Investigating

There are places we drive past all the time and yet we don't really know them.

With the sun out on Sunday we decided to go for a walk and investigate one such place nearby.

S decided she wanted to bring a tennis ball along and we played catch as we walked.

See the weather vane just above G....

.... here's a close up. I'd love a bushy tailed squirrel like this one in our garden.

We wandered along by the river

and past the White Swan pub. I did have a giggle at the Diamond Club sign reminding G that come October he'll be eligible to sign up!

Just round the corner we came to Mansbridge cottages. We have driven past these so many times and even visited them a couple of times. This is because there is an animal rescue charity run from one of them and each summer they have a fund raising open day which we try and pop along to. When we go we tend to leave our car at the park and take a short pleasant walk along by the river to get there. Running alongside the cottages is a narrow road and we have seen cars driving down here to park on the open days. I mentioned to G that I wanted to know where it was they were going to. 
We walked down the road and it led us to....

a huge and unattractive car park. This was fenced off and full of Ford made cars.

In the far corner was the end of a strip of land allocated for local allotments and this was right next to land which belongs to the airport.

It was all extremely boring, apart from when a plane came in to land and we realised how incredibly close we were!

S still had her tennis ball and as the car park was such a wide open space she and G began kicking it to each other as we began to walk back to where we had come in.

Of course the inevitable happened and it trickled underneath the fenced off area with the cars in but with a bit of maneuvering with a long stick G managed to retrieve it.

That's when we became aware of a chap who had suddenly appeared and was walking behind us.

'I think he's come to escort us away from here' G said.

There hadn't been any signs to say we were going onto private land and we were so close to the exit anyway we just carried on in the direction we were already headed. 

G glimpsed back once we had walked through the gates and were a little down the road an sure enough he had turned around and was walking back to wherever he had come from.

The piece of land on the other side of this narrow road is South Stoneham Cemetery and was the other reason for us to visit the area.

Walking into the cemetery the first grave I saw belonged to someone I knew back when I was about 15 years old. It was a bit of a shock. I knew this person had died many years ago in a tragic accident but I had not idea that this was where he had been buried.

We walked through the cemetery and found the South Stoneham Chapel

and just a short walk away from here we came across the grave for R.J.Mitchell, the man who designed the Spitfire.

It was lovely to be outside again, being able to stretch our legs and enjoy the sunshine and have the odd sit down too.