Thing about summer is that if it’s any kind of a summer at all you tend to be out and ‘doing things’ rather than sitting at a computer writing about doing things. So you may be under the impression that not a lot happens in Lymington during the summer based on the extreme paucity of updates to this site. Dear reader, nothing could be further from the truth. Rather than give you a long list of the many attractions, I thought I might go for some of the perhaps less obvious.

The last run of the slam-door trains from Brock to Lymington Town occurred on 22 May. I have to confess I am not a great train freak, I like trains, when necessary I use trains, but when it comes to nostalgia if there is a dry eye in the house, it may well be mine. Unless we are talking steam loco’s. My predominant memory of slam-door trains was going to school and then work from Peckham Rye Station in the days when slam-door was all there was. It often wasn’t an entirely pleasant experience as I’m not sure the then publicly owned British Rail had cleanliness high on it’s list off priorities. So one was careful where one sat and often times couldn’t see out of the grime caked windows.

Off course that wasn’t the case with the ‘Heritage’ line trains, but it’s hard to simply dismiss that many years experience! However it is good to know that there are people who do get misty-eyed about such things and if you want to read about it, go to the second half of Last Slam Door Trains. You can see the Lymington flood defences via YouTube, oh and there’s also some trains on their final journey.

Just to show it’s not all about sailing, the Lymington Arts Festival manifested during June with a remarkable array of events. To give you a particular take on it, I present the write up from Brock College on their adult learners exhibition. Not a bad advert for their courses either Adult Learning News. If you’re maybe a little masochistic and want to see what you missed, the website for the festival is still open for views Lymington Arts Festival.

It would be remiss not to mention the world famous Lymington carnival, so I just did.

Of course the real highlights of the summer are the walks you can do in the surrounding area. Yomping buddy visited a couple of times resulting in the requirement for four new walks, two per weekend. Having done to death the more obvious, and some less obvious walks in the immediate area, I checked Google and came up with some the excellent new-forest-national-park.com. A number of the walks we had already done, but the Matley walk took us into an area we hadn’t previously walked and was most enjoyable, though quite warm on the day.

Becoming emboldened by the experience we sallied forth north of the M27 for our last walk of the summer and yomped around the Fritham walk. The guide says it is popular, and I think it’s true to say that is somewhat understating the case. We got there just in time to park in the overflow car park, although in truth the car parks aren’t exactly epic in scale. Nonetheless it was nothing compared to the number and creativity of cars parked by the time we left. If you want a quiet walk then don’t go on a Bank Holiday weekend. Actually it’s probably safer to keep it outside the holiday season, although if you do the whole 4.5 miles, it’s really only busy at the start and finish as the less dedicated strollers drop off fairly quickly.

So with the leaves on the Liquid Amber in our garden just starting to go a deep red, we poetically bid adieu to summer and look farward to actually having to turn the heating on.

Truth be told that certain disabilities can also constrict travel opportunities, and full-blown Fibromyalgia is certainly in that category. However living in Lymington you are never too far away from someplace worth visiting and a short ferry ride to the Island is well within the compass of possibility, so last week we went. From Lymington to Yarmouth there are two possibilities, the big ferry (Wightlink) and the small ferry (Puffin Cruises). Although Wightlink is cheaper for foot passengers, Puffin is foot passengers only and departs from the Town Quay, so we opted for the more romantic carrier.

We had been told by people with property on the Island that we would be entering a timewarp and be transported back several decades once on the Island. And so it proved. You couldn’t really put your finger on it, but there was something about Yarmouth that was very reminiscent of seaside towns if not of my youth, then certainly my early adulthood.

We had decided that since we were only there for an afternoon, we had to see the Needles from the other side having seen it many times from what the Islanders call the North Island, the South Island being the Isle of Wight. We wanted to do the circular open-top bus ride to get there but since it was remarkably warm the day we went, we were relieved to be able to sit under cover at the front of the open top deck of the bus. This had the additional benefit of being protected from overhanging branches as we hurtled down narrow country lanes.

A point worth noting, if you don’t want to or are unable to walk for around twenty minutes and want to see the Needles, stay on the bus or catch a bus going to the Batteries. If you get off at the Needles Pleasure Park you will be at Alum Bay, a previously mentioned walk from the Needles themselves. Although I imagine a lifesaver for families with children who want to be amused, I can’t say the Pleasure Park personally had much to commend it other than a ski-lift down to the beach. It reminded me more than a tad of what you now find at Lands End truth be told.

So having got to the Needles it was strange that the rocks looked smaller than they did from the mainland. It may be down to the fact of looking down from towering cliffs I suppose. Make your own mind up, click to see entire photo.

We hope to take a few days out on the Island later in September courtesy of a friend from church with an Island retreat.

Although a techie, I haven’t really got into the whole social networking thing, but with friends emigrating to Canada, I felt obliged to dust off my Facebook account to try and keep in touch. It’s a strange thing, but having been dismissive of it for some time, I actually enjoy keeping tabs on people I know now without necessarily having to talk to them. I guess it has created a whole new level of friendship between people you make an effort to keep in touch with and those you don’t. It’s a kind of curiosityship if you will.

Anyway having got in touch through Facebook I find that people I have known have their own means of online communication and I link to two of them for your interest. First off if you liked the panpipes on Titanic (the film that is), then visit the site of the man responsible for that and many other atmospheric film soundtracks, Tony Hinnigan. I knew Tony many years ago in sunny Peckham where his immense musical talent was extremely beneficial to my own faltering development. We were also privileged to have him play a cello solo at our wedding.

Secondly a blog from a guy we knew at our old church who is now Pastor of a new church in South Suffolk. Yes it’s a Christian site, don’t panic, but he’s a bit of a thinker and you never know, it may make sense to you. This entry would be particularly helpful to leaders I suspect, see iGod.

Assuming no south-westerlies are unloading on you, the light quality on the seawall can at times be quite remarkable anyway, but add the effects of dusk drawing near and you get something quite outstanding. It’s a poor substitute for being there, but here are a couple of pictures taken, one seaward towards the Island and one landward. If you click on the images you will see the full image.

To be more accurate it often reached the point of not opening, that point being the bottom left corner which stuck at times of great stress. Or just when it had been raining. Trouble is that if you shave just a little bit more off, it leaves just a little bit more of a gap to encourage the ingress of water. Which in turn leads to greater swelling of the wood. Which in turn leads to … oh fill it in yourself, I’m sure you get the gist!

So we had to make sure that we would not have a repetition and would finally close the chapter (and door) on any inclement weather joining us inside. The only other requirements were that it close when we shut it and open when we turned the handle. Not a lot to ask we thought. Our best option as we saw it was to contact our old friends at Capital Windows and see whether they could do us a door to meet our less than rigorous specifications.

We had accepted the concept that we would end up with a ‘plastic’ door, but since we already have ‘plastic’ windows, we told ourselves it wouldn’t be so bad. Pleasant surprise on visiting Capital Windows. Plastic doors have advanced somewhat and have morphed into something called the ‘composite’ door. I’ll be honest, I have no idea what a composite door is composed of, but the chaps at Capital were very excited about how good it is and offered a guarantee to match their excitement. So we opened some doors which led to, well actually they opened onto walls. Not very Narnia, but I suppose there’s only so many doors you can put in a wall before you don’t have any wall any more.

We tried the different display doors with different handles and catches, looked at the double glazed patterned windows and decided on the wood effect closest to the last wooden door we had. In due time the fitters turned up with new door, complete with all fastenings, door knocker and letterbox already attached. Removed old door and old door-frame, replaced them with new door and door-frame within one afternoon. Even took the etched and coloured glass out of the old door so we could store it in the garage ‘just in case’. And exited stage left.

Should have known better. Wife was resting at time of departure and so didn’t try key in lock. Regrettably only after she surfaced did we find that her Fibromyalgia had a different set of criteria for how much strength was required to render the door open-able. Of course this was early Friday evening by then so we had to wait until the next week to contact Capital. Unusually they had to make two trips to make sufficient adjustment to allow Wife the freedom to come and go as she pleased, but to their credit they stuck with it and all seems to be well now.

There’s a small part of my mind that is expecting this to not be the end of the saga, but it’s not based on anything other than paranoia on my side. Well paranoia and three less than weather proof doors at any rate.

So it turned out when we got a call recently saying did we have anything planned for the evening as some friends had spare tickets to a concert. As ever with Wife we had to check the general state of play regarding her health and whether she was likely to be able to stay the distance. Fortunately it was the BSO doing a Last Night of the Proms style concert rather than something more modern and therefore loud which Wife tends to have problems with due to her condition.

We got picked up outside our house and headed for Bournemouth and ended up in an eerily quiet BIC reception. It soon became clear that the reason it was so quiet was not due to some sudden and profound disillusionment with the BSO on the part of the local populace, but entirely due to the fact the concert was in the Pavilion. Embarrassment for our hosts was tempered by the fact the two halls are very close together and within no time at all we were in a considerably more crowded foyer purchasing a Union Jack flag. Once installed in the seats in the circle we settled down to await the start. Just a note here that if you are not able to turn easily for any reason, make sure you are not seated at the side of the circle as the leg room is about adequate, but the seats face straight ahead rather than at the stage. I would suggest the Stalls might be a better bet.

We have seen the BSO several times doing their fireworks and music thing at various places and very enjoyable it was too. However it doesn’t really prepare you for the effect of listening to a full symphony orchestra in a concert hall. There are so many more discernable notes! In fact you can’t take in all the notes you have to follow one theme and then another. Now I have been to classical music concerts in concert halls before, but not for a very long time, and obviously my musical appreciation has increased in the meantime. One is told that live orchestral music is entirely different from listening on even the best hi-fi and I now wholeheartedly agree.

Apart from the delight in discovering what previously I had been unaware of, the sheer nonsense of a Last Night was an experience in itself. Surely only in Britain could you get such a mixture of the sublime and the ridiculous holding together to reinforce the experience rather than detract. Of necessity the level of communication between the conductor and the soloist and the audience is higher than at a regular classical concert, particularly during the staples of Land of Hope and Glory, Rule Britannia et al. And all the better for it in my opinion.

It’s a bit of a hackneyed phrase, but a good time was had by all, and surely that’s something we all aspire to. Now we no longer have the MiL to be concerned about, maybe more good times are just around the corner, we’ll just have to keep an eye on what’s on offer.

Having put in a wildlife pond last year, we were delighted to see that the local wildlife had taken the hint and pretty much choked up one end with frogspawn. Our excitement retreated a tad when we went through that short sharp cold snap after we’d been lulled into a false sense of security. I have to confess I have never seen frozen frogspawn before and it wasn’t boding well for Frogs: The Next Generation.

Goes to show what I know. We now have hundreds and hundreds of elongated commas swimming around the pond, and we spotted the most likely culprit when a fairly large frog surfaced only to take fright and crash dive. So a quick census ensued and we concluded that we have enough tadpoles to remake that Star Trek episode with the Tribbles only with tadpoles. Except it would be under water so maybe it would be 20 Thousand Leagues Under The Sea, or in our case a couple of inches under the pond surface. Anyway, there’s an awful lot of them.

As of today it looks like there are a few less as we seem to have a newt moved in as well. A newt with a fondness for tadpoles. And I don’t mean liable to adopt them either. Ah well, as the circle of life goes on, we now have quite a number of snails which we think were seeded when we got some pond water from a friend to accelerate the balancing of the water. Just after the frogspawn was laid, they were gently grazing the spawn so what with the newt and all, we’re beginning to realise why frogs lay quite so many eggs. They have joined a number of pond skimmers and something that looks like an aquatic wood louse, although we don’t think they are involved in culling the tadpoles.

Whisper it quietly, but when the little frogs finally get big enough to leave the pond, they may face yet another ‘life challenge’. In London we had a wildlife pond, frogs came, spawned and we had half a plague full of tiny frogs. As Tiny Cat was still around at the time, and was pretty quick, he was inclined to have some sport with them. Yes we sat him down and explained the issues involved, but since he was a cat, he didn’t get it and continued in his merry way. We still have our other cat, and truth be told she was more likely to suffocate them by sitting on them being somewhat over weight at the time. She is now quite svelte, so it depends on whether her lack of frog hunting ability was size related or just a matter of genetic makeup. For the frogs’ sake you have to hope the latter.

If we get any more wild life in the pond we may have to build an extension or else we may be done for wilfully overcrowding a pond. In the meantime our expectation is a visit from either Kate Humble, Ray Mears or David Attenborough is merely moments away.

*Cough*. Back from sepia-tinted revery. They really have to be commended on how far they have come, and if you listen you’ll realise that not only will they be shortly broadcasting in FM, they have plans for a video channel. Of course if I was any kind of a proper writer, I’d have asked them where that would be. Probably not Sky HD, but may be their own YouTube channel? No doubt we will hear when we need to know.

Now they have moved to the new HQ in Lymington (yay) all is go and the magic number has been confirmed as 96.9FM by Ofcom. If you are feeling just a tad left out that you didn’t know all the Park FM news, why not become a fan of their Facebook page . It’s quick, it’s easy, it’s oh so now! If you don’t have a Facebook account then you’ll wonder what the heck I’m on about. But then I’m told that’s quite a normal reaction when I communicate, so don’t feel bad.

Just in passing, listened to Louisa and Stephen yesterday afternoon, nice job guys. So back to the plot. They have beautifully crafted six hours of special programmes, featuring archive interviews from over the last 12 months, so lend an ear tomorrow (Tuesday) and listen to a little bit of history!

Don’t know if you’ve ever seen or been to concerts where the performer ‘body surfs’ on the audience. Doesn’t tend to happen at classical concerts I have to admit, more likely at a popular beat  combo concert. Of course if you have been to a Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra concert and seen the conductor throw themselves off the stage to be passed above head height by the audience, I stand corrected. But I am reasonably confident that has never happened. Reading or the Isle of Wight festivals maybe but the biggest surprise you might get at a BSO concert are the fireworks at the end. And they tend to be set off only at outdoor concerts.

Anyway my point in mentioning that is that at certain points in my attempt to do my compulsory lengths, it started to look like body surfing might be my best option. Now for those of you who take your leisure seriously enough to spend leisure time trying to keep fit, you may not believe that there are some who like to enjoy splashing around in a pool rather than pounding up and down. No really. And what they tend to do is lose sight of the obvious point that if they swim in front of you, or worse still surface immediately in front of you, an accident may well occur. No disk brakes on swimmers.

Interestingly enough, the laws of physics are not suspended in swimming pools. So if you throw a ball and the recipient does not catch it, it will continue on it’s trajectory until it hits something. Or someone. Unfortunately sharp implements which might accidentally cause a puncture in said ball are expressly prohibited. Reasonable I suppose, harpoon guns are like balls in that if they miss the intended target, they’ll hit something. And they do give a bit more than just a bruise.

I would like to say that no parents who should have kept better control of their progeny were harmed in the process of completing my lengths, but I’m not entirely sure that is correct. Either way, the lighting is subdued in the sauna, so they may not be found for a while…

I’m no expert in such things, but assuming you can get to even the majority of events, there’s a better than even chance of you putting on quite a bit of weight. Watch this space for the Milford on Sea Crash Diet Week details.

Joking aside (I think), you don’t have to be either wealthy or particularly epicurean to find something to do or experience. In the first instance there are a large number of special offers attached to the Week by local businesses, and secondly the breadth of culinary experience goes from the somewhat everyday to the decidedly exotic.

Speaking of the exotic, the Indian Elvis Night (www.indianelvis.com) on Tuesday threatens to be exactly that. If you know what Bhangra is then you’ll want to be there! If you don’t, it’s a percussive Punjabi style of music more recently mixed with Rock and Beats music influences. Check it out on iTunes or Amazon, it’s a seriously nice change from the somewhat formulaic western popular music.

Anyway I digress. Well not entirely. Come Sunday at the Food Market in the High Street you will be serenaded, if that’s the right description, by the remarkable Plonkers Agricultural Orchestra (www.theplonkers.com) who will regale you with ‘Proper Moosic from ‘Ampshur’. Hard to resist. Seriously.

For all details and the latest news go to www.milfordonseafoodweek.org

When she was still alive, like many older people, the MiL was convinced that she was storing up untold wealth for her descendants by putting by anything over a few years old. Any number of pre-decimal coins were stashed away in crannies ready for the day when they could be redeemed for a king’s ransom. Regrettably such coinage has pretty much no value. Don’t think we didn’t check.

A number of old books from her childhood were also expected to fetch a decent amount, and may well have done if she hadn’t used them so much when young. It’s a little hard to get a valuation on a book with no spine and little cover left. The only certain thing is that due to them all being from large runs from large publishing houses, no-one would be beating down our door with lottery-like fees grasped tightly in their fevered hands.

These things we knew. A cursory viewing of the Antiques Roadshow gives you a rudimentary understanding that ‘old’ doesn’t equate to loadsamoney. Especially when ‘old’ is a relative term. We did wonder whether some of the small trinkets might have some value, but due to both her infirmity and nature, the MiL could be a tad clumsy at times. We were reliably informed that, by and large, cracks and chips do not tend to enhance the value of object d’art. Oh well, not time to retire just yet then.

Which just left the furniture. It may not have escaped your notice that as in many things, there are fads and fashions in furniture. The MiL’s furniture is not in fashion right now. I kind of assume it was at some point, just not sure when. It was certainly the time when they tended to use various types of wood and stain them all exactly the same colour. Or as in one item, paint perfectly good beechwood chair with a faux walnut effect. This was confirmed by a couple of experts we consulted, and went a deal of the way to remove my confusion regarding that it seemed possible to wear walnut off the arms. Easy when you know the answer.

So via an alliance of friends, family dealers and auction houses we are pretty much cleared. Word of caution in case you aren’t aware, auctioneers may not realise even the lower estimated price they give to get your custom. They may in fact not be able to sell the item and since they don’t think they will try again, will require you to come and collect the item. At which point it’s a charity or the municipal dump at Everton. You have been warned.

Fortunately putting all the monies together just enabled sufficient funds to re-furnish the MiL’s old room with a few choice new items. Thank you John Lewis, next stop a day out at Ikea at West Quays. That should be fun.