I Never Saw You, I Only Heard Of You...

Well I’m starting to catch up with my blog, even if it is taking a while to do, I’m getting there…slowly. I’m starting to wonder how long it will take until I’m back up to date…but then I think ‘stop thinking about it and just get on with the blog’…so I am…

So going back to last August, the weather started to improve, it was the perfect weather to be sat on a beach, so me and Amanda decided to pack our stuff and spend a week in Bournemouth at my dad’s house. We got the train (which is half the price and takes half the time of the coach) and were soon in Bournemouth. This was also the first time my dad and Amanda had met and they got on pretty well.

The next day we needed something to do and seeing as I’m more familiar with Bournemouth than Amanda, I decided to show her where I used to live. We got the bus into Bournemouth and then we took a walk down to Alum Chine, whenever I do this walk it feels like I never left despite the fact that Alum Chine has changed loads over the past 10 years. While we were at Alum Chine I told Amanda about Sandbanks and how it’s my favourite place in the world, so we decided to go there one day…

…In fact we decided to go there the next day. I knew there was a bus you could catch from Bournemouth pier, so we headed there only to find out that the buses were every 90 minutes and we’d just missed one. We needed another plan, so we went over to Poole to check out the harbour and the shops and decided to try Sandbanks some other time.

Over the next few days my dad wasn’t at work so we’d use those days to go to places with him in the car. On the Saturday we couldn’t think of anywhere to go, but my dad suggested Lymington which sounded ok to us so we went along with it.

Lymington was alright, there were lots of boats coming in and out, there was also a market which sold various bits and bobs, I did notice that it mainly sold bobs and hardly any bits but I didn’t say anything at the time. After Lymington we headed over to Highcliffe for a sit on the beach and to top up our sunburn.

The next day we decided to check out Monkey World. Now don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against monkeys…or apes, but what I’m not too keen on is putting them on display for people to stare at, especially when you get people with pushchairs pushing their way to the front telling their kids to ‘Look at the monkeys!’ when they’re clearly looking at apes. In fact, while we’re on the subject, I also had a problem with the name, ‘Monkey World’ suggests that you’re visiting a world full of monkeys, where in actual fact it was mainly apes and even though it was a big place, it didn’t quite qualify to be classed as a world, I think ‘Primate Park’ would probably be more suitable. But apart from all that we had quite a good day, they had a section where the lemurs would roam free and they’d run around your legs and steal your food then attack your children.

After a while we were starting to get even more sunburnt and we’d seen just about everything there, so we headed off to Weymouth. Now, I know Weymouth well, every year when I was little I’d get taken there for the day, so much to the point we’d all get sick of it, but it had been a few years since I’d last been so I didn’t mind so much.

We had a walk round the harbour and a sit on the beach and then hunger started to kick in, so we headed towards the busiest chip shop in the country…well maybe the 2nd busiest if you count the one at the Black Country (beef dripping) Museum. After queuing for a good half hour we finally got served, it was worth the wait after all that as the fish and chips were really nice, I would have gone back for more if the queue hadn’t doubled in size since when we were queuing up.

The following day was bank-holiday Monday, and just like any other bank-holiday Monday - everyone was going where you wanted to go. As it happened though my dad fancied a lazy day before he went back to work, so I went into Bournemouth with Amanda for a sit on the beach and an ice cream.

Tuesday was our final full day in Bournemouth, so we wanted to make the most of it, we could have gone to Sandbanks, but we decided to go to Brownsea Island instead because there would be more to do. We got the bus to Poole, grabbed some food to take with us and then jumped on a boat to Brownsea Island.

The cool thing about Brownsea Island is that it’s just about the only place in the UK that you can find red squirrels…or so they say, I’ve been there a few times and never seen a single one, I reckon they could be making it up.

After walking around for a while we noticed that there wasn’t really much there, there were a few peacocks but no red squirrels. We headed back to the boat, on the way back it does a tour of the Bournemouth and Poole coast, they went past Sandbanks and told us that it is now the most expensive place to buy property in the UK.

That evening me and Amanda went for a meal at the carvery near my dad’s house. I’d been there loads before and never had any trouble getting served for drinks, but when it came to ordering I got asked for some ID…I looked at them shocked…I was nearly 26 for god’s sake!

The next day we came home, by the time I got home I was exhausted but I’d had a really good week. I’d have stayed there for longer, but we had something to do the next week.

What could that be?…Well you’re just going to have to wait, I still need to write about that and I have a pizza in the oven.

…They’re apes, not monkeys for fuck’s sake!