A sunny, albeit rather windy walk along the estuary for Wednesday morning. There was a need to leave the house. The builders were banging away. wfh was proving to be problematic. And so we strolled out instead to the end of the world, aka Alresford Creek. Solace was within reach.

The estuary footpath was relatively quiet. We did have to make way for what is the biggest dog in Weird Wiv to pass through. We’ve clocked the fella before whilst plating wiff waffle. He’s the size of a medium rhino.

This didn’t feel like a mid-April walk. The conditions were incredibly dry. It would have been possible for even the most OCD-obsessed runner (OH HAI!) to run along the trail and towards the Creek. Usually I wouldn’t attempt this until late May. Injury is keeping me away, for now.

It was also radiantly green everywhere. Spring has truly sprung in Weird Wiv. The landscape is also changing. One of the big private houses overlooking the estuary has undergone a spot of gardening for the first time in at least fifteen years. Tress have been felled, brambles have been pulled back. There’s even a ditch that has been dug to run off the rain water.

The highlight of the short walk was being startled by a little lizard. At least I think it was a lizard. I didn’t hang around to get a closer look. SHOUT OUT to Flat Bloke, as ever.

To the kayak! …on Tuesday afternoon. This was the first paddle of the season for me. Blue skies and a bloody big high tide were my calling card to make my way down to the Sailing Club.

Oh hang on - it’s a bit windy, isn’t it? I did check on the high water time, but overlooked the incoming sea breeze. I’m not cut out for a life at sea. Hey hoe.

I thought it would have been borderline wind for the rowing club to launch. But there they were, a full crew all set to make their way upstream.

My instinct was to follow theirs. It looked a little choppy out in the estuary. It’s best to stay safe with a leisurely paddle out towards Rowhedge and Windy Corner, and then back to base.

I soon found my rhythm and stride. All internal thoughts were lost. I was alone in the water with the sun on my face. Don’t be such a dick, Jase. But yeah, it was that kind of afternoon.

Without really giving it too much thought, soon I was way past Rowhedge, and blimey, I’m down at the muddy banks of the Hythe. This was proving to be something of an EPIC row. I do like over exaggerate.

I took a while to take in my surroundings. The trees in the distance by Wivenhoe Wood are still looking a little naked. You can just about see green spring growth trying to break through. But the lush green canopy has yet to appear.

The return back to the Sailing Club was hard work. Time and tide, etc. I misjudged both. And the bloody wind. I was against the still incoming tide, and the wind around Windy Corner was trying to blow me back towards the Hythe.

A decent row - just under 7km.

I had to cycle off to see a woman about a hammock over in Great Bentley. It seemed like the perfect excuse to factor in a Bank Holiday bicycle ride around the Peninsular Loops circuit. Chapeau!

Operation Drop Off Hammock went smooth. A hammock was welly and truly dropped off. I hope it finds itself a happy new home. I never really did get my head - or body - around the art of dozing off and doing bugger all whilst being suspended above the lawn.

But anyway. About the Bank Holiday bicycle ride. The Union flags are still flying around the lampposts of Ainger’s Green. It’s an odd choice, for sure. Are you thinking what I’m thinking, etc? Whenever I see someone flying a Union flag, I want to congratulate them on embracing the inclusiveness of our bond across the nations. I don’t think I would get the response I would want over in Ainger’s Green.

My mind turned to more enjoyable matters as I reached the empty lanes. It wasn’t quite shorts weather, but it did feel like the first day of the cycling summer season. The freshly ploughed fields were all set for their first crops to be planted. As ever I was enthused to see the OCD approach to ploughing. That’s a job that I could do. Yep.

Things went a little downhill with four arsehole close passes. No worries, I’ve got you caught on camera, fellas. And soon Essex Police will as well. SHOUT OUT to the stunning pheasant that also close passed me. I don’t think Essex Police are interested in your chaotic approach to crossing a road.

I brought forward the annual diary date for the Weird Wiv bluebell walk for this year. I am a man of routine, but I am also out of sync with my bluebell calendar. In previous years I’ve gone exploring deep into Wivenhoe Woods early May. I usually hit jackpot with the carpets of bluebells, but they are often on the wain. Hey! Let’s fast forward a month.

There was a beautiful Bank Holiday blue sky early morning. Have sun rays, have flowering bluebells. Or so the theory goes. My man of routine persona even allowed me to deviate from the usual Wivenhoe Wood walking path. Phew. LIVE dangerously Jase, etc. I was rewarded by finding some new stretches of the bluebell coverings that my camera hasn’t troubled in previous years.

I chose to snap away using the very old Nikon D60. This is usually the camera that I reach for whenever I’m snapping away at live sport. It has a great shutter speed action, but is a little big and clumsy when it comes to bending down and trying to be agile whilst out in the field - or even the bluebell wood. The results were so so, but not quite the quality that I craved.

The bluebells didn’t disappoint, obvs. We weren’t alone in taking in the stench of the flowers waking up early morning. It was a little over-powering. For once I had a little time to keep on wandering, finding further new paths to explore.

The crazy world of rock ‘n’ roll, etc. It’s come to this.

Derby Day down at Broad Lane on Saturday as Wivenhoe Town welcomed the Colchester near neighbours from Stanway Pegasus. I do love a good local derby - which is just as well, seeing as though the Dragons might be playing Alresford in a public park next season.

My fashionably late arrival meant that I missed the first goal. 1-0 to Wivenhoe. GEDDIN.

It was rather lovely walking around the old ground in the Easter sunshine, saying hello to some familiar and friendly faces. Wind was a bit of an issue on the pitch. A game of football threatened to break out at times.

Pegasus managed an equaliser just before half time with a decent header from a rebounded shot. I knew which way this game was heading. I buggered off up the road to the University for the basketball that was about to tip off.

A quick scroll through my feed an hour or so later at the Sports Arena, and I see that Pegasus got a late, late winner. Hey hoe.

SHOUT OUT to the Wivenhoe Ultra Kids, who made a magnificent bloody racket throughout the whole of the first half. I believe the children are our future, etc.

Another day, another bicycle ride along a beautiful blossomed Trail. I took it at a steady pace. I spent an hour beforehand fitting a new cheapo Lidl bicycle seat to the summer MTB. It should have been a five minute job. The Laws of Bicycle Mechanics means that I need to multiply this by at least ten. I wasn’t entirely convinced that the seat pole may lose contact with the seat as I rolled along.

The Trail was busy with Bank Holiday walkers - another reason not to put my foot down on the pedals. I was layered up, passing walkers who were down to their T-shirts. I feel the Estuary Wilds winds these days like an 80 year-old. The blossom will soon be blown away. I fear that the same might happen to my cheapo Lidl bicycle seat.

A return to the Trail for the first time in months on Thursday afternoon. The bloody Estuary Wilds rain has kept me and my MTB away from all the mud and general unpleasantness.

The stretch from Weird Wiv down to the Hythe is now bone dry. Blossom corridors line one particular stretch. It’s stunning, giving off the sense that you are cycling down a perfume tunnel - if such a thing actually exists. At least it makes a change from the stench of shit.

This was the first outing of the summer MTB. I carried out a few repairs on it back in September, before putting it away to hibernate for another winter. New spokes were added, along with some gear shifter cables. It held up to the test.

Chapeau!

Cometh Halesworth, cometh the hail. I do LOVE nominative determinism. I don’t love yet another home defeat for the Dragons, now looking in serious danger of dropping down a division. Away days on a barren field in Alresford? Oh Lordy.

I was on time for once. I caught the highlights in seeing Wivenhoe score a half decent headed goal. Can we go home now please? It was bloody freezing, even with my Long John tights underneath my trackies.

Haleworth weren’t difficult to spot. The away team had a Hi Vis kit that puts my weirdo cycling clothes to shame.

Wivenhoe meanwhile weren’t so visible in defence. My Man on the Inside informed me that our usual centre half was running a marathon in Barcelona.

“I hope he can make it back to come on at half time”

…I quipped.

Haleworth equalised with an equally impressive header. A second followed, with an all too easy run around the Wiv ‘keeper.

Hey hoe. At least I can cycle to an away day at Alresford Rangers.

A nasty head injury was suffered by the Dragons’ No.11. He was patched up, looking a cross between Terry Butcher and Mr Bump. Fair play, fella, for playing out the rest of the game.

This was a scrappy game. It was a tough watch, as well as being bloody cold. I cycled back to base in record time.

I missed the first goal for Gorleston. I was running fashionably late, as ever. It didn’t help that the bloody Dropbox app has had a redesign. My Wiv season ticket is stored in there, with a very handsome snap of me BEAMING away. I scrambled around in the car park with my phone, trying to find the file. Arse. I blagged it in instead.

I was halfway around my usual photo walk of the ground when I thought of asking the friendly lady who sits in the corner on her own what the score is. I pretended that I hadn’t heard that Wivenhoe were already 1-0 down.

I put a shifty on with my photo walk. The Broad Lane skies were bruising. We were in for a soaking. I managed to see the Dragons equalise with a penalty. My celebrations had barely finished when Gorleston went down the other end and scored a second. Hey hoe.

And so 2-1 down at HT, and I had to do a runner. The Rebs were tipping off up at the University at 4pm. I made the strategic decision of watching half a game of hit and miss game of football, rather than walk in midway through a full on basketball game.

A brief scroll through the phone at the basketball, and yep, the FT score back at Broad Lane remained 2-1. Watching ninety minutes of football is overrated, Comrades.

To The Nottage! …on a damp Estuary Wilds Friday evening. Thirty five odd years ago and we would be starting the weekly WEEKENDER ritual of getting tarted up and buzzing off our tits just up the road at the University.

Middle-age means a more sedate Friday evening sitting in a historic nautical room with a bunch of stiffs, watching a series of old films depicting Weird Wiv on camera from days gone by.

LIVE the dream, Jase. At least we managed to reduce the average age of the coffin dodgers by a couple of decades.

We took up our position on the back row of The Nottage. It wasn’t exactly DATE NIGHT. Plus I had forgotten my specs, and so had to quint to see anything.

Lined up for the evening’s entertainment was a rag tag collection of old films featuring Wivenhoe. there was no soundtrack, just home movie footage. This led to a constant stream of commentary from the audience.

“Oh look, there’s old Jim!”

I challenged A to shout out:

“There’s Dave!”

There was no Dave.

That would have livened the stiffs up.

The first film was a rather lengthy home movie affair, featuring the voyage of Cap Pilar. This is a ship that is still spoken of around these parts with reverence.

The back story is a young fella back in the 1930’s SPUNKING his wealth on Cap Pilar, and then inviting a crew of around sixty or so local types to explore the world with him. The outbreak of War cut the journey short after a couple of years.

Footage from the voyage was incredibly homoerotic. I don’t think that was the intentions, any maybe it was just me that saw this. The crew were pretty much all stripped off, muscle bound and scrubbing the decks, as well as each other.

Blimey. And that was all without my specs on.

It dragged a little, tbh. Some fast forwarding of the hour long footage followed. It was hardly a Friday night spent doom scrolling on Tik Tok.

A short break followed, and then we had a mid 80’s promo film trying to sell the idea of the Tidal Barrier to the locals. There was some fantastic accidental Partridge quotes in there.

The commentary covered the original idea of the Barrier being closed up to four times a year. Fifty or so closures is now not uncommon. Time and tide, and global warming, innit.

The final film was a comedy home video gone wrong. I don’t think we were suppose to be laughing, but the back row action had us pissing our pants, trying to cover up all the jocularity.

The subject matter involved one of the final launches of a grand old industrial ship just before the shipyard closed. You can imaging the scene: the whole town had turned out for the smashing of the Champagne bottle. School kids had the afternoon off.

High tide arrived, the dignitaries rocked up. Our DIY cameraman was on the opposite side of the Muddy Banks to capture the action.

THREE! TWO! ONE!

The ship slid down the slipway, and then promptly pointed in the wrong direction.

OH SHIT.

Some mad scrambling followed to get the bulk of a vessel back on the slipway with the water fast draining back out downstream.

It was classic Weird Wiv. We found it funny as fuck. No one else did.

There was talk of heading back up to campus for an all nighter with a little more light refreshment. Instead we were back in bed by 10am.