Close to home

I love Portchester castle, to have this within walking distance of home is fantastic, we have walked here many times with grandchildren or just the 2 of us, it's a place I will always want to visit. 

Inside the grounds are as lovely, with the Keep, Tower and church and plenty of grass areas for families. We renewed our vows in St Mary's, on our 25th wedding anniversary. 

We have a well kept park in our village, this is less than 5 minutes walk from our home, we walk through many times each week, diverting our walk to the shops to pass this way. Our grandsons love the play area, I love the tiny bandstand. 

This area is the closet to our home, we walk here often and not just on sunny days, at different tide times, so it's an ever changing view, popular with families and dog walkers, plenty of space. Walking this stretch of our coast, you can start from the castle and walk up to the football club and wreck, and then on past a golf club and into Fareham, you can also from the wreck walk to Gosport, in all cases you would need your walking shoes. 

We have a football club, which is by the wreck, which is a huge open space next to the waters edge, we drive to this area, it's about 10 minutes from our home. 

There are loads of trees and shrubs and large swaths of wild flower beds, you can walk for hours if you want, at this time of year there are loads of blackberries to pick. With a skateboard park and a basket ball court, and these views it's popular with all ages. 

Lee on the Solent is about 20 minutes drive from us, it's not huge, but walking along the seafront is fantastic, with views over to Isle of Wight, most of our local beaches are shingle. 

Everywhere beach huts. 

Southsea Portsmouth, is about 40 minutes drive away, there is a huge beach, which again is shingle, here looking toward the Pier, beyond you can walk to Old Portsmouth, and the port, there is loads of naval history here. 

Looking towards Eastney, Portsmouth

The sea walls in Gosport, looking toward Portsmouth and the Spinnaker Tower, this is just behind my friends house, again about a 25 minute drive, the hovercraft from Portsmouth to Isle of Wight passes here through out the day. We have taken our coffees sat and had a chat here many times. 

The whole area is tidal, and can be interesting watching the wading birds in the rich muds, small boats stranded waiting for the returning tide. 

This is Emsworth, it's about an hours drive from our home, but there are loads of similar places all within a short drive, we are now in West Sussex rather than Hampshire. 

With all the negative news, and our need to stay at home and local, I have been thinking of how lucky we are to live in a lovely part of our country,  being so close to the sea with the changing scenery. Everywhere sailing clubs, boats of all sizes bobbing on the water or resting on the mud, waiting for the tide to return. We have a posher area with very expensive boats, you can walk along the boardwalk and view others lifestyles, we have not visited Port Solent much this summer, it's not a place to easy self distance if crowded, there are loads of places to eat out, so it has always been a popular spot. I do love to watch water sport, and people enjoying the water. I do also like to see the sea on a windy day, the power of the water does impress me. We do also have some lovely country parks and green spaces, but the water does call me. None of these photo's are new, I have posted them before, but this post does cheer me, our season is changing.

We decided other than a visit to family in Somerset we would not travel this summer, I really do not want to get on a plane, we had plans to do a couple more city breaks, visit friends in Spain, but all have been shelved, so we enjoy our lovaly local spots. 

I have done very little in the past week, it's turned much colder, and we have had the much needed rain, so most of our time is spent inside, we do wrap up warm and walk to the above places, feeling safe with so much outside space. I hope to pack tender plants into the greenhouse and start changing the garden to it's winter setting this weekend, it's a sunny cold day, so perfect for being outside.