Lakeside Country Park – I Walk Alone

Counting time in hours, not minutes

The final Friday of February took me on another Eastleigh wander. This time there was no mist, so I risked the Monks Brook Meadows route. This meant I could walk off-road for most of the journey once I’d left the centre of Eastleigh behind. In no time at all, I’d reached Lakeside Country Park. Instead of skirting the edge as I’d done on my last misty walk, I crossed the tracks of the Lakeside Steam Railway and headed across the centre of the park. At this time of year, the little steam trains only run at weekends, so crossing the track was perfectly safe. If you want to see them, they run daily between 31 May and 1 October, and if you’re wondering what they look like, here’s a post I wrote back in 2017.

Mist, bridges, jetties and inspiration

The Millers Pond episode proved to be a turning point, of sorts, for plotting my next book. The Botany Bay, Sholing characters wouldn’t talk to me because the plot didn’t work, no matter how much I tried to make it. As soon as I stopped listening for their voices, I heard the other characters clamouring to have their say. They weren’t in Sholing at all. They were in Eastleigh. On Valentine’s Day, Commando dropped me off outside a foggy Eastleigh Railway Station on his way to work. I hoped walking the five miles home would prove inspiring.

The last training walk

27 September 2019

With just over a week to go to the big day there was time to fit in one more, fairly short training walk before the Clarendon Marathon. At this late stage we didn’t want to tax our legs too much or risk any last minute injuries so we decided on a gentle, and most importantly, fairly flat, eight mile route to Lakeside and back.

Exaggeration

1 September 2019

On 27 August, the local paper published a fairly sensationalist report about a huge fire at Lakeside. It was titled “Grassland completely destroyed by wildfire.” CJ saw it and was quite upset, even when I told him Kim and I had walked across the country park after the supposed fire and seen nothing out of the ordinary.

Eighteen miles

29 August 2019

This morning I set off bright and early to meet Kim. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the walk along the river to our meeting point at Woodmill was lovely. The morning air was cool and I was singing a little song in my head as I walked. Heat might become an issue later in the day but I was fairly confident this was going to be a beautiful, if rather long, walk.

The Million Steps Challenge Squeezing in the steps

5 July 2019

Now the Million Steps challenge has officially started so every day I’m walking a long loop to the shops rather than going straight up the hill. There are a few variations to choose from, each adding both distance and time to my walks. Some days though, time is at a premium. This was the case on Wednesday. Commando was taking advantage of the hot, dry weather by painting the decking and I was supposed to be helping. To save time, I did a dash straight up the hill and back again, stopping only to snap a couple of pretty flowers along the way. The steps I lost from not taking a long loop were more than made up by all the steps I got painting decking though.

Two challenges

21 June 2019

A little while ago I saw a Facebook post about a challenge to walk one million steps between July and September this year. Thirteen weeks walking around 11,000 steps a day seemed doable and the money raised would go to Diabetes UK. As my wonderful Mother in Law, April, suffered with type II Diabetes, it was a charity close to my heart so, on a whim, I signed up.

Late autumn rivers and lakes

16 November 2017

This year, with little in the way of wind to ruffle them, the trees seem to be holding onto their autum leaves. Today, as the weather was bright, if cold, I thought a nice long walk was in order to enjoy them while they were still there. CJ and I set off fairly early for the river. We had a plan to walk to Eastleigh and back with a quick stop off for coffee in the Swan Centre. Continue reading Late autumn rivers and lakes

Casting clouts, nesting swans and a coffee disaster, almost…

12 April 2017

Reluctantly we’d left the cool green shade of Monks Brook. We crossed the road by the Swaythling railway arch and, for a moment or two, I dithered, torn between walking through Monks Brook Meadows or the less scenic but more direct route along Wide Lane. In the end I thought about my recovering knee and the distance we’d be covering and decided on short and less sweet. The first hawthorn flowers of spring spilling over a garden wall seemed to be a sign I’d made the right decision. Continue reading Casting clouts, nesting swans and a coffee disaster, almost…

Not taking the easy way home – first published 18 April 2014

My 2014 stint as the Easter Bunny has been less than successful but there was at least wall to wall sun and blue skies, a perfect walking day and it was a pleasure to put the miles in. Once I’d semi-successfully carried out my Easter Bunny duties I set off back towards Lakeside. Continue reading Not taking the easy way home – first published 18 April 2014