We went for a day in the New Forest. First stop was the New Forest Centre, where there is a good museum / exhibition that tells a bit about the Forest, how it works, its history, etc. There were activity sheets for families so, because we are children, we took one. Sis gave up on hers half-way round, but I completed mine (apart from the bit where you had to draw something, and the question that required you to watch an eight-minute video and we couldn't be bothered to do that. The final question asked you to think of an interesting fact about the New Forest. I wrote "It's not new and it's not a forest".

Then we drove across the Forest. We saw a donkey foal (don't worry, its mother was close by) and a mother and foal pony and a cavalcade of horse-type animals

These two donkeys appear to have misread the sign as being a notice about auditions for the nativity play

We went into the pub behind the donkeys for a pleasant lunch. I could get used to relaxing in a pub garden on a warm lunchtime.

After lunch we went to the nearby nature reserve and visited three bird hides. The first one was already occupied by a stereo-typical twitcher with hat, camouflage jacket, long-lens camera, etc. We were a bit afraid to suggest what any of the birds might be in case we were wrong. But he was actually quite friendly and pointed out a nuthatch to us. Or was it a tree creeper?

The next hide was empty, so we could display our ignorance without fear of ridicule. The third hide had a few people in it, but they obviously didn't know much as they didn't offer a suggestion when we wondered out loud what the goose-like bird with a reddish-brown rump might be (having consulted my RSPB Book back home I think it was a Egyptian goose), or offer a comment when Sprog asked me if the heron was "the one that looks like an emu".

The hide was also occupied by a person selling binoculars and camera lenses. He wasn't a very good salesman, and didn't seem to be selling much. You would think that any salesman worth his salt would have seen the cheap-and-cheerful Argos-bought binoculars and monocular that we were using and suggested "try this", but he didn't.

And our final venue for the day was the ice cream parlour in Southampton. I decided on an ice-cream sundae. Generally ice cream sundaes are a couple of scoops of ice cream and a bit of sauce in a thin glass. Not this one. Oh no. It was the mummy and daddy of all ice cream sundaes.

Actually, that wasn't our final venue of the day as we went to CGF's for dinner, where the women ganged up on me in a girly sort of way (they didn't too much) and we nattered about this and that. They got on really well. Sis thinks that CGF is lovely (which she is) and CGF think that I am lucky to have such a nice sister (hmm, maybe).

Spooky Coincidence 1: One of Sis's Facebook Friends [sic] lives just up the road from Smalltown. She picked up that Sis was in the area when she (Sis) posted a picture of the pub in Smalltown. They were at school tougher in years 7 and 8 but Sprog wasn't bothered about meeting up - maybe if she had had more time and hadn't already made plans. So long as it was something like a coffee where you could easily extricate yourself without seeming rude if you discovered that you didn't really get on with each other.

Spooky Coincidence 2: Sis's youngest child met someone at uni and they immediately became best friends. Turned out that they were born in the same hospital, in adjacent beds, on consecutive days and played together as toddlers. Friend had then moved out of the area and they (and the mothers) had lost touch.