Tis the season... for Pannage

 

Let me start by explaining that I was brought up in towns and cities.  Although I was not a stranger to wildlife, there were some animals I'd simply never seen up close.

Fast forward to 14 years ago when I first started dating Phil (for the second time around.) We were walking around a local route in the New Forest - we have many such routes, and I couldn't possibly pick a favourite, but this is a particularly beautiful one.  Coming to the end of the route we sat down next to a local pub, quite frankly because no good walk around the Forest ends anywhere else!  As we sat there talking about various things, along sauntered a pig.  She was huge!  I'd never seen a pig quite so close up before and Phil thought it hilarious that I was so equally amazed and enthralled.  

The reason this pig was sauntering in the open is an annual tradition called Pannage.  The Forest is also home to many free-wandering ponies for which acorns are a tempting but poisonous treat.  So each year in the autumn, select Forest residents, known as Commoners, are allowed to turn their pigs out from their farms and onto the Forest. The pigs then devour the acorns with no ill effect, thus saving the ponies from sickness or worse.  

I was later introduced to some of Phil's friends who raise their own pigs, so was also able to meet a friendly sow, and even her piglets.  They really are adorable.  These friends later got a wild boar cross and her piglets are resplendent in their stripes.  What's not to love!  

So today was the start of the Pannage season for this year.  We will therefore soon be venturing out into the forest to find some more of these adorable, intelligent creatures. 

Love them :)

Sloe, sloe, quick, quick, sloe

 Autumn is the time of foraging.  And we love it.

In the past we have made a cornucopia of products with our sundry foraged goods.  Today was our first day of the year for collecting free fruit together!  

We decided to go for a walk this morning to check on the progress of the demolition of the Fawley Power Station.  This includes a fabulous trek from Ashlett Creek along an assortment of paths through woodland, grassland and along the coast of Southampton Water.  Before we'd gone a few hundred yards, we were overwhelmed by the bounty presented to us of blackberries, rosehips, apples and a few sloes.  

The rosehips in particular took us back to the holiday we had several years ago with Phil's Mum in Slovenia.  It was here that we discovered rosehip jelly.  This was our last trip with Mum, so was particularly poignant.  We had hoped to go to Austria with her the following year; but this was not to be.  She died, far too young, later that year.  

Thus we decided that with the wealth of fruit, we'd need to come back with food bags and pick enough rosehips especially to honour Mum's memory.  When we saw the apples, we further decided that we'd need to bring the trolley as well to carry our haul!  We will be doing this later in the week.

Since there weren't too many sloes on that route, we decided to try another location - Holbury Manor - where Phil used to play as a child and later picked sloes for all sorts of uses.  

So we did.  We came back with a haul of 1kg sloes (just over 2lbs for those of us who prefer the imperial  measurements)  Our idea is to combine them with blackberries to create flavoured gin for Christmas.  

We will also be making rosehip jelly and cider.  I hope Mum is smiling! 

To be continued...

New kind of fun

 Yesterday we had arranged to meet Lyta and Andy and take them to breakfast.  

Instead of our usual haunt, we decided to go to the Hungry Hiker at Hengistbury Head.  The breakfast was delicious and reasonably priced; and Andy even said the latte was the best he'd ever had to cure a hangover..... 

What we then discovered was that starlings like milk - who knew?! (and they're very messy too!)

Keep the sound up - apologies for the Dad joke!

Once we'd stuffed ourselves with bacon, sausage, eggs and sundry other breakfast items, we decided to take a walk over the "head."  It's changed a lot since we last went up there - more benches added with all sorts of beautiful carvings.  Different benches with a variety of carvings could be found all along the route, although some of them were occupied, so I couldn't take photos - how rude!

There was also an amazing view in every direction, out towards the Isle of Wight and over Christchurch Harbour - even over to Mudeford where we'd been the previous day.

Lyta and Andy even managed to grab a geocache at the top of the hill.  

We carried on round, eventually descending towards the spit with the beach huts.  In spite of only really just having eaten breakfast, we decided that ice cream was now an absolute requirement, so we duly forced ourselves to eat some.  The things you do for tradition!

The Bournemouth area has a scheme called "Beryl" which allows anyone with a phone to log into the app and rent a bike or scooter.  Now, bear in mind that I'm now 51 and I have never used a scooter, not even a push-along one, let alone an electric one.  OMG I've been missing so much fun!  Phil and Andy had bikes, Lyta and I scooters.  Now had we been able to get a clear run, we might have been done for speeding; but as it was, we had to dodge pedestrians.  It was just the best fun I've had in a while.  Yesterday was relaxing, this was downright hilarious.   Both were vital for my soul.

Out on the water

 OK, so not just on but also IN the water (a lot)!

What a fabulous afternoon.  It's the first time this year we've managed to get out on the water, after having been set back by various events including inclement weather, the wrong tides and sickness.

We met up with some friends and their daughter at Mudeford Quay.  They brought a paddle board, we brought two kayaks and a paddle board!  We normally go to Calshot for water activities, or kayak down a river, so this was a first for us.  

We bought our paddle board last year and I tried it once, but didn't mange to stand up on it (on the water that is.)  So this year I had hoped to learn to stand up and paddle.  But thus far, it appeared this was not to be, thanks to many events conspiring against us. 

However, today was the day!  The weather was perfect - not too hot or cold - and dry! And when we got to Mudeford, even though it was busy, we managed to get parked and the tide was in.   Our friends' daughter has previously been afraid of water, so the main object today was to see if we could encourage her to love it.  She did so well, learning to paddle on a board and in a kayak.  Phil managed to distract her by playing pirates, so in the end, she'd been out on the water for ages but hadn't noticed.  Result!

I started out on our paddle board but was still struggling  to stand up.  Our friends' paddle board is slightly bigger than ours, so they persuaded me to try standing on that one instead.    This was after I'd fallen off mine once.  I did succeed but only with help.  So I went back to ours and tried a few more times.  I managed to stand up, albeit just for a few seconds each time, and then fell in. But it was a huge achievement for me, so I'm feeling just a little pleased with myself.   What was even better was that whether I was just sitting on the board, kneeling or falling off, I felt peaceful, calm and relaxed.

Let's hope we manage to get out on the water again this year.  We've missed the amazing feeling it gives us.