a quick trip into the forest (phill)

Well its been a fun couple of days!

Sarah and I got a lift into the south of Brrritten to borrow Mel's (another of sarah's sisters) boyfriend, Rich's car for the day. It was so great to get out and take control of where you are going.

Being hippys we headed out of the city, to a place called New Forest - apparently the old one got chopped down to build boats and so the new one was planted by a past king so that he could still hunt stag. It sounded pretty Robin Hood to us so we thought we would check it out.

We went for a forest walk and looked for stag we could only find friendly wild ponies - sarah sang "my little pony" and we took lots of photos. Not only ponies but an array of other animals were sighted strolling around the forest and occasionally out in the middle of the roads. Its weird to think of squirels, cattle and even big pink pigs as being native!

That night Rich took Sarah and I to a real English pub in the middle of nowhere to drink real ale. It was great. The laneways were narrow with high hedges on each side - so english! (this is also my lastest saying). The pub was small with dried hopps hanging from the ceiling and a sleepy dog lying on the bench. He just shuffled along when we sat down. Sarah had bangers and mash and Rich and I had the beef casserole - Awesome big servings with a huge bowl of vegies each. Real ales are not bubbly, and are served at room temp. There was about 7 or 8 to choose from and whilst some would say I am loosing my aussieness - I quite liked it!

Next morning we both slept in till after 8. Gave Qantas a ring (I am very familiar with their hold music by now) - they confimed the flight we were after out of Bolivia to give us an extra week and a half to visit the christian cafe/missionaries in Sucre we wanted to! Very happy about that.

After a long trip on the bus into Southampton we looked around the town and enjoyed poking around in an few old buldings we had lunch and caught the train back into London. We thought, as it was overcast, sprinkling and windy it was perfect weather to see a few sights. Got familiar with Big Ben and ran into a statue celebrating William Tyndale's life. He was the first person to translate the bible into english so that everyone could read it - not just the educated. He is a legend in my books. We had a kind of cool moment there too just saying thanks to God for they way he has looked after us so much. Then we had a look at Westminter Abbey from the outside and a quick look at Buckingaham Palace - Liz wasn't anywhere to be seen.

Well that was a long post wonder if many of you will get through it all. Here's to you all back home - in half an hour I can start watching the aussies make a whitewash of the Ashes!