Hampshire & the New Forest

So, a big meal last night with my brother & his wife led to me wandering the house at 3:00am, then the realisation that with the dawn would come the first blat in a few weeks, made sure that sleep eluded me for some time, but when the alarm did go off at 06:10, it got no further than three bars of "Sweet Home Alabama" before my hand shot out like a striking cobra & hit the off button. 20 mins later I was ready to go, so I set off for the allotted meeting point just before the Spitfire Roundabout on the A31. I hadn't been going long when I realised the meet time was 08:00, not the 07:15 I'd get there by. So I waited & I waited, & after

quite some time New Members Andy & Terry turned up, followed by the rest of the posse. We were off!

In spite of being at the head of the queue, I ended up second to last & we rumbled through the Hampshire countryside. We were doubly blessed, the roads were not only clear, but for the first time this year, dry! There were a few "issues with sat-nav interpretation, but nothing serious & after a quick refuel at a garage where the lady behind the counter said "is there something going on? a bunch of cars like that stopped in here a few minutes ago". We set off in pursuit.

A couple of miles after that we caught up at the top of Zigzag Hill, a wonderfully Alpine stretch of tarmac, which reached the summit all too quickly & there arrayed before us was the rest of today's crew. We parked up & discussed the day so far while looking at the view (& having a pee behind the bushes).

After a few minutes we mounted up & headed for breakfast at Compton Abbas airfield, where a group of parked up Lotii suggested that our idea wasn't very original. As usual, breakfast was good, the cafe was surprisingly busy for Sunday morning at an aerodrome miles from anywhere.

When we returned to our cars, I determined to swap groups & run with the big boys - this was potentially adventuresome as the least powerful car in this group was 1 1/2 times more powerful than mine, but keep up I did & we had a whale of a time passing through villages & twisty roads. Unfortunately I switched the GPS logger off when I thought I was switching it on, so I am unable to report how fast we were going - though I sure it was well withing the speed limit, naturally.

Then we entered the New Forest, which while beautiful & one of my very favourite places, it's not conducive to blatting as there's likely to be a "damn great 'orse" - or deer, cow, or pig stood in the road round any blind corner. So we soaked up the scenery with the sunshine that had now taken over the whole sky. We pottered into Bucklers Hard & had a refreshing drink overlooking the river. Until I noticed the time. I was going to be late home, so we mounted up again, & this time I led the small convoy (only four cars by now) out to the motorway - which was the last time i saw them, there was a bit of a melee of tin-tops behind me & the sevens were lost from sight. Oh well, what a glorious way to spend a Sunny Sunday.