Visiting Grandmother Gwen

We were in Salisbury over the weekend, visiting Grandmother Gwen.  We were peacefully having breakfast in our hotel on Sunday morning, studying our Japanese, drinking our orange juice, muching our cereal.  When - all of a sudden a man burst over to talk to Frannie.  Who were the hippos?  Why were we here?  Then his wife came over and started patting us and stroking us.  It seems that, like our human, she also lives in a huge hippo family where new friends come to live quite regularly.  I think she would have liked us to join her hippo family.  But we would miss our human, not to mention Frannie and The Builder.  And she might not have taken us on adventures!  But it was exciting to meet her.

We had lunch with Grandmother Gwen, Frannie and The Builder in a pub in the middle of the New Forest.  There were lots of ponies around the pub, and some cows. And there were lots and lots of dogs in the pub. Lots more outside going for walks.  Here we are trying to decide what to have for lunch. Grandmother Gwen had game pie.  But we're not entirely sure how you would make a pie out of scrabble or chess or doodle jump, so we looked at more traditional choices. 

But first, a refreshing glass of wine to get us in the mood.
And to warm us up.
It was cold in the New Forest!

A lovely bowl of vegetables for me.  And a pint of Muddy Boot.  Then it's time for a nice long sleep.  Muddy Boot is quite strong

Bernard being more restrained.
A plate of vegetably things and a civilised glass of wine
Sunday lunch is such a good thing!

Then we took Gwen home and came home ourselves, back to our Country Retreat.  We took Frank the lion back to his Town Home last weekend.  It might be nearly time for us to go back to our Town Home too.  We are missing our human.  And it's not very many weeks until we got to Australia and she is not coming with us.  We need to go home and make sure she knows what she's supposed to be doing while we are away!