after another very good english breakfast at the wykeham arms (i eat unusual amounts of food — unusual for me, that is, as i usually don’t have any breakfast at all), we pack, stow away our bags in easy-vauxie (parked around the corner, remember?), pay our bill and visit the small but good bookshop p & g wells booksellers around the corner (and, coincidentally opposite our parked car) — i succumb to kate fox’s book watching the english: the hidden rules of english behaviour, dorothee yields to a winchester postcard. then we are off and slowly make our way to lymington where we intend to catch the 16:15 ferry to yarmouth on the isle of wight.
the original idea had been (triggered by the discussion of our travel plans over dinner yesterday) to make a stop in lyndhurst…at p & g wells booksellers dorothee stumbles over a small guide to the county of hampshire which mentions sir hilliers garden at ampfield on the way between winchester and romsey: it looks interesting and we decide to give it a go. so, we soon are on the A3090 leading out of winchester towards hursley (where we make a short tour of the IBM hursley lab grounds by car) and thence to ampfield. the garden is about a mile to the right of the A3090 and we reach it shortly after 10:30, the official opening time. the weather has calmed down a bit and instead of the rather hefty showers in the morning we now have only the occasional light drizzle. just having had a rather good breakfast we decide to go for a cup of tea in the café — first though we have to plonk down £7 each for entry (we don’t let our surprise show and bravely pay). after a couple of showers which we wait out inside the very nicely done cafeteria (modern wood construction with lots of floor-to-ceiling window frames all around and fantastic views into the garden and across the adjoining valley) we set out to explore…and there’s a lot to find and discover: trees of all kinds, colorful shrubs and shrubberies, a pond, and — lots and lots of my favourite plant: rhododendrons from all over the world! as they are currently in bloom it’s a fantastic opportunity…and i’m amazed at the wide variety in shape, size, and color. but, to be honest, that statement holds true not only for the rhododendrons but for the garden in general: lots of different colors, lots of different texture! it really is fun walking through this garden! definitely worth a visit!
shortly before 13:30 we adjourn to the cafeteria for a light lunch (good tasting, thick mushroom soup) and then are on our way to lymington. driving on the A3090 (and later the A337) is much more fun than taking the M3 (and M27) and we get to see a bit of the landscape south of winchester & romsey and traverse the new forest from north to south, passing through nice little towns such as lyndhurst and brookhurst.
it’s 15:20 by the time we arrive at the wightlink ferry in lymington, well in advance of our booked ferry crossing — today, though is not really a busy day and we get on to the 15:45 ferry without much ado. the weather has been steadily improving almost since this morning and we have increasing periods of sunshine.
16:15 — we are off the ferry in yarmouth and break for a moment to don our sunglasses as the sun has decided to tag along for the ride to shorewell it seems. the roads are narrow as always on the isle of wight and it takes a bit to get used to it. with getting lost in freshwater (wrong turn taking us back into the direction of yarmouth) we end up taking the better part of 45min to reach our b&b, the north court — but arrive on the dot for our communicated 17:00 arrival time 
our landlady expects us, and after a friendly welcome shows us our room for the first night — after tonight we are to move to the lady gordon suite which is currently still occupied by an american party. our b&b, north court, is an old manor house situated in a lovingly maintained huge garden complete with little pond, little stream and a “lost garden” part where one can get lost…our first room is in the main part of the house on the first floor (reached through the huge entrance hall [my apartment probably would fit nicely in there] and an almost stately staircase (“oh, the staircases at rosing…”). the room is quite large, has an ancient bath attached to it (but, alas, no shower) — and is quite chilly. fortunately, we can address the chilliness with the help of an electical fire — and, grumbling, recluctantly it retrenches.
dinner is supposed to be available at the local pub…which we can reach via a short stroll through the almost bewitched looking garden: the crown at shorewell is a rather nice pub and the food does indeed turn out to be quite good (as is the beer and the cider :-)…we spent most of the evening there playing concentration, a “new” game of domino (new for us, that is, but then almost every game of domino with the possible exception of laying snakes is “new” for us) that we discovered when i was searching for the rules for domino the other day (i had noticed that box of old dominoes in one of my shelves by accident) — which is a nice mixture of domino and memory really.
around 22:00 we make our way back to north court and — ! — finally my habit of taking the small torchlight with me on vacation (“we might need that!”) pays out! no street ligths whatsoever, no lights in the garden and we are in the middle of the country side, so it is pitch black dark — “good thing we have that torch :-)”
a very nice day. thanks.
