Doe a deer, a female deer. Ray, a drop of golden sun...

So, I have just spent three days and two nights in the New Forest. It was amazing, the best camping trip out of the 6 years we've been going. For the past few years we haven't dared go anywhere other than Round Hill as it was relatively flat and actually had loos onsite which is always a plus when you're camping. We have been to other places but Round Hill was our favourite for a number of years. This year, however, we went back to Hollands Wood which is where we settled on our first ever camping trip. This site has loos AND showers - now that is luxury. And the showers were actually quite nice (if you went early in the morning or just after 1 in the afternoon which is when they cleaned the place of the minging-ness from the morning). I think it was the third year (second, we went to Round Hill) that we went to some old airfield... that was a bit crap. There were no horses and the place was no good for cycling. Anyway, back to Hollands Wood. This year I will rank as number one in the best times catagory. We set out on my birthday (Friday 6th july) at about 2:30 in the afternoon. The traffic was awful on the way there, everyone obviously felt the need to go to the New Forest (well, it is a beautiful place, I guess) and it took us three long and frustrating hours which involved a stop at a motorway service staion for a loo break and coffee (I SO don't like coffee) during which time the woman behind the counter (Let's just assume that she was foreign, I'm not racist either) short changed my dad and then proceeded to supply my brother with a steel spoon instead of a plastic one... silly woman! Anyway we made the journey after that fly by by listening to Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban... we got to tape 2A (ahh, the days that cassettes ruled our lives... I had Nelly the Elephant on tape and everything), yep, that far into the story which we had listened to countless times on our annual (well, almost annual) trips to Wales so it wasn't as if we were dying to find out what happened next.

I thought it was best that I start a new paragraph as that was was getting a bit heavy. So, anyway... We got to the campsite at about half five - an hour later than planned. Anyway, the Mills' were already set up and were reading newspapers, books, magazines, cereal packets or toothepaste tubes while waiting for the kettle to whistle furiously at them signalling that the water had boiled. So we turned up and set up the tent and laid out our bedding and other such necessities that were needed close at hand for when a horse (or donkey or cow...) decides to raid your rations box at 3 in the morning. We were all done by about half past 6. Then we proceeded to read newspapers, books, magazines, cereal packets or toothepaste tubes while waiting for the kettle to whistle furiously at us signalling that the water had boiled. That night went smoothly, we had prawn curry or, for the more adventuous among us, VERY spicy chilli con carne. I opted for the prawn curry, naturally. As I said before, that night went well. We were all tucked up safely by 11 o'clock, early I know. It was Friday night which is always a noisy night, people set up their camp at 12 midnight by car headlights! Sometimes it is beyond a joke. Several car alarms went of during the night, the dog next door to us barked for about 3 hours until it finally realised that praise was not on it's way for all that noise.

The next morning I woke at quarter past 5, it gets light mighty early these days! I went back to sleep and woke at half 7. My brain immediately kicked into gear and I jump out of bed and grabbed my clothes, a towel and some soap and dashed over to the shower block before a queue started to form. Luckily I got there just in time, the place wasn't too muddy and there were even a few showers for me to choose from which was a bonus. So, anyway I got showered and changed and walked back to camp. By the time I got back, hair soaked and dripping down my back, most of the others were up, well, all except Jack and Jill (I know what you're thinking, Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pale of water etc) who are deep sleepers and prefer sleeping to being active. So I poured myself a bowl of Sainsbury's fruit and fibre and sat in a chair listenig to the delights of the young men in the camp near us stir from their beds. It's actually quite amusing to hear someone scream "Ouch, there was no need to do that!" very loudly while inside their tent. That went on for about another 10 minutes until one of the 4 decided to emerge and, looking very disgruntled, started setting up "breakfast" (from what I could see, it was a bowl full of breakfast bars and a pot of sugar). Anyway, back to us. Glenn was sitting near me and was planning the route for our bike ride of the day. Glenn likes maps, he's a bit of a map freak actually, it's quite funny.

Ok, I'm sorry but it's 23:11 at night and I'm very tired because I have been writing this for about half an hour which is horrible. So the next installment will be tomorrow... The good stuff if still to come. XX