Finding Myself, January 1, 2011 (Day Seven)

Saturday, January 1, 2011

9:46pm

Amesbury, England

Happy New Year, all! I hope you’re having or have had a wonderful first day of this new decade, and that you’re well recovered from last night’s festivities.

Today we traveled from Southampton to Beaulieu, home of the British National Motor Museum, and the ‘World of Top Gear’ exhibition. My brother was certainly over the moon about this particular portion of our itinerary, and it proved to be really excellent! We also looked around the Motor Museum at the huge collection of vintage and modern cars, trucks, buses, and motorcycles. After that, we walked around the grounds at Beaulieu and stopped by the Palace House also located on the grounds. Some parts of the House have been opened up by Lord Montagu, patron of the mansion, for public viewing. We then walked through the ruins of the old Abbey not too far from the Palace House – it was really quite beautiful, though most of the original structure is no longer standing.

We drove through the New Forest surrounding Beaulieu (and past the countless number of free-roaming ponies on the grounds) towards the small town of Lyndhurst. In fact, a couple of the ponies walked right over to my family and me, so I got to say hello to them up close. Lyndhurst is another one of those lovely quaint little places with lots of bustling teahouses and a beautiful old church on the High Street. We had tea and scones and cakes, and then gently perambulated up the road. The church that we stumbled across actually turned out to be quite a find! Inside its small yet gorgeous graveyard I found the grave of a Mrs. Reginald Hargreaves, who was actually the Alice in Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland”. I’ve decided that I am going to take a collection of photos of graves and graveyards.

We’re now spending the night in a small Travelodge hotel in Amesbury before we head out to Stonehenge tomorrow.

Goodnight, everyone. Happy New Year again, with all my love.

Phillipa