Arnewood School visit

---

After a great breakfast at our Holiday Inn Express we headed for a leisurely trip to New Milton as we weren't expected there until 11am. We decided to take the route through the 347 sq kilometre New Forest which is the largest area of unenclosed land in Britain, and glad we did as this was lovely. We found the beautiful little village of Beaulieu. There we saw the beautiful Palace House and explored the lovely little shops in the main street. At once stage a huge lorry decided to go through this part of town but cars were parked on either side so he got a bit nervous, we figured he wasn't used to this. Larni ended up guiding him through, what a laugh!

We forced ourselves to leave in order to reach New Milton at the required time which we did perfectly. The Arnewood School is a 11-18 mixed comprehensive school of about 1200 students and we were greeted warmly by the Head teacher, Chris Hummingstone. We firstly chatted informally about his school and the "Laptops 4 Learning" programme which is aimed at providing students in Y7 and beyond with affordable portable technology to enhance family learning and is its its first year of operation. They have a partnership with Toshiba and are moving to an e-learning model with much of the homework now being set online for this cohort.

Chris took us for a whirlwind tour of the school and we met his IT head Paul Emecz who demonstrated the school e-learning model which is starting to develop. After this Chris led the way in his car to a pub in a nearby village where we had lunch together. The girls all went for the Beef and Guinness casserole which was yummy! After lunch he led us to a cider tasting place in Burley in the New Forest where Judy bought some cider and some elderberry wine for Rags.

Burley was an interesting little village with horses wandering around the main street. One even chased Larni for her icecream which she was reluctant to part with. We explored the shops here, making a few small purchases to take home for gifts and wanted to stay longer but knew we would be in for the traffic on the way home so left by 3.30pm.

It was a long trip home, with hold ups on the M25 and it was after 7 when we reached Great Bardfield.

---

Photos

Part of the Abey at Bieulieu
I think?

Palace House at Bieulieu
Home of Lord Montagu's family since 1538. It now contains the finest collection of vintage cars in England but we had no time to see these, nor did it appear open!

Year 7 with his new laptop.
He uses it to do his homework and play games. (he said)

We meet the horse
And he spies Larni's New Forest icecream.....

Larni wins!
Thanks to Lynne for thinking quickly and getting these photos.

Witchcraft Shop
The village of Burley has the largest collection of witch themed shops in England. But why are they there?
In the 1950s a woman called Sybil Leek lived in Burley with her pet Jackdaw. She became a TV reporter but primarily claimed to be a witch.
(Thanks to bbc.co.uk for this snippet)

Comments

[Larni]

Hi there Loved Paris, you must do the tour we did it was truly amazing! Lynne and I are in Singapore now with a jammed packed itinerary thanks to the few contacts here. Its a change to be in hot weather. Missing you guys, had a wonderful time. We are wondering where the blog of the pudding night is ;-) it made it to my page!