Mudeford Wood

An urban walk for us today, delivering/collecting fat and cocoa based goods to celebrate the festival of chocolate Jesus. Our route took us through Mudeford Wood, an important wildlife corridor of woodland, wet woodland and ponds which flank the River Mude from Somerford roundabout across what was Christchurch Airfield/RAF Christchurch. Little evidence of the airfield remain, I think it's just a couple of pillboxes now. I remember when there was a section of taxiway near one of the pillboxes too, though friends brought up here remember loads more, including a bunker which they say was half underground....which sounds like a Battlefield HQ to me (?). It's striking how much the urban sprawl has spread, even in my memory. These pockets of natural oasis create vital spaces for wildlife to hold their ground and resist us from, each little niche world. If you plan your walk carefully and you're prepared to sometimes take a slightly longer route, you can weave your way through the urban sprawl using these natural oasis. I feel these isolated islands, all that remain of a broader rural/natural landscape long consumed by modernity, allow us, to a degree, to connected and walk that past world. From these pockets, boundary lines of mature trees, old maps and photos I extrapolate and render the landscape of my minds eye with what I imagine the land would have looked like...and I enjoy walking through that.