Couldn't have arranged a better start to the New Year than the cracking weather this morning. So crisp and clear, witht e first sunshine for a couple of weeks.
We decided to walk from Swayling along the Itchen Navigation up the the High Wood Barn for tea and cake. About a mile and a half through the Nature Reserve, muddy and quiet. Reedbeds, skidgy bits, grassland, puddles, streams and bogs.

They all absolutely loved it and got completely filthy - which is great to see.
Mud is SUCH fun!
I should have been suspicious that we weren't going the right way by the clean and shiny fencing alongside the Itchen Way, which now runs along the old canal but doesn't connect to the Country Park at the Barn for several miles further north!!
Walk alongside the overgrown canal for a while and then the path turns to the right alongside the M27 for about 200m until it meets the river. Turns left here under the bridge (great for echooooooooes!) and then goes back on itself for a similar distance alongside the motorway again returning to the canal.
BUT - immediately you come out under the motorway there is a stile leading onto the meadows alongside the river, where the path just meanders out into the fields and is pretty much unmarked. This is the way to go, noy as we did along the Itchen Way back to the canal.
Although there is a stile about 500m north along the Way into the meadows, you will find yourself wanding throuogh the marshy bits following streams until you come to a fence along side the river. The bridge at this point (in use four years ago!) has collapsed and there is no crossing point. Annoying, because you are less than 200m from the cosy High Wood Barn at this point and tea beckons.
We had to turn back, and by this time the kids were tiring and, after chocolate buttons, elected to go back to the car. All in all about 2 miles.
The trick is to check the f*kking map on the information board before you even GET to the motorway, which clearly shows the seperation of the Itchen Way from the Water Meadows Nature Reserve. OK, it doesn't show all the fences or the derelict (dairy lea!!) bridge, but had I bothered to read this first we wouldn't have even got to that point.

Nevertheless, a beautiful refreshing walk on a winter morning. Fieldfares, and tits in abundance, but noticeably no wildfowl and actually only a handful of thrushes. It's not nearly cold enough - the children insisted on taking their coats OFF halfway.

All exhausted now and its p*ssing down again, so we're drawing Flanimals, designing skirts and making a mincemeat lattice for dinner.
I'm well inot the 2006 Foxx retrospective I began some weeks ago, but I'm not sure when I'll finish it. Hopefully this evening
Almost impossible to believe the holiday is over and its back to work tomorrow,