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We had a wonderful afternoon walk after the kids’ swimming lessons (like last week, Tosha put up a fuss, let’s hope he’ll settle into the lessons by next week). We’ve written a separate Kids’ Outings page about the walk itself. There are a ton more photos, of course, in our gallery.
We drove the short way to the car park off of Garnier Road in Winchester; the one for St. Catherine’s Hill and its Mizmaze.
But, instead of hiking up to the Mizmaze, we crossed Garnier Road and walked alongside the River Itchen and into town. It was lovely spring weather for the stroll. We stopped numerous times to toss rocks in the river or watch the ducks, or watch the tennis, or watch the fishermen, or…
We found our way to Winchester Cathedral. We crossed their grounds to get to the High Street where we stopped for a bite to eat. Then it was off to do a bit of shopping - ironically to buy Tosha some new walking shoes (his current pair didn’t have a good heel support so they were troublesome to put on him).
After a good bit of fun, and £15, we headed down the High Street to the playground at Abbey Mill and Gardens. Tolii loved going around, and around, and around on the pole spinners. Tosha loved climbing up the fort and going down the steep slide. He found that putting some sand on it first made him shoot down even faster. Too smart for his own good, that boy!
We left by the Colebrook Street exit and wound our way to the Itchen River footpath. Boy that river runs fast! It was a lovely spring stroll back down to Winchester College where we bought an “99 Flake” ice cream for everyone but mummy. They should now call it a “100 Flake” because each one cost a pound, not 99 pence. But I don’t complain too much: the man hand scooped soft Italian-style ice cream into the cone instead of using a silly air-injection softie machine. Mmmm, good.
The boys are very good at sharing: Tosha asked Tolii if he wanted to try his ice cream (even though it was exactly the same as his). Sure ‘nuf he did! And when Tosha asked Daddy if he could try his, of course Daddy obligued. Then, Tosha asked “…and the chocolate…?”. “No way!” said Daddy - that Flake chocolate bar in the ice cream was all his, especially since Tosha had already eaten all of his own.
We watched the kids playing cricket (”What’s a batsman” asked Tolii; again and again). Then we headed to the Wolvesey Palace ruins nearby. Free admission! We spent a long time climbing up the walls to peep through the “windows”. Most fun was sitting on the wall beside the water and tossing stones in. Both Tolii and Tosha nearly ended up making a big splash themselves, but enough worrying by mummy and daddy kept them safe [or lucky].
Finally, it was time to continue our journey back to the car. But we didn’t get far: we met a man who had a squirrel climbing on his arm! He had just gotten off his bicycle and had just bent down to pretend to pet it when it jumped into his hand! We were all amazed. Thank goodness there’s no rabbies in the UK to worry about.
Now, we headed down College Walk and hung a right at the bottom to link up with the footpath beside a tributary of the Itchen. We followed that down to Gernier Road. Along the way, Tosha managed to Christen his brand new shoes by checking their water absorption abilities - thankfully not in the river, but just in a muddy puddle.
Meanwhile, Tolii was complaining that his knees were no longer working which caused him to fall down. He demonstrated this several times. It didn’t take Tosha long to realize this was good fun, and so joined in with the sit-down-until-you-pick-me-up protest. So, onto daddy and mummy’s shoulders for a short while (it was a long walk after all, and after a busy morning). A game of 1-2-3 swing got them back on their feet (hold both mummy and daddy’s hands and swing!).
Finally, we made it back to the car. But the adventure wasn’t over yet! Daddy had to buy some diesel (1.18p/L for goodness sakes!) and he took the opportunity to have a £5 car wash. Tolii and Tosha loved watching the blue brushes cleaning the car! Now, it was time for home. Tosha stayed awake until the A303 overpass, just 5 minutes from home…
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