Inspired by
our weekend away in the Cotswalds we decided to take the Iceberg for another
spin. This time down to the New Forest for an overnight stay. We left early on
Saturday morning hoping the drive wouldn’t be too long. Unfortunately a lot of
other people seemed to have the same idea so it was pretty slow going.
Nonetheless we eventually arrived in New Forest and used our Caravan Club
connections to get a spot to stay (even if we were sure that they were all
looking distastefully out of their caravans and campervans at us while they had
Coronation Street playing in the background.) We took it easy the first day and
just decided to go for a walk in the countryside. There was plenty of paddock
and a few trees for us to duck and dive through. We even got to say hello to a
few of the wild horses which live down in the New Forest. They just roam around
like they own the place. As it was spring there were some cute foals around
too. The next day we ventured a bit further afield and did some proper forest
walking. We checked out some local red deer. We visited the biggest tree in the
New Forest. It is pretty big although has probably seen better days. We managed
to avoid running over the hundreds of horses everywhere. We also saw the spot
where King William II was accidentally killed by one of his men. Oops! By this
time the rain had unfortunately set itself in so we were back up to London
again.
Darryl had
been planning to have his birthday in Amsterdam, however a lack of funding from
everyone to make it all happen meant that instead it was birthday in Hampstead,
or Hampsterdam. Summer this year was proving somewhat unreliable (to put it
mildly) so we were hoping that we would actually see some sun. Luckily for us
the sun had come out today and we were able to sit in the beer garden at the
Freemansons Arms right next to Hampstead heath and enjoy a few brews. Ricky Gervais was
there but as he appeared to be lunching with his family we thought he probably
wouldn’t want to join us. As we were so close to the Heath and the weather was
dry we decided to head across the road (via M&S) to have ourselves a picnic
lunch. It was nice relaxing London park fun with friends (and the odd visit to
the copse). Afterwards it was back to Darryl and Beverley’s for a few more
drinks a bit of singing and Marcus making sure everyone was being sensible…
A flat
party was also long overdue at our place so after a false start a few weeks
earlier the Animal Party was underway. Jess came as a bee, Marcus as a horse
(sort of), we had Camille the frog, Andy the Meerkat, Nick the Crocodile, Sam
the Peacock, Huw the Donkey and a whole menagerie of other animals roaming
around our flat. In the usual fashion the party carried on well into the hours
of the early morning (although we had gone to bed loooong before that.)
One of the
advantages of London is all the big concerts that are held there. This is
especially true in Summer when they put up a big stage in Hyde Park and hold
various concerts there. This year Hard Rock Calling was again on and one of the
nights was being headlined by Bon Jovi. Now we didn’t actually have tickets to
go see Bon Jovi but because the stage just has a big wall around it you can go
sit outside the wall and listen for free, even if you can’t actually see what
is going on. Darryl had organised the usual suspects to attend. Who would have
thought Darryl was such a huge Bon Jovi fan? We certainly discovered once Jon
and the boys started playing because Darryl knew ALL the words. It was all good
fun and another good excuse to have a picnic in the park.
As we said
before the summer weather in London this year wasn’t the greatest so any chance
we got to spend some time outside we did. One of the parks we hadn’t managed to
visit was one of the biggest, Richmond Park. With great weather arriving on the
last weekend of June, we jumped onto the Overground and hopped off at Richmond
heading in the general direction of where we assumed the Park must be. After a
hike up the hill we found the entrance to the park and proceeded to sit in the
shade for a nice picnic lunch. If you are lucky in the park you may see deer
roaming (it was Henry VIII’s hunting ground after all). We didn’t see any
roaming but there were plenty sitting around enjoying the sun. We also got a
look at King Henry’s Mound which has an unobstructed view all the way to St Paul’s
Cathedral. Apparently Henry stood there and could see the signal that Anne
Boleyn had been executed. Lovely man. The rest of the afternoon was spent exercising our
legs, wandering around the park and then taking a rest in the shade. It was
nice to finally get some summer weather and nicer that we could be somewhere so
green and open to enjoy it.https://picasaweb.google.com/JessicaLMcMillan/June2011
