Our New-Forest Adventure: Day Two (21 January)

On our second day in Sway, we woke up to a tranquil view from our bedroom window,

and after a hearty hot breakfast once again prepared by Anne, I snapped pictures of her pretty back garden
and the equally idyllic sight in the distance.
Anne’s front garden held a sign of the spring-to-come
and a cute metal carrier for delivered milk, complete with an adjustable arrow to indicate how many bottles you would like on your next delivery.
We headed for Lymington, about 6km away, where we came across a small but charming market that none of us knew would be on today. Although I tried to buy it myself, Anne kindly bought Bob and me a jar of homemade marmalade (lemon and orange) from one of the merchants.


After the market, we wandered around the quaint streets of Lymington,



before ending up at the scenic harbour.



Once again, we saw plenty of ponies from the car:


Alan is an avid cyclist and he wanted to show us a spot along the coast that he found on one of his rides. He said the view from this spot reminded him of the views he had seen in Vancouver when he and Anne visited last year. He was right: we could have been in our old West End Vancouver neighbourhood, out for an afternoon stroll—how unexpected!
Our bus was leaving Southampton in the early afternoon, so we stopped at another lovely pub (which, as with yesterday's pub, had a generous non-smoking section right beside the bar—a rarity in London, at least until July) for a yummy bite before heading to the coach station.
We had a now-familiar view from our table,
and did our best to follow the rules of the house.
Just as we were leaving, I noticed the BEST dog EVER tucked under a chair at a table near the door.
His name was Pipper (he jumped up to be patted when I called his name, and, as with yesterday’s pony, Bob patted him between the eyes) and his owners were very friendly and interested to hear that we were from Canada. We chatted for a bit, mostly with Pipper's owner's elderly mother, who had been told that there was a mountain named after her in Canada and wanted to know if we had heard of it, but unfortunately we hadn’t. Soon after saying goodbye to Pipper, we arrived back at the coach station, thanked Anne and Alan for the wonderful weekend, and boarded our coach. When we arrived back in London and caught the tube and then the bus home, I kept saying to Bob, “Where did all the ponies go?”