{"id":152,"date":"2012-10-13T15:11:35","date_gmt":"2012-10-13T14:11:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesumpnersagain.wordpress.com\/?p=152"},"modified":"2012-10-13T15:11:35","modified_gmt":"2012-10-13T14:11:35","slug":"autumn-weekend-in-the-new-forest-5-7-october","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesumpnersagain.com\/?p=152","title":{"rendered":"Autumn weekend in the New Forest – 5 to 7 October 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

Great idea to start this blog towards the end of the season, eh? So – it’s been a while but we decided a weekend away was what we needed. The weather was set\u00a0fair\u00a0and we set off for the short trip in eager anticipation. Our chosen site was Setthorns<\/a>, where we have been a\u00a0couple\u00a0of times before. Set in the New Forest<\/a> a short distance from Brockenhurst<\/a> it is a peaceful and fairly\u00a0Spartan\u00a0site (“own san\u00a0essential”\u00a0 is the\u00a0caravanner’s\u00a0term!) but it does have the all-essential hook-up facilities. Can’t miss Strictly after all!<\/p>\n

It was showery start but we arrived in a break between them and swiftly got hooked up, heater & kettle on and were soon cosily ensconced with the dinner cooking, too.<\/p>\n

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It was a\u00a0noisy\u00a0night – almost constant rain and we did wonder if we might float away. I love the feeling of being cosy and warm while the\u00a0weather\u00a0does its worst. Very comforting.\u00a0Shortly\u00a0before dawn it seemed to stop and then we had a couple of noisy owls –\u00a0clearly\u00a0chatting about how wet their plumage was!<\/p>\n

Saturday dawned bright with a blue sky and, after breaking our fast, we set off for the charming town of\u00a0Lymington<\/a> and its Saturday morning market.<\/a>\u00a0We parked in the station car-park, \u00a0very handy and you can pay for\u00a0your\u00a0parking by phone.<\/p>\n

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Cows of the new Forest<\/p>\n
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New Forest ponies<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

It was very pleasant, with an almost\u00a0continental\u00a0feel, strolling\u00a0around\u00a0the stalls. My one\u00a0purchase? Some pimenton ahumado<\/a>\u00a0(the dolce or sweet variety) from\u00a0a very nice\u00a0Spanish\u00a0stallholder, who was selling\u00a0other\u00a0Spanish delicacies, such as jamon iberico<\/a> – mmm. This very brand of paprika, actually! It’s like essence of chorizo. Heavenly.<\/p>\n

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Lymington is a foodies paradise – every other shop seems to be a cookshop. I\u00a0visited\u00a0every one! Window shopping only, sadly, as this was supposed to be a budget trip.<\/p>\n

Views of Lymington<\/p>\n

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Johnny Onions!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We strolled down to the harbour, \u00a0where everyone was taking advantage of the\u00a0sunshine\u00a0and lunching on fish and\u00a0chips, which\u00a0smelt\u00a0amazing. Resist. Resist. The smell reminded us that our lunch beckoned and we popped to Waitrose for\u00a0picnic food.\u00a0Sushi\u00a0was at the\u00a0top\u00a0of the list, along\u00a0with\u00a0stuffed vine leaves and\u00a0\u00a0a few other essentials (giant butter beans in spicy tomato with Manchego in particular). We drove to the Royal Lymington Yacht Club and sat on the sea wall,\u00a0watching\u00a0the boats\u00a0(not the Dock of the Bay, in this case!) coming in and out. Food and fresh air had made us a bit drowsy, so we made our way back to the van for an afternoon nap. Nothing finer!<\/p>\n

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Harbour 1<\/p>\n
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Harbour 2<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

After our siesta, we took the dog out for a walk in the late afternoon sun. There are plenty of options from the site, which\u00a0has\u00a0a disused (by trains) railway line running through it and is very popular with both walkers and cyclists. There were\u00a0squirrels\u00a0and rabbits\u00a0in\u00a0abundance \u00a0– although, without exception, we ALWAYS saw them before Archie. He maintained a very high\u00a0state\u00a0of excitement, though!<\/p>\n

A relaxing evening’s viewing and dinner followed by a much more peaceful night’s sleep ensued. We went off to sleep to the sound of owls. I woke up once in the night and it was\u00a0absolutely\u00a0silent. No intrusions from our modern life, which seems to be permanently fractured by the sound of cars. Bliss.<\/p>\n

We had our usual leisurely breakfast (eggs of course) and packed up and left site just after midday. Home by 1.30 and\u00a0straight\u00a0back into routine. Lawn-mowing, trip to the tip, Sunday roast and so on. I love our late-season\/winter weekends away. A brief\u00a0pause\u00a0from the daily grind\u00a0makes all the difference to one’s ability to carry on! Roll on the next one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Great idea to start this blog towards the end of the season, eh? So – it’s been a while but we decided a weekend away was what we needed. The weather was set\u00a0fair\u00a0and we set off for the short trip in eager anticipation. Our chosen site was Setthorns, where we have been a\u00a0couple\u00a0of times before. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesumpnersagain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesumpnersagain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesumpnersagain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesumpnersagain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesumpnersagain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thesumpnersagain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesumpnersagain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesumpnersagain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesumpnersagain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}