Heading Sarth

Blog update Wed 7th January

I am writing this from a small campsite north of Salisbury. We are within earshot of an army firing range and before it went dark we could hear a series of explosions. It might go on for several days as our visit probably coincides with a 48 hour NATO exercise. Most of our plans today have gone awry so I would not be surprised.
Anyway here is the news from the last few days for those who are following progress closely.

We left Cambs on Thurs January 2nd, starting the day with a dawn walk at Wicken Fen with Nick and the dogs. Stuart came along and it was bitterly cold. The Fen has expanded over the years and we went round a part that I had never visited before. Lots of thrushes and a few new ducks and waders for the checklist: shoveller, knot plus the first sparrowhawk of the trip. They seem to be less common than they were. Buzzards are everywhere and so are kestrels. House sparrow numbers are well down. Why is that then?

We left Stretham having said our goodbyes to Margaret and Ian and headed down the M11 to Sussex. There was a bad crash that held us up for an hour but we made it to Barbara and Bob’s house by sunset. They fed us well with winter stew and dumplings ….yum-yum. Even Patrick asked for more. The boys met Emily and James again and they all seemed to get on well.

That night we stayed at Sumner’s Pond just down the road. A carp fishery apparently, but no-one was fishing in the morning. Good toilets and amenities, no complaints at all. We even went on a morning trot to the shop for bread and milk. Then on to Netley near Southampton. We went via Portsmouth and the front at Southsea. Had a pleasant lunch at Mozzarella Joes café on the front. Very good fish and chips. Biting cold wind coming in off the Solent along with a hovercraft and a couple of cross channel ferries. We visited the D-Day museum in the afternoon. Very moving descriptions of the invasion and local effects of the war. Also the Overland Tapestry that was commissioned as an English version of the Bayeux Tapestry.

The campsite at Netley was next to a busy road and in a large featureless field. Toilet block under construction so showers were in the main house and toilets were in a Portacabin with very little room. Not too impressive.
We went off to see Great Grand-dad Ronald the next day (Friday). We went out to a pub on the River Test for lunch and the boys had a good chat about life in New Zealand.
On Saturday morning we arranged to meet Chantelle’s Uncle Richard at Marwell Zoo at 10am. At 9.30 we found that the van was bogged down on the grass. We had parked on a grass field having not parked as advised on an area of hardstanding as it seemed to be part of the roadway around the site. Chantelle went in search of the owner for help and was told that we would have to wait until her husband returned from work at some time in the future. Well, we could have waited like helpless people or we could have used some newly acquired Kiwi ingenuity and helped ourselves. I saw a pile of road material nearby and put a few loads under the back wheels. The owner rushed over saying that we couldn’t do that because we would ruin the grass. I replied that we had already done that – picture a long skid mark with a huge double rut in it! I asked her when hubby would be back and she said his ship had to dock then he would be back as soon as he could. She flustered off and I looked at the bucketful of tarmac. I dutifully put it back on the heap. There were already 3 buckets under the wheels and it seemed a shame not to see if they would work. Chantelle drove slowly in reverse and we all gave a shunt from the front and out The Beast reversed. We left a note apologising for the state of the grass and resolved to find a new site for that night!

At risk of going on a bit – I will anyway! Just skip this paragraph if you are irritated by my soapbox rantings, but hey – what is a blog if not a soap box? This little episode sums up something fundamental I have noticed in a lot of English people that you don’t get so much in our new home. In England everything has to be done by “The Expert” in whatever field you can imagine. People are discouraged from sorting things out themselves. In some cases this is understandable – if I have a heart attack I would rather be treated by a heart specialist than a dentist or a tree surgeon. When the car breaks down we phone the AA or the RAC. When the bog breaks we get in a plumber. When our hamster dies we get the Hamster bereavement service in and the Hamster Funeral director. Far fetched? I am pushing the point and those who know me will know that I am not the most practical minded of people. I have noticed that when we have hit hitches on this trip I have attempted to sort them out myself before calling in the experts. I was deeply impressed on a trip in a remote part of Spain with Ruth and Rory by the way that they fixed their radiator with a bit of roadside wire when the radiator hose split. There was no AA round there and even if there was they weren’t members. Going back to the episode that sparked this off – two final points. One: we should have listened and parked on the hard-standing in the first place, so sorry for spoiling your grass. Two: are people more or less important than the grass? Perhaps it should be a field or a turf farm instead of a camp-site? End of rant.

Where were we? Oh yes, meeting Uncle Richard. Which we did at the zoo. And had a rare old time looking at all the animals. I hadn’t heard of half of them but there were some fine specimens. As far as zoos go it was well laid out with natural looking cages. Kind of sad to see a mountain leopard in a rocky cage staring longingly at the red panda up a tree in the next enclosure. We had watched a programme about them the night before. The TV crew had spent 8 weeks in remote Pakistani mountains trying to find one in its summer habitat. It took us 1 minute to spot it in its enclosure. Sorry, nearly got into another rant about zoos ….
Eric and Stuart went off to stay with Great Uncle to talk planes for the night. Chantelle Patrick and I went off for a quiet night on a new campsite near Crawley.

That brings us nearly up to date so I will stop there. Eric is busting to have a go, probably to check out the price of laser sights on TradeMe.