Back to Barton on Sea via Bosham

Tuesday September 28th

This is a favourite part of the world and Mary decided she needed a nostalgic visit to Bosham. This was the place where their great family friend “Uncle Percy” had always talked about as his two sisters had lived here. It also has a very famous church dating back to the 11th century and is depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry. Bosham also features in one of the Gumdrop adventures; Gumdrop on the Brighton run. The houses are built right up to the tide line and twice a day the tide comes in almost up to the windows. The houses have doors that that have a high threshold you have to climb over. This is the place where King Canute commanded the tide to stop coming in with no effect. One of his daughters is buried in the churchyard and there is a cottage called Canute Cottage. It is one of the loveliest villages to visit and there were tourists arriving in droves as they left.




So after a morning coffee in the quaint little tea rooms which is part of a complex of about 20 art and craft shops, they came back to get me and drive me on in the direction of Langston to see friends at the Royal Oak Pub. They had last seen them in 2007. On arriving they asked to see Chris and they were told he had gone back to live in NZ for good. This is after having been there for over 20 years. So looks like they will have to look him up in Taihape where he owns a house.


So it was off in the direction of the New Forest, which is very old actually and was the hunting forest for William the conquer after 1066 . Apparently the old forest got chopped down when someone got permission from the king to chop down as much timber as he could in a day. He managed to amass such a large number of people to help that he stripped the forest of all useable timber. The new forest was already there but it was designated hunting forest for the king and it still stands today and regenerates naturally.

There was a slight deviation for lunch and looking at shops at Hedge End which is a shopping mecca around the Southampton area. Alan bought a paper and was happy to sit in me. He actually bought the newly released CD of the RAF Reach for the Skies as well. This is the CD recoded by Decca for the anniversary of the Battle of Britain. The band are photographed on the runway at Northolt with the planes flying over top and Hamish is easily seen in the front right. So Alan got a first listen to the CD.


There is a rather classy promotional video at Amazon that you can copy and paste into your browser and see here...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/mpd/permalink/m360GUFNFPZQUD

So with CD playing they headed out towards New Milton and Barton on Sea. There is a good camping shop in Lyndhurst so they picked up a new gas cylinder for my cooker there and looked at water pumps as they need to replace the one Mary snapped. A bit more research needed before they decide which one to buy as they have to make sure they can fit it to the leisure battery. Lyndhurst is another one of those villages that nostalgia demanded they get out and walk around. It was late in the day but there were still two tour buses of pensioners having 2 or 3 day breaks in the New Forest.

They got to Barton on Sea just before 5 and back to the house that had been their home for a year in 2007. Andy and Liz welcomed them and Mary assured them she could back me up their very narrow drive between the house and the fence. They had made a few a changes to the house including adding a conservatory, but it seemed just like being home.
In the evening one of the teachers Mary had taught with had organised a social get together of some of the staff from New Milton Infant School. It was a very pleasant evening. Several have now also retired and are looking great and it seems to be suiting them as well. They all seem to have grand travel plans and Mary is hoping they will travel down under at some stage.