London one-way!

This weekend I was invited to go with Imogen down to Beaulieu (more pronounced as Burley), which is in the New Forest, Hampshire – in other words, Jane Austen country – how inspiring.

An appreciation for the coming of summer, even though most people are saying February can be the coldest worst month in winter but let’s ignore that for a minute, and a three week live-in job which is leaving me with a tidy sum to spend how I will, and just the moments of epiphanies that spark thoughts of adventures and intrigues, has led me to begin accepting invitations that I wouldn’t usually.

Not to mention just going out with my girl this past few weeks, who comes from a family who runs in circles with members of parliament, lords, ladies, and other prestigeous titles, has opened up this secret society of…socialites in London. Not the poor travelers who pre-drink at home and then go out to some dingy club, but those people who catch taxis to events hosted in porsche showrooms, drink champagne in fancy frocks and kiss everyone good night on both cheeks (yes that is a real evening from our first week, although I wasn’t wearing a fancy frock I’m sorry to say – but that’s another story!)

But back to adventures and intrigues…

We drove down to Beaulieu as dusk began descending, the Friday night traffic coming out of the city quite frightful until we got far enough out of it, and we arrived two and a half hours later in pitch black, to a new front gate which will keep Daisy the cow out of their garden, and the house frozen from being empty for the whole week. The aggie took a while to heat up, and we found all the electric heaters because the central heating wasn’t working, and we filled up hot water bottles.  

We had a late supper because it took forever to cook the pasta. We had melon and prociutto to begin, pasta with pesto and a salad to eat, and I had made chocolate covered grapes and strawberries to munch on after.  The bed was big and comfy and I slept so well. I woke up to open the second floor windows to a bright sunny blue sky, and a big green garden with a few winter flowers open and blooming.

Andrew had to go into town, and Imogen wasn’t well, so I went with him to the market while Fiona stayed home. Luckily Andrew put on a time limit – be back at the car in half an hour, because he forgot his phone.  Well, the first thing I found was a craft shop, but I went along the market stalls and got some fruit to do more choc-topped bits, a place where I got fresh dolmades, olives and cloves of garlic.

MMmmm. I also got some fudge and then hurried back to the craft shop to barter with the lady as I bought a couple of kits. I just haven’t found a shop in London, so yeah I splashed out a little. But seeing as the final price was a third less than what it would have been had I not said anything, I was very pleased with the end result. 

When we got back Fiona’s son Alexander had arrived so she, he, Imogen and I took a ride in his soft top Peugeot down to the village for lunch at the pub. Funnily enough Fiona had to review it, and they took forever with our meals – bringing two other tables, who ordered after us, their meals before we got ours. So we got free drinks but that wasn’t the point cos we were starving. I had a nice steak sandwich with fries and Fiona’s going to write a not-so-nice review. Serves them right, how are they going to get more locals in when they can’t even cater to those who already go there? 

We dropped Alex back home after picking up some groceries, and went down to the lake where Nelson built his boats for the Battle of Trafalgar. It was a nice place and we sat and had coffees. Some friends were coming over for dinner, but we had a breakaway dinner with the adults in the house and us four younger ones in Alex’s cottage next door.

I miss those family-friend get-togethers where I’d usually end up on the couch because mum already had everything under control and no other use for me. Well, after screwing the bottoms to the new electric heaters we bought, fixing the CD player, talking about monetising my blog and then being praised for successfully lighting, stoking and looking after the fire, Fiona just thought I was some vunder-voman! 

I had a lovely weekend though, and Fiona has said we are quite welcome to go down to the house when we’d like.

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 16th, 2008 at 5:35 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.