by anonymous. In November 2020, I wrote a piece for In Common about my then partner’s first few months of dealing with breast cancer during a pandemic. At the time I wrote: “There is a very thin line that holds the fabric of our lives together. Things can change...
Columns
Suburban Safari: Peartree Pollinators
by Katie Isham. Slap-bang in the middle of Sholing, there sits a park. At first glance, it’s a basic public amenity. A big wonky trapezium of grass where people can walk their dogs, footballers have somewhere to play on Sunday mornings and youths have a location to loiter aimlessly...
Column: Vienna to Southampton – wild horses
by Anna-Maria Bauer. We see the first one in the small car park, in the middle of the New Forest, that is more of a heathland here. It stands very close to the bonnets, fearless, one horsepower among many. Its rich brown coat shines almost as much as the...
Suburban Safari : beside the river and behind the curtain in Redbridge
by Katie Isham. Southampton is famous for its docks. They spear the heart of the city and have provided employment, transport and stories for centuries. The docks are a constant source of activity but it’s a place few of us residents get to see up close. This week I...
Suburban Safari: The flowers and follies of Bursledon
by Katie Isham. For a walk that’s under two miles long, this loop makes you feel like you’ve been on a hike through several different landscapes and even navigated a few eras. The sort of walk where, by the end, you’re surprised to remember some of the sights from...
Suburban Safari: Costa Del Southampton
by Katie Isham. Could it finally be summer? What better to do on a summer’s day than to wander by the seaside? However, for a city on the coast, Southampton only has a few spots to actually be beside the seaside, and even then, there’s no sand for comfort....
Column: Vienna to Southampton – Sometimes you have to jump
by Anna-Maria Bauer. Paths are created by walking. I have heard this phrase so often that I normally don’t even think about the meaning when I say it. But then, I started walking and had to admit to myself: It’s true. The first step was taken a year ago....
Walk: the Itchen Navigation, Southampton to Shawford
by Nathan Goldsmith. “The spring is sprung, The grass is riz. I wonder where the boidies is. The little boids is on the wing. Naa, dats obsoid; The little wings is on the boids” There are different variations of this poem – and a number of different...
Suburban Safari: Lost in Lords Wood
by Katie Isham. Don’t tell too many people but, a mere skip from Southampton General Hospital, tucked away at the back of a 1960s housing estate, down a road guarded by the endemic sight of Tesco that used to be a pub, there’s a gateway to a hidden woodland....
Suburban Safari: The Bluebell Bandwagon
by Katie Isham. Well, everyone else is doing it, so I suppose we’d better jump on the bluebell bandwagon! If you glance at social media, the whole country has been skipping through ancient woodland in the last few weeks. Bluebell photos have been outnumbering Line of Duty theories, and...