My New Forest Experience

What a fab holiday I've had! Simply brill. Some highlights:

* Animals! Sheeps didn't feature so prominantly as they did in the Lakes but horses were to be found in abundance! I should have known; after all, New Forest= Wild Ponies. Everywhere you look there are free horses (of Narnia! i wish) roaming about in groups. On the first evening, as my family and i wandered down from our hotel to the local pub in the dark of night, a big herd came galloping up the road and brushed right past me - close enough to touch. They looked so wild and beautiful with their manes and tails streaming out.

* Wild ponies weren't quite enough so my bro Stef and i went on a hack yesterday with a riding stables in Brockenhurst. I'm a newbie to horse riding (Stef's been on a few rides) so we just walked and did a bit of trotting, but it was really exciting and loads of fun! Here's a pic of me on Scooby and Stef on Bella. Scooby was really gorgeous - he's brown and white with white irises and eyelashes and a funny fringe that kept getting in his ears. He was really greedy and kept trying to eat whenever we stopped. He was also quite vain (or wussy) because he'd avoid going through any mud or water whereas the others just plowed straight through! We rode over some stunning heather-and-gorse countryside. Going into ditches was my favourite, cos it's all wibbly.

* Water! Whenever i see a decent expanse of water i always wanna get in - and on this holiday i was in luck! On Friday we went to Swannage and i spent about an hour in the sea. It was so perfect: the floor was soft sand with no seaweed or stones or anything else slimy or sharp, the water was clear and warm, and the weather was hot and sunny with blue skies. It was quite different to swimming in Coniston Water. Being in the sea was fun and frolicky, whereas the lake felt utterly wild and exposed. Being in the lake was a more raw experience - and more awesome. It was freezing for a start but i felt connected with the mountains and the sky and the water. Anyhoo - on Saturday (after the horsies) we had lunch beside the River Lymington, which at Brockenhurst is a picturesque woodland stream type thing, and i paddled to my heart's content. Here we also saw many a cow as they crossed in herds to get to the other side.

* Boats! Today we spent the day in Portsmouth at the historic dockyard. All my favourite things happened this hols - i adore ships and we got to walk around inside the HMS Warrior and Victory. I almost burst with excitement! I prefer the smaller, wooden, wind-power-only ships like the Victory but the Warrior experience was better cos you could walk wherever you liked and touch everything whereas on the Victory they were really arsey about where you could go and you couldn't touch much. We then took a boat trip around the harbour to see the warships - those aircraft carriers are huge! Also, much respect to the Millennium Tower, which i consider to be a beautiful and appropriate piece of architecture.

* Lord of the Rings! My bro and i came across so many views that added an element of Middle-Earth to our holiday experience. We knew it was gonna be brilliant from the moment we drove up to the hotel and passed The Green Dragon public house next door. Our visit that night assured us it had the right kind of big-wooden-slab tables to feel like the local in Hobbiton. Aside from the fact that all of the New Forest looks like The Shire, we also found a forebodingly dark Mirkwood, a still and eerie Lothlorien forest, a boat called the Queen Galadriel, Gandalf's library and Minas Tirith's throneroom in Winchester Cathedral, and Edoras' Golden Hall. Here's a pic of me and Stef hiding from a Dark Rider under a tree root.