Saturday 14th March 2026

Making the most of being near a ‘Q’, we made our way to Queen Elizabeth Country Park this morning for our weekly parkrun. Still feeling a little sore from yesterday’s mishap, I decided to walk the route and there were a whole bunch of other walkers too. After the three miles of slippery and stoney ups and downs, I realised why. Absolutely stunning scenery but would definitely have struggled to run it. It is apparently the 11th most difficult parkrun in the UK. Steve ran it but I’m not sure if he enjoyed it – the positive was that it warmed him up on what was a very chilly morning. I met and walked with a lovely lady called Marilyn who was in her late 70s – she was marvellous. She told me that she had done 319 parkruns on this course and was delighted that she could do them more regularly now as she gave up Cross Country racing and playing hockey two years ago! You honestly meet the most amazing and inspirational people in this running world – it completely humbles you.

We clocked up some extra miles on foot getting back to our car, as we got lost! By the time we got to the cafe it was packed so we jumped in the car and found an alternative place to breakfast. Unfortunately they were short staffed so could only offer bacon baps – this day was going swimmingly so far!

The plan was to take an easy afternoon stroll, nothing too strenuous – a wise ‘big’ man assured me that it’s best to keep my aching limbs moving so that I don’t seize up!! And I’m not one to give in easily. So, we parked up in Hilsea, caught the train to Havant and then a bus onto Hayling Island. Exciting to get a glimpse of the island – we will be back to walk it one day. But today, we headed towards Langstone and picked up the pretty Coast Path, taking us all the way around Langstone Harbour to Farlington Marshes. This is a huge mud flats area but the path was so generously laid out with board walk, grassy paths and even concrete in places. Although we still had road noise some of the way, we still felt like it was more like the coastal rambling we enjoy.

Farlington Marshes is one of Hampshire’s oldest nature reserves and my goodness is stunning. Very popular with twitchers obviously but today there were so many walkers too, soaking up the beauty in what had turned out to be a gloriously sunny and blue sky day.

So, our Saturday afternoon stroll turned out to be about 7 miles but all in all very pleasant. Strange that we started off the day scraping ice off the windscreen and finishing in beautiful sunshine – it was 13 degrees when we got back in the car.

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day – those muddy walking boots will not be seeing the light of day. x