On my last day off before my operation last month (which, I'd half-convinced myself, might be simply my last day off) I decided I wanted to visit the sea. Dorset was a bit of a jaunt so instead I popped down to Hayling Island, which is barely 40 minutes away, with a following wind. I'd never been there and ended up parking near the old church, a few minutes' walk from the beach. South Hayling need not delay anyone very long, but the weather was beautiful. I sat on a bench on the seashore and ate my lunch. The coastline stretches along to Portsmouth and Gilkicker Point to the west. The great monolith is a memorial to COPP, the Combined Operations Pilotage Parties, a World War Two unit involved in marine landings around the world.
I called in at St Mary's Church, a mainly 14th-century building with a newish central dais and some nice modern furniture - although that little table-altar looks a bit economical.
I even found a holy well on the way home - St Mary's Well at Sheet near Petersfield, which is in a private garden so I'm not going to share the picture here. It was all very pleasing, thankfully, which at least put me in a pacific frame of mind for what was ahead!
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