22 Octover 2018 (Monday) - Exploring


When you are on a holiday do you forget to turn of your alarm for Monday morning? With my random pattern of working I set an alarm as and when I need it. I really should have suggested that "er indoors TM" turn hers off last night.
Despite her alarm everyone carried on snoozing. I got up, wrote yesterday’s history and had a look-see at Facebook to see if the world was still turning without me. It was. A friend had got married yesterday; it looked as though all had gone well.

It wasn’t long before everyone was up. We had bacon sarnies all round, and then set off on the day’s business. After yesterday’ rather epic walk we thought a more gentle day would be in order. The New Forest has loads of little car parks from which there are rather pretty walks. So (ably assisted by the geo-map) we thought we’d use these as a way of exploring.

We started off at a little ca park just up the road from where we were staying and had a little stroll round Hawkhill woods where we found the remains of a wartime bomb and ammunition store.
From there we relocated to Minstead where regular readers of this drivel may recall that Fudge and I visited a virtual cache on the grave of Arthur Conan Doyle (and Fudge tiddled on it) on the first of August 2016. At the time I liked the look of the local pub. Once everyone else had done the secret geo-ritual we went to that pub for a spot of lunch. The food and beer in “The Trusty Servant” were excellent. The service was a tad slow but not so slow that I didn’t leave a tip… or try to. I paid by card. The nice man asked if I would like to leave a tip; I said to bung on fifteen per cent. He didn’t bung on anything. Awkward!

We then drove a short distance to Acres Down for a little stroll, and then on to Millyford Bridge where we spent a little while hunting for a Portuguese Fireplace (not to be confused with a Dutch Oven).
By then time was pushing on, so we headed home. On the way back to base we stopped at the car park at Bolderwood Aboretum as we spotted an ice cream van. A whippy with monkey blood went down very well as we looked at the deer and wild pigs.
And as it was on the way home we stopped off for one last cache at Woosons where the dogs paddled in stagnant ditchwater.

Once back at base I fell asleep for an hour. Fortunately I woke in time for dinner. We had a rather good lasagna, and then played Blokus for an hour or so.

You can see photos of our day by clicking here. For all that today was intended to be a restful one, it was a rather tiring one...

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