Picking Clive's brains

Sunday

Elizabeth left for church early and as David & I were getting ready John & Margaret called from Australia moaning about the temperature 41 degrees!!!! Bit different to what it is here!!!!! I know what I would prefer! Set off on a walk through the town to where David’s parents used to live. The town of New Milton is still gorgeous and seemed bigger than we remembered. Knocked on “Jolly Sheilas” door - old friend. We pretended to be postmen and hand delivered Christmas cards from Australia. She looked very well and I couldn’t believe when I saw one of my Mums handmade cushions on her sofa! She also had conkers in every corner of every room in the house! This is to keep the spiders away! They are supposed to not like the smell of them! Walked back to Elizabeth’s (IN THE RAIN!) and she had lunch ready for us. After lunch we walked 3 streets away to Clive & Janet’s house “Nooks & Crannies” (Clive is Mum’s cousin). We had last seen them when they came and stayed with Mum & Dad in Australia in 2005. We headed off in their car to Lymington and we had a photo stop at a Gold Post-box - when England won a gold medal in the 2012 Olympics they painted a Post-box Gold in the home town of the person who had won it. This one had been won by Ben Ainsley for Sailing in the Men’s Heavyweight Dinghy. Lymington is such a “Seaside” town with so much character. We walked around and saw the ferry for the Isle of Wight and had a cup of tea (yes tea NOT beer) in The Boathouse Café. It was windy & raining by now so we drove along the coast of Barton-on-sea and Milford-on-sea. The waves were rolling in and it was so bad we didn’t even get out of the car! Back at “Nooks & Crannies” we had the grand tour of the house and saw Clives many rooms of “Stuff” he has always been a Boffin! Very interesting. We knew he had a big one! And it really was - his Motorhome that is! It was over 8 metres long and very nice. He is an expert on Motorhomes/caravanning & camping and writes for two magazines. It was fantastic to pick his brains and get very good advice to help us with our purchase. We can call him anytime and he also offered to view with us. We had a lovely carvery meal in The Wheatsheaf in New Milton then Clive & David researched Motorhomes for sale (they found the perfect one but it had just been sold!) as Janet & I chatted while watching the final of X-Factor. Clive dropped us off back at Elizabeth’s as it was still raining.