Tag: Solent

Rabbits And A Slow Worm

The wind still raged after a stormy night. I walked down to the Spar shop and back for strawberry jam to accompany scones for the visit of Michael, Heidi, Emily and Alice. They didn’t have any so I settled for blackcurrant.

Choppy breakers on the Solent, a good mile away, could be seen from Downton Lane, where plants

such as periwinkle, even in the shelter of the hedgerow, quivered precariously before the blasts.

Droplets from the otherwise uninspired fountains in Shorefield Country Park sparkled in the occasional bright sunlight as they were blown across the disturbance of the surface of the pool.
According to the poet Alfred Noyes, Kew, which ‘isn’t far from London’, is worth a visit at lilac time. We are quite a way from London,

but we have a few lilacs in the garden, as well as various clematis, most of which are entwined among trees and other shrubs. One such is the montana shown here.
Jackie put on a splendid lunch for us and our visitors. Broccoli and Stilton soup was followed by pizza and garlic bread, before an array of cold meats, cheeses and various salad ingredients.

Michael, Heidi, and the girls accompanied me on a walk to the beach.

A slow worm slithering across the tarmac on the path to the rookery caused some consternation. It looked so much like a snake.
After descending the steps from the cliff top we continued along the shingle to the Hordle Cliff car park where Jackie met us. Heidi joined Jackie on the return in the car and the rest of us walked back.

Like the rooks, battling against the buffeting wind, we struggled to maintain our line. Guess who took the pictures.

Alice stopped on the way back to photograph rabbits scuttling about among the static caravans in the country park.

When she got home she e-mailed me some of her pictures:
After a quick cup of tea and scones I accompanied Michael and his family to New Milton railway station where we deposited Emily on a train for her journey back to Nottingham to rejoin her university. The rest of us then returned for more tea at our leisure before my son, daughter-in-law and younger granddaughter set off back to Sanderstead.
I had forgotten to give Michael his belated birthday present, so telephoned him and he returned to collect it and continued on his way.
This evening the remainder of the super soup sufficed for our supper.

A Clear And Present Danger

On a bright and blustery morning Jackie drove me to Milford on Sea, so I could walk along Hurst Spit whilst she sat in the car with her puzzles. Sturt PondI walked the length of the wall protected by Norwegian rocks, with Sturt The NeedlesPond on my left and, beyond the waves on my right, The Needles.  As it was pretty cold up there, my return was alongside the channel and the pond.  Thus I avoided the chill wind coming off the Solent. the stretch of water between the mainland and the Isle of Wight.

Gull scavenging

Various waterfowl and sea birds bobbed and floated on the pond or scavenged among the mud pools.  Suddenly spooked by something Brent geeseunseen, the Brent geese all left the surface of the water, and, setting up a cacophonous honking above the howl of the wind, filled the skies overhead, before eventually settling down again.

At the far end of the spit, beyond the granite rocks, the terrain drops and the deep shingle is banked up.  As I trudged across this my footsteps were echoed by the gravelly tones of stones seeking new levels after their disturbance.  They slipped into place with sliding sounds similar to those of ‘Dover Beach’ described so eloquently by the poet Matthew Arnold.

The channel that had made Jackie and me think of ‘Star Wars’ on an Yachts mooredearlier trip leads to a harbour where yachts are moored before one reaches Hurst Castle.  This is where I turned round and set off back to the car.  Because of the ‘Star Wars’ memory and the idea that I might be able to photograph a gull from the level of the stream, I stepped down the bank by one of the two bridges that each span a section of this stretch of water.

I didn’t spot a suitable flier, so, as far as that picture was concerned, I went empty handed.  Fortunately I also left empty handed from something else I spotted just in time.

Bridge

It soon became apparent, as I tracked the stream, that I was going to run out of dry land, so I decided it was time to climb back up the now steeper bank.  This required the use of both hands and feet.  Peering over the top and clawing at a tussock with my left hand, my right one poised for planting and restoring balance, I noticed this was destined to descend into a neat pile of coagulating dog turds.  I could no longer rely entirely on my sinister arm.  Not being as dextrous as I once was, and not wishing to hear an unpleasant squelching sound whilst my nose was rather too close to its source, in mid-air with an impressive display of reflexes, I adjusted the trajectory of my right palm, swivelled out of control on my left, and fell over instead.  In that split second I had realised that brushing dried sandy mud off my clothing later was preferable to the likely necessity presented by the immediate ‘clear and present danger’.  I trust Tom Clancy will forgive me for borrowing his title.

Our sustenance this evening was provided by battered pollock and chips; pickled onions and cornichons; mushy peas and bread and butter; followed by rice pudding with strawberry jam and evaporated milk.  I drank water.