It would be rather remiss of me to do another post about my lovely holiday without mentioning the one thing that threatened to spoil it all. If you're camping in the New Forest then there's one animal you've got to be really wary of. It's not the ponies, despite all the pulled up guy ropes and large piles of poo they like to leave all over the place they are not all that bad once you get used to them. They can even be quite cute. Neither is it the large toad we found nestling under the groundsheet for a sleep. It's a good job Andy noticed the bump or it would have been one squashed toad by the following day. My Mum found one living under their tent at the end of the week as well.
No, the animal in question are the Ninja Squirrels.
Imagine, if you will, the mission impossible music. Picture a creature that is like a rat in most ways, save that it has a fluffier tail, lives up a tree and has better PR. It smells the smell of an unguarded loaf of bread, slips quickly into the tent through the small zip opening that our gas line for the fridge passes through and now it's near it's goal. These silly people have left their cook stand slightly unzipped, through which it is easy to slip. The cardboard packs of smarties cause some problems, but they are nibbled and cast aside. The goal is ahead, a brand new loaf of bread just waiting.
The packaging is torn and a small piece of bread is removed. The rodent escapes leaving a trail of slightly damp smarties, bread crumbs and small pieces of poop behind it.
We were not impressed. The following day we zipped the cook stand up tight, forgetting that in the back it has two small mesh panels for air flow. They were the work of a moment for a determined grey vermin creature and when we came home we found a hole gnawed in our cook stand and a brand new fresh loaf of bread ruined.
In the end we borrowed a plastic box from my Mum and stored anything of interest to a rodent in there. Later that day Andy found a suspicious lump under the tent that wasn't a toad, but a sleeping squirrel and he scared it off.
Now, from the bad to the really rather good.
In Brockenhurst there is a café called The Secret Garden. We stopped there for lunch and cream tea as time was getting on and we'd not yet had one. I fancied a sausage roll, some nice comfort food. They were advertising "jumbo" sausage rolls and I confidently expected something like the standard sort you get in Gregs, mostly pastry and a bit of meat, just a bit longer.
I was wrong, oh boy was I wrong.
Perhaps I should set the scene a little first. The café is attached to a small hotel and it's all out in the open. It's a lovely garden with nice garden seating, some gazebos and toys for the children. The whole thing has a lovely old fashioned British feel to it, you'd half expect children in Victorian costume to come running round the corner any moment.
Back to the food.
Joseph had a cheese sandwich that he did eat all of. He made a bit of a mess, but then he's only 20 months.
My sausage roll was the diametric opposite to what I mentioned above. It was meaty, the big round meaty cross section was probably a good 4cm across, if I remember right. The pasty was not the usual mix of flake and stodge, but just a light coating to act as a crispy counter to the lovely meatiness. If you're ever in the area, then go. Even if it's raining and blowing a gale, it's still worth it.
The cream tea was pretty good too.
We ended up going back on the Saturday as our last holiday meal. We were all packed up and this was the last gasp. Everyone else had the sausage roll, which didn't surprise me as they'd all been quite envious when they'd seen me eating it. I had the hot sausage and caramelised onion sandwich - just as nice in my opinion.
Then we had cake.
I have never in my life eaten cake like it and I've eaten a lot of cake. I've made cake, and some pretty good cake too if I say it myself but it all paled into insignificance compared to this.
First of all, the portions were quite generous. I had what could only be described as a large slab of coffee tiramisu cake and it was delicious. Everyone else had Victoria sponge.
Oh, it was so good! It was moist but not soggy, it was melt in the mouth and yet not too crumbly and it was so light in texture! I ate a massive piece of cake and came away feeling pleasantly full rather than weighted round the middle with concrete, which is what usually happens if I overdo the cake. I can only hope that in time and with a lot of practice, my cakes can be half as good.
Reading this back I realise that Joseph isn't really mentioned much in the above. I shall remedy this by telling you what happened on Wednesday, a slightly damp day.
We decided to have another go at "Solent Sky", an aircraft museum we'd tried to see on the Monday, but it was closed. Relieved to find it opened on Wednesdays we popped in. It was very interesting, lots of planes to look at including a Spitfire and lots of it's history and a very interesting Short Sandringham IV VH-BRC, a four engine flying boat that you could climb aboard, poke about in and they let you sit up in the flight deck while a guide tells you lots of anecdotes about it's history.
Joseph couldn't get up into the flight deck, the ladder was too steep. So, after taking Granddad for a tour around the museum ("Da! Da! Pla! Pla!") he spent some time with Granny, who attracted the attention of a museum guide who asked if Joseph would like a go in the cockpit of a Harrier Jump Jet.
Would he? Were there buttons to press? Were there switches to flip? I'd make a daft joke about the Pope or a bear at this point, but I think you get it.
He was in his element, let me tell you.
They had two separate cockpits that could be sat in. He played in the Harrier for a while and then had a go in the Spitfire. Eventually he decided that his plane of choice was the Harrier and he was happy. He didn't want to leave, as far as he was concerned he was in paradise. For Christmas (or his birthday, he really doesn't mind) he would like aeroplane please, or just the cockpit. That's the important bit.
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