A Weekend Near the Sea

Well, we are certainly making the most of having the use of Megan’s car whilst we are over-wintering in the marina!

Last weekend we went to see our friends Jane and Ron who live near Southampton.  John went to school with Ron and his twin brother, Gerald, so they have been friends for a very long time!!  Jane and Ron’s son, Stephen, is a whizz with computers and, bless his heart, he took ours away with the aim of resolving the problem of the blue screen!  So far, so good – we have now joined his mum, dad and fiancé, Becky, in belonging to the official fan club.                       THANK YOU SO MUCH, Steve.

On the Saturday we went for a lovely (lovely!) walk along the sea wall at Pennington Marshes and saw lots of wintering birds which for me, being a bit of a twitcher, was a real treat.  We could see the Isle of Wight  ferries coming both in and out of Lymington.

Sorry to bore those of you who are not interested in birds but there were:- redshanks (including a rarer spotted redshank), greenshanks, godwits, little egrets, turnstones, little grebes, widgeon, pochard and teal ….. for starters.

What a lovely little town Lymington is.  The street market was in full swing and there are still lots of individual shops managing to survive.

Back at home there were more birds to watch!  Ron and Jane only have a small garden but they have masses of different feeders which were constantly occupied by a wide variety of little birds.  A nuthatch did eventually join all the goldfinches, greenfinches, sparrows and tits and grace us with his presence!

I was told by a serious-looking twitcher that this is a spotted redshank and that they are quite special.

 

Not only was I able to bird-watch, I also had a bit of a knitting lesson from Jane coz she’s really good at it.            Megan has challenged me to knit her a tunic!!!   and again - !!!!  

 On Saturday evening we were joined by Gerald, Dawn and Stephen. We had such a good time.

On Sunday we went out for lunch to a pub in the heart of the New Forest. What a treat to find a pub which positively welcomes dogs!

Gerald. me, John, Jane and Dawn with Maggie and Maisie.  Ron, of course, was taking the photo but he looks just like his brother!

 Ron with Jane.

We are now back on the boat and back to ‘normal’. 

Megan is, right now, on a plane heading to Alicante.

Ben is snowboarding in France and ………………

My poor brother is down on his luck.  Things have caught up with him and his health has taken a turn for the worst.  He’s been told that he has a rough ride ahead.  I was rather hoping that 2012 would be less upsetting and emotionally stressful than the last two years.  There’s always something isn’t there?