During our stay in Lymington, Mirinda had been using ChatGPT to practice her Swedish. During a break before we left this today, she was describing the dogs, and when the AI commented on her written language, it wrote that the dogs ‘level of fluffiness was excessively high.’ Which, while true, was very funny.
In fact I thought it was so funny, it was almost going to be the title of this post. Then an alternative presented itself. Rather unexpectedly.
But before that, we spent the morning packing Max and searching the house meticulously. It’s extraordinary how much stuff gets spread around into all manner of corners when you stay somewhere for three months.
I managed to use up most of the food except for a single carrot.
However, by 2pm the carrot was finished, and we were ready. We set off for Harwich.
Then, as we joined the M27, two cars ahead of us, a trailer stacked with hay bales suddenly launched one of them at the car behind him. Fortunately, the car behind him wasn’t too close and avoided it, but it made a mess of the road.
As we passed the trailer, the hole of the absent bale grinned in mockery at the mismanaged knots. The hole was at the front. I’m sure the driver must have noticed but maybe he just didn’t care. Perhaps he expected some starving forest creature would welcome the big pile of takeaway food. I’ll never know.
This was the most excitement we had all day. Of course, it rained with wind and showers followed by moments of sunshine, but that was only to be expected given the general wetness during our stay. After the earlier floods we encountered in Germany, I think this three month break should be called The Holidays of Wet.
Of course, I realise this is the worst time to visit the UK, but I don’t remember it ever being as bad as it has been this year. And as for the New Forest…I think someone didn’t realise that it should be spelled B-O-G.
Still, apart from some scary, apocalyptic weather over Winchester, most of our journey was through sunshine and, apart from the usual mysterious holdup on the M25, we reached Harwich in five hours after a long break at South Mimms services.
We had intended to visit a pub for an early dinner, before boarding the ferry, but the two pubs we visited in Harwich weren’t serving food. They normally did, but not this Saturday. Seemed a bit odd.
We wound up at the New Bell Inn, where we had a couple of drinks and packets of crisps, one of which was IPA flavour. They had an interesting lemony after-taste which was better than might be expected.
The pub has been under new management for six months, and one of the owners told us she took it over because it was exactly the sort of pub she wanted to run. It was a lovely place with, apart from Mirinda and the two owners, lots of men, one in a cloth cap which Mirinda rather enjoyed.
While the original pub started life as a blacksmiths, in 1743 it became The Bell. It was later called the Blue Bell until the building burned down in around 1910 and the empty block was known as Bell Yard. I don’t know why.
At some time during all of this, another pub opened up down the road, and it was called The Bell so, once the building was rebuilt, the pub was called The New Bell Inn to avoid confusion. I mean, if you tell someone you are going to meet them at The Bell, you really need to know which one.
After a lovely rest out the back, trying to ignore the three guys swearing about someone at work, we headed for the ferry terminal and our bed for the night.
