Saturday 22nd April

Woke at about 5am to find us sailing up Southampton Water, fairly gently. We could make out Fawley refinery but didn't recognise much more but were moored up at the Cruise Terminal by 6.30.

Having had breakfast we left the Aurora at 7.30 & tried to find a phone number for the car hire company, only to find that it hadn't opened. With some disgust we took a cab to where he thought the office was but no luck as it had gone. Eventually we found it was at Eastleigh, near the airport so, for £25, we went off & found it about 2 miles away from the airport, by which time d*** was steaming, as this was the Down town office for Southampton, for Avis.

At about 9.30 we set off for Jenny’s place in Brockenhurst & arrived there without incident.

Jenny was very well & made us welcome before we set off to return to Southampton to buy her a new computer & a Garmin Navigator for ourselves.

This done we returned & had an early night.

Sunday 23rd April

After a late start we went over to Winchester & had lunch with Lucilla & Gareth at their lovely house. We had a few hiccups with the new navigator but Gareth came to our rescue and pointed out that not all the maps were downloaded. It was a fine but cold day & in the evening we took Jenny out for dinner at a local Thai restaurant.

Monday 24th April

Today we drove up to Kintbury, in Berkshire, to have lunch with Ann, our cousin. After an excellent meal poor Ann collapsed into semi consciousness & we called for help from a paramedic, who arrived with a very impressive kit of medical equipment. By this time she had come round but the paramedic did some tests & called an ambulance which took her off to hospital in Swindon for further tests.

As she has a dog, we returned to her house & also tried to contact her daughter, without success. As we tried to master her alarm system unfortunately, Jenny tripped & fell badly & as we found out later, broke her wrist. Luckily for us, Ann’s neighbours were extremely helpful & we managed to hand the dog over to them & contacted her daughter to advise her.

We then set off for a hospital to have Jenny’s left wrist sorted. Luckily it was quite close & she was seen fairly quickly but by the time the injury was diagnosed, x-rayed & set, we didn’t get away until 9.30pm, to return to Brockenhurst, with Jenny in plaster & with a sling.

All in all quite a day!

Tuesday 25th April

After yesterday’s drama we had a fairly quiet time although we went up to Southampton to swap the printer Jenny had bought & then into Lymington to pick up Dick’s shoes, which had needed stitching.
Wednesday 26th April

Rupert came over to see us in Brockenhurst & we had a quick lunch in the village. He looked well in his beard & gave us all the news of the family. In the afternoon we drove to Milford to catch up with Mary & Sean & it was wonderful to see the progress Sean has made in the last 2 years since we last saw them.

In the evening Monica & Colin met us at the Thai restaurant for dinner.