushions I’d also thoughtfully ordered. Commando took one look at the boxes and said, “I don’t think they’ll fit in the car.” Oops! In my defence the website was fairly vague about the size of the boxes and, as they were self assembly, I hadn’t expected them to be quite that big.
Commando pushed the trolley, which of course had a wonky wheel and didn’t want to go straight, out to the car just to see if we could squeeze them in. Arabella has the smallest car in the history of the universe and somehow manages to squash all sorts of mammoth items in there, surely getting a couple of sunloungers into our much larger car would be a doddle? Wrong! It was obvious from the outset they were never going to fit. To give him credit, Commando did try but there was more hanging out the back than inside the car.
Just as I was about to wheel the wonky trolley back into the shop and arrange for a delivery, Commando had an idea. “I think they might fit in Dad’s car,” he said. “If you stay here with the loungers, I could go and get it.” It was worth a try, especially as the delivery charge was £20, but it did mean me hanging around in the car park waiting. This wouldn’t have been quite so bad had I been appropriately dressed. When we left home it looked quite sunny, I wasn’t expecting to be doing anything much, apart from sitting in the car, and I was wearing a thin, sleeveless top and leggings. The sun wasn’t anywhere near as warm as it looked and it kept going behind the clouds. I was freezing.
About half a very shivery hour later Commando came back with Commando Senior’s estate car. At first it looked like even that would be too small but, with the passenger seat pushed right forward and a bit of brute force, Commando got them in and the boot closed. Good job I have short legs because I was so squashed up on the way home my forehead was all but touching the windscreen.
CJ put the loungers together while I was cooking a Thai red curry for the week. He did a good job and, after a quick inspection of the garden, I tried one out for an hour. They’re lovely and comfortable and even have wheels so they’re easy to move around. The only thing missing is a little clip on tray thing to stand a nice icy drink or a cup of coffee on. Maybe I can talk CJ into making me one.
Lovely summer memories. Do you still have the wooden sun loungers? Our outdoor wood furniture has lasted for ages.
We do still have the loungers. They get packed away at the end of the summer though.