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Is this thing still on?

Blimey. It’s been ages since I wrote me a travel diary. Surprised the batteries in my iPad’s keyboard haven’t died in the 27(!) months since I last had a proper holiday. But anyway, hello! I’m on proper holiday, sort of!

A lot’s different since 2019. That pandemic has been a bit annoying and terrifying. I’ve changed jobs, plus Helen and I moved house. In February 2021 I waved goodbye after 20-odd years in Surbiton, 15 of them in the same flat, and we upped sticks to Godalming. That picture above is the view from our front deck, which is fucking remarkable and even a year in it still feels, every morning, like we’ve won a prize or are in a holiday let.

We’ve also bought a car, without which we’d have considerably less freedom - ‘cos despite living within 10 minutes walk of two stations on the mainline into London (I insisted on AFC Wimbledon home games being accessible) there’s still this whole pandemic thing going on. And me, with lungs shitty enough that I’m Clinically Extremely Vulnerable and had to shield etc - THE AIR IS POISONOUS AND WILL KILL ME is a hard mindset to emerge from, especially in winter when you can literally see people’s virus-ridden breath emerge and linger. Ugh.

Enough about 2020/21. Start talking 2022.

Turns out, then, that going on holiday in 2022 is a lot different to going on holiday in 2019 and earlier. Let’s start with the pre-departure ritual. On Sunday, leaving Surrey, we couldn’t just throw a load of clothes into a couple of suitcases then wait for the cab to the airport. No, first we had to refill some of the 27(!) different bird feeder things we’ve got around the garden. This robin is always following us around, and was outright demanding a new suet ball when I stepped out.

We’re staying in the UK, and driving. Our accommodation is a mostly self-catering cottage (as in, we expect to be self-catering - eating and drinking indoors is still pretty much beyond us). Accordingly, we aren’t just taking some bare minimum number of clothes making our cases easy to cart around, we are given the dubious freedom of being able to load up with tons of stuff. So, for 5 days away a 90 minute drive from home, we’ve got 2 full suitcases, a half full rucksack, a cool bag full of refrigerated food, 3 boxes of beer, several bottles of plonk, and god knows what else. We have basically forgotten how to travel light.

(I’d forgotten how interminably long my diary introductions tend to be. Look, everyone has to just bear with me for now)

This holiday is Helen’s christmas present to me. As we’ve done for many years, we each bought each other a mystery destination trip for xmas 2021 - with very different restrictions to peacetime. We are spending 5 nights in Brockenhurst, Hampshire, in the heart of the New Forest. Our drive is about 2 hours, starting with finding our way to the A31 at the Hog’s Back and heading down to Winchester.

We had toyed with the idea of a proper break of journey somewhere around there, perhaps for lunch, but instead just had 10 minutes stretching our legs near St Catherine’s Hill on the city outskirts. It was busy and we totally lucked out grabbing the last parking spot because someone was leaving just as we pulled in. We didn’t ascend the hill, just spent enough time for Helen to get a nicotine fix and me to grab a couple of pics of the river.

Onward to Brockenhurst, road signs informed us that we were in a 3.5 mile HIGH RISK route where deer might suddenly appear. Mercifully we saw none. Deeper into the New Forest, the signs changed to tell us that “Ponies don’t dent, they die”. Cheerful.

The weather was glorious and we found the Thatched Cottage hotel, our home for the week, very easily. There was no parking spot at the place and anyway we were too early to check in, so we went to the pub next door. Venturing inside, maskless (eek!), I ordered two Sunday roasts and a couple of drinks and we sat outside. Behind the pub were two large marquee tents, absolutely chock full of really loud pissed up football fans preparing to watch the Carabao cup final Liverpool vs Chelsea. We could hear them all, loudly swearing, for hours to come since the game went to a ludicrously long penalty shootout some 3hrs later.

We hadn’t had a Sunday roast for AGES. Honestly, I thought it looked pretty poor when it turned up but it was bloody delicious. Helen, connoisseur of roast potatoes, thought the tattles were some of the best pub roasties she’s ever had. I had the nut roast which was really good, and also enjoyed the bonus crackling Helen donated from her roast pork.

By the time we were done eating, it was 4pm so check-in was open. Staff at reception were super friendly and in moments we’d booked our slot for breakfast on Monday and had been shown to our accommodation, the garden suite - yes, we are still too paranoid to stay in a building where other people are also living.

The suite is ace, but quirky. There are basically 4 rooms:

  • one toilet/shower
  • one toilet/bathroom
  • one open plan living room/bedroom
  • one open plan kitchen/bedroom

There are no usable wardrobes in which to place our clothes, so the kitchen bed becomes our storage. There’s no drinking vessels larger than a tea mug. The bathroom lights are noisy. The sofa is enormous and very comfortable.

There hadn’t been a cloud in the sky all day. We walked up to where the car was parked and shifted a fair bit of our stuff; on the second trip, a parking space had opened in the cottage car park so we nabbed it and moved the rest of our stuff in. Still plenty of daylight available, we went for a walk around the village to get our bearings.

5 minutes away, there are ponies on a village green.

There’s three pubs: the Foresters (next door; loud football folk; closed on Monday for a staff party), the Snakecatcher, and the Huntsman. All have plenty of outdoor seating, which bodes well.

Our little loop is a bit too little, being actually a tight triangle that yields nothing else except the pubs and ponies. There’s a high street around here, I’m sure of it, and we find it. There, there’s another pub called Commoners and it is absolutely, terrifyingly rammed. Not interested. At the top of the high street there’s a ford, which I think is known locally as “the splash” - a place where New Forest ponies and donkeys like to come and drink. We don’t actually see any more animals except for the three on the green, though.

We walked back to our place, across the cattle grids, and since it was still so nice we thought we’d sit outside in the dying of the light. As well as a B&B, the Thatched Cottage is also an afternoon tea cafe and gin bar. They have 100+ types of gin! So, Helen ordered an espresso martini for her and the tasting flight of the month for me. These went down very well.

Trying to be less uncouth than usual, I opted to drink my gins with their fancy tonic - but not before a sip of each neat. Unfortunately, attempting to be couth was a mistake. The leftmost gin, Strathearn small batch rose heather (distilled in port barrels, apparently?) was delicious neat - and then lost all its potency and flavour when mixed with tonic. I was crestfallen, crestfallen I tells ya. The rightmost gin was the opposite experience - mediocre neat, much better with tonic - and the one in the middle was nice either way.

As darkness fell, we retired to our strange suite. A bottle of prosecco washed down a load of chocolate profiteroles, and we watched Chris Packham on TV. He was taking a walk with a Go Pro, and went to St Catherine’s Hill, where we’d stopped en route. How very coincidental.

Created By
Darren Foreman
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