Monday 23 July 2012

Holiday, part the first

There has been a short intermission from my regular blogging as I have been off for the week on a camping trip to the New Forest. I don't know why it's called that, being as it's actually quite old, but I guess there was once an older forest and they just couldn't think of anything more imaginative.
We weren't sure if we should go. I was quite ill, getting over a bad fever and the weather forecast was threatening all sorts of nasties. When I looked at it the day we left I was expecting it to say "Call Noah, he might be able to help."
It did rain the day we got there and pitching the tent was a little tricky due to the number of lakes on the camp site. We found a dry island next to a tree and set too, with my parents finding enough space to pitch near by. I say "we" when I really mean Andy. I was still unwell. I had got over the fever but I was still suffering the after effects and I wasn't a lot of use. Besides, it was too muddy to let Joseph run about and he was happier of someone stayed in the car with him.
Sunday was better. Sunday was quite dry. We decided to have a lazy day as the camp site was reasonably quiet. Joseph ran around and fell into puddles and got muddy. I sat about and laughed at him. We did pop out and get some groceries and a few bits in a camping shop and on the way back we found a cafe called the Tasty Pastry which had the yummiest looking French Fancies in the window so we just had to stop. Joseph, showing signs of growing up fast, sat patiently on a normal adult chair (no booster seat) and ate his way through most of a very large smartie cookie without causing any trouble.
We decided to have a barbecue that day as the forecast said that it was probably the only dry day we were going to get. Joseph ate part of a bun, most of a sausage and went to bed, sleeping the sleep over the over fed. Andy washed up and was then attacked by a group of New Forest ponies, who bore more of a resemblance to donkies than ponies, who wanted to drink the washing up water. I don't know why they wanted to do this, given that there were plenty of places for them to stop and have a drink around the site, what with all the rain water lakes. It took quite a lot of effort to get them to leave us alone and they came back to visit us more than once in the week. Quite often we'd wake up to find several guy ropes pulled out, was it people tripping on them in the dark or ponies?
Monday was a wet day. We tried to go to several touristy places only to find that nothing is open on a Monday. This resulted in us trogging round a damp Southampton, rather lost. We were trying to follow the map my Dad has on his phone, but miserably failing to orient it properly so the shopping centre we were sure must exist somewhere just kept getting further and further away. Soggy, with our gore-tex failing to stop the damp we returned to the car in a bad mood. Next we tried the tidal mill in Eling but that was shut too.
On the other hand, if it had been open we would not have decided to stop off at a local pub for lunch. It was a very nice pub, one of those old fashioned family run places that hardly seemed to exist any more. The menu was full of good comfort food and Joseph again showed himself to be a little star by sitting still on a normal adult chair to eat. He had some battered fish that didn't seem to touch the sides on the way down and a large bowl of ice cream.
Tuesday was a good day. Joseph had his first ever trip on a boat. We went to Hurst Castle, and the only way to get there was a mile and half walk down a long gravel spit or a boat ride. We went for the boat ride. Joseph was a little puzzled by it, but seemed to enjoy the experience. On the way home he was so relaxed by it all he fell asleep.
In  the castle he had lots of fun. There were big green spaces to run about on, there were big echoing rooms to shout in and lots of things to look at. He especially liked the cafe where he was given a taste of all the grown up cakes we were eating and for lunch he had a sausage roll. He ate the puff pastry and I ended up eating most of the sausage.
This post is now quite long enough so I will tell the rest on another day.

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