11.08.10

Recent stuff

Posted in Travel at 4:15 pm by alby

We went on holiday not so long back.  We’d bought loads of camping gear which only just managed to fit in the car – a roof box or trailer (or both) needed next time I reckon.

We’d done a run-through of using the stuff in Derbyshire but this time we headed into the depths of the New Forest in Hampshire.  Campsite was called Hollands Wood.  Nice place with clear rules and decent facilities (in the main).

We arrived and were told the rules.  The main one of note was “no camping closer than 6m from other campers”.  Now groups could obviously all gather together but they wanted to give strangers some space.  We spent a good while driving around trying to live within the rule.  Eventually we found ourselves a pretty nice spot at the furthest end of the site.  It was away from the main road, near a huge field and had unfeasibly hard ground.

After setting up and scouting around a bit we headed out to the local village.  We were probably away for an hour or 2.  On our return there was a tent being put up about 2m away from us.  We decided to be nice and let them get on with it.

Later we looked again and their tent had grown immensely.  It was huge.  And the nearest bit pretty much was up to our guy ropes.  Never mind they might still be pleasant enough and it was at the back of us rather than in our face.

Well the night was fun.  Woken by fireworks and a “scared of fireworks” child at 9pm (it’d been a long day with an early start ok!)  The rest of the late evening was spent listening to the woman in the next tent struggling with her 3 boys and dog.  The conversation was the sort you always love to overhear.

“Stop doing that, he doesn’t like it…I said stop doing it…STOP IT NOW OR I’LL %*%&ING SMACK YA!”

Repeat ad absurdum.

The management were on the case sharp enough though and they asked them to shift.  They did but only to their 6m limit.  I wasn’t expecting a massive change but the extra distance improved things loads.

The field was a godsend for N.  Loads of kids around all playing together.  Friends were made and lost as people left on different days.  Logs crossing ditches were crossed and occasionally fallen off.  Generally there were plenty of smiles with occasional tears.  Fantastic fun all round.  And days were long.

In the week we went to a few places and did the tourist thing.

Highlights were “Bucklers Hard” (snigger) where the ice-cream was gorgeous and I got a free sample which was as large as the ice-cream I eventually bought.  A local kids’ theme park was rather good too.  Not many scary rides and it cost a lot but did give me a chance to go on some rides with N including her first proper roller-coaster.  So scared but yet so determined to stick it out.  Grand.  And there were horses and cows on site.  Wild New Forest (and Shetland) ponies just coming and going as they pleased.  And lots of people with dogs but no piles of dog poo anywhere that we saw.

Lowlight was Bournemouth.  Actually Boscombe as we failed to get to Bournemouth because of the frankly ludicrous amounts of traffic.  Anyway Dorset county council please sort out your road signing.

At one point we saw a sign to somewhere called “Qinetiq”.  No idea what it is (and I can’t be bothered to google it neither) but it was an obvious sign.  Later we saw a sign to Boscombe beach.  20 mins later after driving for ages we saw a sign to “Qinetiq”.  We’d gone in a huge circle with no sign of the sea, no directions to get us there and no hint that they wanted anyone to spend any time out of their cars.  Once we ended up there we weren’t in the best of moods so it didn’t end up as a day to celebrate.

We tried again later in the week in the vain hope of finding decent fish and chips.  More misery this time as we arrived late after more avoiding traffic jams.  There is no fish and chip place in Boscombe (at least not on the beach).  This is ludicrous!

There was a kiosk. They do fish and chips! Woo! Actually they heated us up a “cod portion” and some fast food fries.  Was horrible food.  Made all the worse by the stress of getting there to “enjoy” it.

Oh and part of my plastic fork came off.  I think I ate it.

And the weather was excellent.  We had about 20mins of rain one day, but it was very light.  In fact we thought we’d get through the lot without much disruption.  Unfortunately on our last morning we woke to heavy rain.  It slackened a bit but then tipped it down more as we neared fully decamped.  So we had a sodden tent to cart home.  Any other time the rain wouldn’t have been an issue. Ah well.

Photos may well be along at some point.

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