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Nothing Keeps the Brits Away
The boat jumble was still busy even with the rain and muddy fields - just dress appropriately! When we were in London at our Monday morning cruisers coffee the Beaulieu Boat Jumble was mentioned but we didn’t pay too close attention to it as we never thought we would still be in England at that time. Little did we know that we would still be around the end of April. Our friends, Sandi and Colin that were at the Chatham Marina with us mentioned it again and said they were going. We looked it up and found out that it wasn’t too far away, it was in a part of the UK we hadn’t been to yet and more importantly our friends, Keith and Heather that we had made while in Lagos, Portugal the previous winter lived about 1 ½ hour away from Beaulieu. We now had a tentative plan which was firmed up when we were invited to stay overnight with our friends. Thanks to Keith and Heather we were able to make a weekend of it and it turned out to be “brilliant” (Brit speak).
We picked up the rental car and drove down toward Portsmouth. We originally thought we might stop there to check out a museum we had heard about but
A New Use for a Bus
The bar was open and stayed busy during the day at the jumble when we started to head into the city we got caught up in “major traffic” and decided we did not have time.
We quickly changed plans and got ourselves turned in the direction of New Forest. This is a beautiful area of the country which reminds us in some ways of the Adirondack Park in that there are still villages existing within the park but that development is minimal and carefully controlled. While there we meet a few of the New Forest Ponies (there are about 3,000 of them) who are left to roam and have free run of the area.
We were pleasantly surprised to see many homes with beautiful thatched roofs - many of them with very intricate designs which added to their beauty. We enjoyed our ride through many of the small country lanes in the area, but it was getting time to meet our friends, Keith and Heather. We last saw them in Lagos, Portugal and have been keeping in touch via email regularly. We thoroughly enjoyed our time with them having a good “chin wag” (Heather speak) sharing a few drinks (may be more than a few!), having an
excellent dinner and a great night sleep in a “real” bed. They were the perfect host and hostess and made this trip memorable even if we hadn’t made it to the jumble.
Unfortunately that night it rained very hard and continued into the morning on Sunday. The jumble is held in a field next to the ruined Beaulieu Abbey and we were warned that we would be “knee deep” in mud. Truer words were never spoken. We arrived at the jumble, got our raincoats on, umbrella up, boots on and went for it! At first it seemed like it wouldn’t be too bad, but then the rain started and what a mess, but that didn’t stop anyone. First, if you don’t know what a jumble is – it is like a flea market, but this one was all “boating” related. There were commercial vendors selling new merchandise, collectors selling used “bits”(Brit speak) and people selling out of the “boot” (Brit speak) of their car. This place was amazing - you could find anything from small trailerable sailboats to vintage outboard motors. One booth sold old woodworking tools; it's a good thing we live on a small boat.
Lots of sheep in the UK
and this is the time of year for little ones! We were even able to find a replacement set of overalls for Bob at a very good price. Ed and Sue, friends of ours we made while in St. Katharines Dock, rented a car and set up their own “booth” to try to de-clutter their boat of unwanted goods. It gave us another chance to say hi and wish them well. We had ordered a new anchor for the boat from a dealer that had a booth here so stopped to get the delivery of it all set. We had a few “wants and needs” on our list and were able to find several of them; a 24 mm socket for $.50 - who can beat that! Both of us exhibited great willpower and did not buy much at the jumble, but really enjoyed seeing what was being offered. Surprisingly a few days later we both said that we were sorry we didn’t buy a few of the things we saw – guess willpower in this case was a little too strong on both of our parts! There were some excellent deals and even with the rain and mud, it was an enjoyable outing. Shortly before leaving we were pleasantly
We Spotted a Red Chevy Camaro
with the driver on the "correct" side of the car but driving on the "other" side of the road surprised to run into Toni and Chris from SV Gazelle that we had sailed with part way up the coast of Portugal and Spain. We got a chance to catch up with them over a nice cup of tea - it was nice to get a chance to catch up with them again – another one of those small world moments that keep happening.
We drove straight back to Chatham from the boat jumble which made it into a long, tiring day, but it was such a pleasant couple of days we are glad we made the trip getting a few bargains and meeting up with friends again.
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