Summer Holiday # 2: Lymington, UK!

So I recently took a little trip to Lymington, a town in the south of England near Bournemouth, with my partner. It acted as a chill out event, a writer retreat, and was fairly uneventful. We stayed at the home of a relative and did some house-sitting for them whilst caring for their pets. The town, I must say, was a little dull and rather anti-climactic after my wilf trip to Kavos. One thing I did notice is that most of the people in the town had this strange inability to register the personal space of others. The people of the town had a strange habit of bumping into everyone else with a total disregard for the people around them. People would scurry hither and thither without looking. Mothers would scream at their children in the streets. They'd plunge past you whilst standing in the doorway of the shop, not letting you exit before forcing their own entrance.

A small restaurant called The Ark provided a fairly poor dining experience. There was a huge time gap between everything, the waitress not fluent in English, and so everything was spread out. When my partner ordered a cider we were told, about ten minutes later, that they were out of cider. All cider, that is. So we changed our order. Later the waitress took over the drink orders of a table who came in after us, a cider on the tray. They hugely overcharged for a main course of home made fish cakes that were sub par and smaller than digestive biscuits with a handful of water-washed, soffy lettuce and a splash of chilli sauce. When my partner asked why such a small meal came in at such a price, the manager said they had never had any comments or complaints for the dish. We later found that they had only been open for a few weeks and probably hadn't had enough customers to even receive comments and complaints. The manager then spoke about our comments to the waitress loudly and within earshot which demonstrated a certain lack of professional behaviour. After finishing our plates weren't taken for over twenty minutes, despite the waitress walking past and making eye contact many times. Rather than waiting for the bill, we walked up to the manager and sorted the bill directly. Who knows how long we would have been there otherwise?  One place we did enjoy was The Six Bells. Of course, being owned and run by Wetherspoons, a decent menu and cheap beer was to be expected. I was just happy to have found somewhere since Kavos that served Amstel beer.

As a Tolkien fan I appreciated the influence that the surrounding area had upon Tolkien's work, but I doubt I would return for another break. That said I am a huge fan of having holidays within your own country. It is a great way of saving money and exploring the land you live in. I managed to get a good deal of writing done though and made friends with all of the neighbourhood dogs and cats so, as per usual, the situation had a silver lining.