2014 is flying along, it’s amazing how fast time goes or is that because I’m older. In my childhood the six weeks holidays seemed to last for an eternity, six weeks now is nearly not countable! Anyway at least the rain has eased off although there is still a lot of visible water in the New Forest, the water table must be at its highest for years. Friends remarked that our daffodils were really tall and I said they were making sure they didn’t get too wet and finish up with bedraggled flowers.

In my last blurb I spoke about the Wessex birthday gathering at Ibsley being the only meet that I would be able to talk about for this newsletter and hoping that the area wouldn’t be under water. Well it wasn’t under water although there were some big puddles but the weather was not good – gales of wind quite often with very dodgy gusts which caused a lot of people to think twice about coming for the weekend especially those who would have come along the south coast.

As stewards Geordie and I decided not to open the site until the Saturday and then phoned everyone we could think of who would be likely to camp and tell them this news. As it was some had already decided not to venture out which was a sensible decision and we went to the site on the Saturday morning.

I had ventured into the hall not long after we had sited ourselves and found an alarm going relating to there being no electricity. No real instructions on how to deal with it but luckily the caretaker, Julie, turned up at that point to see if anyone had come. Between us we managed to turn off the alarm but as the alarm light stayed on she needed to get more information from others so went home. About 5 minutes later I had a phone call from her – the whole village had a power cut.

Well people turned up in the afternoon, some for a short committee meeting and tea, the rest just for the birthday tea and evening ceilidh. Come nearly darkness it was time to call a halt on the meet. We’d eaten the food but had no tea to drink and the hall was getting colder by the minute.

So everyone went home except us and the sisters, Ann and Eileen, who were determined to try out their new motorhome for the first time. They spent some of the evening with us and then ventured back to try things out. The next day, Sunday, was sunny and the winds had died down so it was easy to pack up without miserable weather. Apparently the power came back on at 5.30am that morning.

Our next meet is our AGM at Wildhern in a couple of weeks so will do a report in the next newsletter, then it’s the FDSG Easter meet. May and June see us at Furzebrook near the blue pool, Swanage, Monkey World not too far and a hall just along the road. Then an invite to Tillingbourne from SE area. Rowdeford school on the final weekend in May, Chippenham festival not far away – you can catch a bus on the Saturday.

June meets are at Scotts Haven where they have been having work done for drainage on the camping fields and Breamore House near Fordingbridge. A lovely site with interesting surrounds. Salisbury is within driving distance especially for market day Saturday morning.

Pam (Secretary)