In the last week of July 2010 I booked a large house on the edges of the New Forest for a few days to relax with family and friends. Together with me and Sue, Grandma came with us as well as my son William and his girlfriend Laura. Also with us for a couple of days was our friend Larraine.
I left Enfield on 26th July with Grandma, William and Laura in the car (Sue and Larraine came down separately) just before 2pm on a warm cloudy and immediately hit heavy traffic on the M25. Thankfully the traffic did not delay us unduly and via the M3 and M27 we arrived in Minstead in good time. Finding the exact location of the house itself was more difficult however and I phoned the owners to obtain directions and eventually we found our way to the house. On arrival I phoned Sue to give her and Larraine directions.
The house turned out to be delightful, very well appointed and large enough for us all not to feel cramped together. There was a field immediately opposite (which held a black cow that kept us awake with constant mooing during the night – such at the perils of living in the countryside) and the premise had its own stables. The master bedroom with en-suite bathroom was contained in an excellent and clever eaves style loft conversion with the biggest and deepest bath that myself and Sue had seen in ages. Not surprisingly we had a bath every night. We got a wood burning fire going in the front room that first evening while Grandma watched ‘New Tricks’ on the TV. That first night I slept well (despite the mooing) and woke early to make breakfast.
Of course my son and his girlfriend were not up early, emerging from their bedroom just before lunch. By mid morning I had had enough of being cooped inside and went for a quick stroll down the local lanes. The weather was warm but overcast and I wandered down a couple of lanes past a dead rabbit and several pretty cottages that seemed redolent of a past age and a different way of life. I reflected that we were but just two hours drive from London, one of the biggest cities in the world and yet this place was a world apart. The gentle woodland surrounding the lanes was lush and green and would, I imagine, provide a spectacular sight clothed in autumn colours. On the way back I was passed by a two horse buggy which looked most elegant.
Returning to the house we decided to visit the local beaches. It is not possible to imagine a holiday, or perhaps a British holiday without a trip to the seaside. I often feel that we have a primordial link with the sea – at least I do – and so we set off and travelling through pretty roads through that soft woodland that appears to characterise the New Forest we arrived at a cliff top location overlooking a beach and providing a superb view of the Isle of Wight as well as the pleasures of a small café where we treated ourselves to ice creams, it being true that ice creams are also a necessity for a traditional British seaside holiday (actually the ice cream ended up making me feel sick – but perhaps that is also traditional).
The beach itself however wasn’t directly accessible from this location so we drove on and shortly arrived at Avon beach where we decanted ourselves from the car onto the beach which was a mixture of sand and stones. We had brought a collapsible chair for Grandma which proved most useful. I had also brought my shorty wetsuit and reef slippers; the later I was certainly grateful for as there were signs indicating that Weever fish were hiding in the sand underwater and they apparently can inject you with a nasty venom! Donning my wetsuit with great difficulty due to my increased girth I went for a swim in the sea.
There is nothing quite so pleasant as swimming in the sea although the reef slippers made my feet so buoyant that it was very difficult to swim, so instead I went in for what might be described as a mixture of floating and splashing about – what you could call sploating (the alternative contraction of the two words would give flashing!). The beach was clean but unfortunately the sickly odour of sewage was just discernable in the air spoiling the ambiance. The weather remained cloudy with little blue sky and at about 5:30pm we left the beach and headed back to our holiday home for supper and later that night a game of ‘Chain Reaction’ before Larraine had to set off for home.
The following morning I woke up having had a much more troubled sleep, to blue skies and the promise of a bright hot day. After a slow lazy morning we headed off to Burley where we planned to hire a bike for me, Will and Laura. Arriving shortly after 12:30 we stopped at the pub next to the car park to order food. It was an unfortunate choice as the service was slow and the food poor and so it wasn’t until about 1:45 that we actually arrived at the bike hire shop and were presented with our three bikes and a leaflet guide to the ‘Hill Fort’ bike trail. We left Sue with Grandma to look round the shops (a lot of them about witchcraft for some unknown reason) and set off on the trail. I was quite worried about being on a bike as the last time I had ridden a bike must have been many, many years ago, but as the adage goes, once you’ve learnt to ride a bike you can always ride a bike.
I was concerned that initially the route took us down lanes used by cars but the cars were infrequent and cautious and we made our way without incident. However it became immediately obvious that as soon as we started up a slope I found myself out of breath and had to get off and walk. I was shocked by my lack of fitness which I think has a lot to do with carrying at least one extra stone in blubbery weight. I was quite despondent about the situation and was also finding that it took a long time for my heart rate to calm down and recover. Eventually we found ourselves on a lovely gravel path than ran downhill thorough woodland (well mainly downhill) and then to an old gravelled-over disused railway line that was level or slightly sloping down. This was more like it and it felt wonderful to be able to make fast progress with little effort. All too soon the gravel path came to an end and we had to turn left onto a lane which led up a steep slope. Once again I had to dismount and was only slightly less upset by my poor fitness by the fact that Laura and William had to dismount albeit further up the slope. At the top we rested for a while and I had an apple, before we took off again and crossed a very busy road. We decided to take the short cut back to Burley and arrived back at just past 3pm. I was desperate for a drink so we went into a pub on the hill before meeting up with Sue and Grandma in the Black Cat café.
We had an uneventful journey back and I had a rest before tea. I went to bed that evening despondent at my obvious lack of fitness. I must loss weight but it is so very difficult to motivate myself when the weight is caused directly by the medication and there is no guarantee that dieting will help.
Didn’t sleep well during the night again and woke early. We packed by 10am and made our way to nearby Furzey Gardens which was a pretty little garden, not too big with a fairy theme, obviously very popular with mums and young children judging by the number that turned up as the morning wore on. Grandma ended up walking most of the grounds and we stopped for the obligatory cup of tea and cake before heading off.
When we got to the M25 we decided to go eastwards via the Dartford tunnel to avoid the westerly road works but the traffic was slow in places and the journey much longer. In the end it took us three hours to get home.
