3 October 2017
The final part of our walk took us along the river, the one place we couldn’t possibly get lost. Today the water was mirror smooth, reflecting the beautiful blue sky above and the trees on the far bank. A spider was busily wrapping up something he’d caught in his web strung between the plants on the bank. He reminded me of the start of our walk, all spiders and butterflies. Continue reading Restless swans and autumn leaves
15 August 2017
We’d found the hidden pond with relative ease. Now it was time to turn for home.
“Shall we carry on to Riverside Park or turn back and walk along Cutbush Lane to Mansbridge,” I asked CJ. “The Park would be the quickest way home but Mansbridge is prettier.”
“Mansbridge,” CJ said with a cheeky grin that told me he was thinking of a coffee stop in the Swan Garden Centre rather than distance or pretty walks. Continue reading To the river
21 July 2017
Way back before Vancouver, achilles tendon problems or RA, Commando entered a twenty four hour endurance race. For months Rob had been filling his head with talk of the Thunder Run and how much fun it was. Frankly, running a hundred kilometres or more in twenty four hours sounded anything but fun to me but, at the time, Commando was marathon training again and an endurance race sounded like an interesting challenge to him. He’d been talking about ultra marathon and endurance races for a while anyway so he didn’t need much persuasion. Continue reading A little camping adventure
Little did I know this post about my walk on 1 October 2014 would be the last I ever wrote on my old blog. My original plan for the day had been a bus ride followed by an exploration of Hamble Marina and a nice walk along Southampton Water. The weather forecast was good, I’d checked out all the bus routes and times, job done. Unfortunately, when I got up it was raining, that horrible steady drizzle that soaks through everything. Unbeknownst to me the weather was the least of my worries. Within twenty four hours my blog would be hacked and everything I’d written would be lost, at least for a while. It has taken me almost three years to salvage what I could and this is the very last post. Continue reading The last post – first published 1 October 2014
Holidays always seem too short and our German adventure in September 2014 was no exception. When I left work the Wednesday before we went to Cologne the prospect of thirteen whole days off seemed like a long time. As with all holidays it flew by though. When we got back home, in the early hours of Tuesday morning I had great plans about what I was going to do over the following week. What I didn’t count on were the German germs I picked up courtesy of Easyjet’s recycled air. Continue reading German germs and black swan cygnets – first published 24 September 2014
In mid September 2014 we were due to fly to Cologne. Commando was running another marathon and I was looking forward to exploring a city I hadn’t visited since I was twenty. With just a week to go I hadn’t even begun to pack and time was running out. In an epic piece of bad planning, our trip came after a shorter weekend than normal because of a change to my shift. Of course this meant a rather fraught but interesting week. Continue reading Vintage cars, fire alarms and streets of gold – first published 13 September 2014
After I’d left Panda at The Triangle there was a temptation to go straight home again because the weather looked decidedly changeable. It seemed a shame to waste the nice granary bread in my bag though, especially as this was the first time I’d ever remembered to bring it, so I set off towards Riverside Park. As I walked down the slope to the park I could see I was in for a windy walk, the trees were all leaning away from the water and dark clouds were gathering. Continue reading Bread for the cygnets – first published 12 August 2013
After my working days changed in 2014, Tuesday became the new walking day. On 12 August, though there was no proper planned walk. The Ealing Tide Mill project that had been on the back burner for a while was shelved once again because I had a coffee date with Panda. Due to our respective working hours and days we haven’t had a chance to meet up for a while so, when she called to say she had Tuesday off and would I like to meet up, I jumped at the chance. Panda always cheers me up and right then I needed all the cheering I could get. Continue reading A lunch date at the triangle – first published 12 August 2014
Sleep had not come easily and, despite being tired during the day, I’d been waking early in the morning. Tuesday 1 August 2014 was no exception. We had an appointment with the undertakers in the afternoon and Commando suggested, rather strongly, that I go out for a walk beforehand.
“It’ll cheer you up,” he said. Continue reading Orphan Cygnets – first published 1 August 2014
The week after we lost Commando Senior was difficult to say the least. For a start there was the task of letting people know. This was hard enough with the family members we speak to regularly but Commando Senior had so many friends outside of the family circle and these were mostly people we didn’t know. We also didn’t have contact details for all of them. After some discussion on Friday night we decided we would have to go to the house and see if we could find an address book or contact list. Continue reading Bright Islands in a dark sea – first published 31 July 2014
