What the picture doesn’t show is how cold it is. Not freezing, and the sun is very bright, and you can feel its warmth, but the air is cold. As usual for my Sunday walk, I was keen to try and follow a route where I don’t normally go. I took the time from home to up towards Waitrose to make up my mind. I wasn’t going to do the route I normally follow on my weekday outings. The only problem with that was I wouldn’t be going near the waterfront, which I do like to do, but with yesterdays trip over to Portsmouth, I felt I had done that enough this weekend.
Once I reached the western end of Stokes Road, I was happy that I was going to head up towards the Memorial Hospital, and would then take The Avenue down towards Alverstoke Village. On the way, I want to get a look at the old Air Raid Procedures (ARP) bunker built for WW@, but continued in use until almost the end of the Cold War. From there, I headed over to St Mary’s going along Church Road, I wanted to make sure that if I was going to take a picture of the church I would be doing so with the sun;
From there I took a pleasant stroll along the side of Alverstoke Creek, just watching the few gulls that were there, and trying not to disturb them. There were a few people out, so exchanged a few “Good Afternoons”, but didn’t talk to anybody beyond that. Unlike the last time I walked along the old railway path when I had a very pleasant chat with a chap who was out talking about his dog.
I wanted to make sure that I was back as close to the hour as I could. As it happens, I took an hour and 10 minutes to do just over the 3.6 miles, so that was just right. Even with the cold it really was a very pleasant walk.
Bills Posts 