More Millses and Horses for Courses

Day Ten – Southampton
Forgot to add the map yesterday. So, where are we now???

After a restless night we were all up a bit later today. As this is only a three day stop in Southampton we're using a cheap motor hotel. As a consequence we're sharing two double beds, one of which is a couch-bed. Jenni shared the real bed with Anna and James and I bunked together on the fold-out. The kids slept relatively well by comaprison to the adults. Jenni and I both got a reasonably thorough work over including elbows in the head and a good kicking.

Breakfast was the budget full English but still pretty decent quality. A hightlight for the kids was the moving toaster which was more like a miniatue crematorium. We watched two people send their toast for a firey death which helped pass the time until my cousin Mary turned up for a visit.

My cousin Mary is one of my Uncle Gordon's three kids, a bit older than Phillip and I as Gordon is also 10+ years older than my Dad. Once we'd done some introductions we all hopped in Mary's car and went to visit Uncle Gordon in the nursing home. He was looking really well and quite alert which was a real bonus as his health has not been too good of late. We took the netbook and showed both Mary and Uncle Gordon some pics from Australia including all the extended Aussie family, my cousin Wyn's recent visit (the other of Gordon's daughters) and some bits and bobs like Christmas at the fire brigade.

All up we spent about an hour and a quarter with Uncle Gordon and had a really good chat about the family, our visit so far and all sorts of other stuff. Dad, if you're reading this I asked Gordon if he had a message for you. He did as it happens. Can you guess? He said.... "Bugger off!" I'm not sure how funny you'll find that but Uncle Gordon and I had a good laugh anyway ;-). Unfortunately I don't have any pics for the blog today as we left the camera behind. Fortunately Mary took some and has promised to send them on.

After our visit Mary took us for a drive down into the New Forest and we had lunch at a great pub called The Royal Oak. Along the way we saw plenty of ponies and horses which run more or less wild in the New Forest. At one point we passed a golf course where a pair of golfers were attempting to negotiate a four legged hazard that was ambling across the green while they were trying to putt. Lunch at the pub was excellent and the Ploughman's was brilliant. I spent every walking moment bent double to avoid leaning doorways and exposed black beams. Even where there was plain ceiling there was only 5-6 inches clearance over my head.

That was it for the visiting today and Mary drove us back to the motel. I'm really pleased we caught up. This trip is a good chance for me to reconnect with cousins and hopefully we can stay in touch more from now on.

The afternoon consisted of napping and webby stuff with the kids (gumpily) working on their journals. Later on we ducked down to the local shops to pick up some stuff for the Welsh part of our trip – mainly food and also some towels as the cottage doesn't supply those. Dinner was a quick Subway as we couldn't be bothered with anything more complicated.

Tomorrow is Beaulieu and the New Forest (again) but just the four of us. Unfortunately we're not going to fit in Nelson's Victory or the naval museum but we can't do everything...

Cheers,
Millsy