End May to mid-June: Riverside Park
More early morning walks in Riverside Park:
On Friday, 29th May… signs that the lockdown is loosing authority with remains of a large barbecue party just north of the old pitch-and-putt area. They’d left the barbecue and lots of food, some unwrapped; had they been stopped by the police? But on a happier note, one of the gates to the park has been adorned by a knitted rainbow. It’s been there for ages but I only just went up close and saw how fantastic it is! The rainbow has become a symbol of support during these viral days. Oh, and there is a dinosaur in a tree.
Monday 1st June (already)… a curous construction site near the start of the freshwater section of the park, a Mother’s Day card on a bench, and Batman in a tree.
Thursday 4th June: The mystery construction is looking like a driveway and garage whilst the excavated soil is being used to remove and make good the tee-off mats for what had been the pitch-and-putt course. What I think of as the “Memorial Tree” has been redecorated in commemoration, it would seem, of a birthday not reached. Also a wheelbarrow from the river (do fishermen catch them?), how to stop ivy on a tree, and more sympathetic mowing by the Woodmill Road kerbside.
Friday 5th June: In Priory Road someone had cut up an old clinker boat, always seems sad to see a boat go. It was low tide as I passed Woodmill. The rooks were having a parliament, and the soil from the mystery construction was being used to cover the traces of the old pitch-and-putt course. Lots of geese were heading up river and I realised they probably spend their time in the Itchen water meadows during the day. That would explain why I hadn’t seen them in the park in previous years when I would not have been walking so early in the day. On the way back the gates were open at the new riverside gated community so I snuck inside. Like other developments, the Council insist in a public path by the river but they don’t insist on providing a means for the public to access it!
Here’s the geese…
Here’s the new riverside flats…
Sunday 7th June: one of those dreamy, misty mornings in the park.
Saturday 13th June: Another misty morning. Up near the end of the old Pitch-and-putt course where I’ve always assumed that there is some sort of reservoir underneath one of the metal covers had gone missing. No idea what it is underneath, some sort of water inlet from the river?
