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Coastwalk

Mersea Strood West → Mersea Strood East

Distance: 12.8 miles
Ascent: 142 metres
Duration: 3 hours 39 minutes

A complete circuit
« Tollesbury | Wivenhoe »

Today I walked round an entire island. It's a walk I had my eye on while living in Suffolk, but never attempted. Wanting to complete a coastwalk in May, and needing to be in Colchester tonight it was the obvious candidate. (Or even, the only candidate.)

Mersea is connected to the mainland by a tidal causeway - The Strood. When I walked the mainland coast I decided against including Mersey, crossing The Strood at its northern end. So today's walk was from one side of the road to the other, the long way. What was previously five paces turned into just shy of thirteen miles.

And what glorious weather to be walking in! Perfect blue skies gave the sun free reign to warm the island. Consequently the beaches on the southern (seaward) side of the island were rammed with half-term holidaymakers.

Rather than begin and end my walk at the causeway I based myself at the eastmost point on the island. This meant tackling the most demanding stretch - the northern coast - first and finishing off with the well-populated southern shore.

Besides a few Scouts packing up their tents at the start I met no-one on the northern coast. The winding path sits atop the sea wall between farmland and estuary - classic Essex. On the far side of the water an occasional thudding noise declared the presence of the Fingringhoe firing ranges.

Just east of the causeway the seawall on which the right of way sits is breached in a number of places. The popular alternative appears to be to back-track a short distance to the next embankment inline.

A new addition to the path is a camera bag. It's one I was particularly fond of, but which somewhere over the course of the first eight miles fell out of my open rucksack. Tonight I've scanned all my photos for signs of where it might be, but without luck.

The westernmost point of the island was a delightful surprise: a small fishing village with wooden houses and boats pulled right up the beach. The south was disappointing - endless caravans, leading too soon back to the east. (Those who choose to walk this way in the future: be aware that the south-eastern section requires walking on the beach and may be impassable at high tide.)

So today I've smelt an oyster farm, seen barnacles fossilised in rust, heard big boys play with big guns, felt my arms burn to a crisp and tasted my first ice-cream of the summer. Mersea may be a small island, but in completing a circuit I feel as though I've revisited much of the past ten years' walking in miniature.

Comment

The life of a "silver surfer"

There's a fantastic article in this week's Time Out. If you follow just one link from my website, make it the link to Croy Devenish-Phibbs' website. (Be sure to check the gallery.)

Arts

One & Other

Imagine spending an hour watching Trafalgar Square go by from the best possible viewpoint.

I'm applicant #36. Will you apply?

Personal

Icosahedron

Here's something I've not done in a long while: make a model Platonic solid.

I suspect we were pretty much the only family for which mathematical model making was a regular weekend activity. I vaguely remember the dodecahedron being my favourite thirty years ago - probably because it sounded like a dinosaur.

Throughout the intervening years I've had no reason to make myself an icosahedron, but today - while playing around with some 3D computer graphics - I finally found the need. (The icosahedron is a good approximation of a sphere, especially if you further subdivide the faces. And when creating software models there's nothing like having the real thing in your hand to help.)

It was harder than I though - presumably because my fingers were somewhat more slender back then. I think I'll hang on to this one; I don't much fancy trying to repeat the trick in another thirty years' time.

Personal

Conforming

Oh, the shame of it. For two years we'd held off but eventually there was no alternative. Today I'm waiting on delivery of Ikea shelving.

I know, I know. Impersonal Scandinavian furniture. Just about anything else would have been better, but in the end there was only so long we could keep justifying most of our books in boxes.

Next time you visit, please judge us for our selves, not our shelves.

Website

Catch-up

Less-than-perfect weather has kept us off walking this weekend. It's a shame; I'd hoped to make a significant dent in the North Downs Way.

It's not been wasted time though. Should this blog still have any regular readers they'll be delighted to know that we've finally caught up with the backlog of unedited posts from last year. So while you're polishing off what remains of your Easter Egg, why not read about:

• Coast walks starting at Cardiff, Severn Beach, Clifton, Portishead

• Our holiday in Scotland in last May: a wheel, a coastwalk, a the mountain, a pilgrimage and a community

• Finishing The Ridgeway National Trail, with walks starting at Sparsholt Firs, Middlehill Down, Goring, Mongewell, Watlington, Kingston Blount, Princes Risborough and Wendover

There are a few other posts I've not mentioned; the keen might want to explore the 2008 archives.

Hopefully normal (pre-2007) service will now be resumed.

Comment

Further multiplex misery

We've seen four films now at our local multiplex. Of those only one was presented well.

Of the remaining three, the Quantum of Solace soundtrack was quarter to half a second out of sync with the pictures; when we went to see Slumdog Millionaire they started showing The Young Victoria instead; Changeling was blurry throughout and began with the wrong aperture/lens in use.

On the two most recent occasions I had to go out of the auditorium to draw staff attention to their mistake.

After talking with three members of staff at the end of Changeling, two Guest tickets were offered to us with an excuse-laden apology. (We'll be back to use them; will Odeon's success rate finally edge towards 50%?)

I had a similar experience in 2004. The root cause appears to be the cinema's goal: to make money rather than to present art, so they cut corners wherever possible and run with a minimum number of staff.

So much for being Fanatical About Film.

Comment

Faith in politics

Last week I emailed my MP to ask two simple questions:

1. Do you take a second home allowance?
2. Do you publish full details of your claimed expenses?

I wasn't in the slightest surprised - but immensely disappointed - when I received the reply this morning. (Of course it came through the post, not email. And on high quality paper stock. No cutting back on expense there.)

The reply asserted that "we need a transparent solution" to the current debate, but failed to answer either of my two questions. I must simply be unaware of what the word "transparent" means.

Film

Changeling

Here's something rather wonderful: a film which lives up to the promise of its trailer but whose trailer gives nothing away.

Changeling may not have won any of the three Academy Awards it was nominated for (personally I think Angelina Jolie would have been a very worthy Best Actress), but I'd definitely recommend seeing it.

(Sometime soon I'll explain what the Guest tickets in the photograph are about.)