So it turns out I couldn’t get any phone signal in the New Forest, so I couldn’t post over the weekend. The break over the weekend spoilt my Blog Every Day in May run and I’ve not got back into the swing of things at all.

Having said that, I think 23 days straight of writing a post every day is pretty good going. I know that posting every day isn’t going to work for me because I don’t have enough time to do the other things that go hand-in-hand with blogging, such as promoting the posts on social media and reading other people’s blogs. Plus, I think I’d rather spend longer on each post rather than rushing something out to meet a deadline.

So, back to the weekend…

Look at this cutie!

I must be daft or something but I seriously had no idea how many horses there are in the New Forest. I thought that there were small numbers that lived out in the wilds and you’d be lucky to see them. That idea very quickly went out the window as soon as we walked out of the cottage and up through the village. There were horses everywhere!

I don’t know if ponies have a ‘mating season’, either that or there’s something in the water, because they were a lot of foals around. And they are adorable. I love how their tails are fluffy.

This lady looks ready to pop!

On Sunday, we drove to Burley, mainly because my sister wanted to visit the cider shop! The village centre is pretty and bustling. Happily, we stumbled across a food fair and I chose a particularly yummy scotch egg made with pork and chorizo. It was delicious. I’ve had a real thing for scotch eggs recently. I need to try making them some time.

In Burley, there’s a field just on the edge of the village that is not only used as a car park but is home to a herd of deer! We were going to go on a tractor-drawn trailer ride to spot deer but unfortunately, the tours aren’t running at the moment because a poacher shot one of the stags. But they didn’t kill the deer, instead it bolted, fell into the river and drowned. Sad as this is, I’m not sure how the two correlate.

Instead, we went on a shire horse wagon ride. This is one of the beautiful steeds, Digger.

All weekend I kept spotting gorgeous cottages that I’d love to live in. How about this lovely rose-covered cottage? Unfortunately, something like this would set you back a cool half a mil. Mmmm…only in my dreams!

In the delightful village of Beaulieu, whose main street is lined with gorgeous independent shops, there’s a garden centre. In this garden centre is a cafe where you can get a cream tea with the biggest scone ever! These pretty flowers adorned one of the tables in the cafe.

All in all, it was a lovely weekend. It’s a shame hubby was working so couldn’t come but it gave me the chance to catch up with my family. The cottage we stayed in was spacious and had a wonderful wood burner that smelled divine. I love the smell of wood smoke, it reminds me of camp fires. It also made me excited for our holiday later this year; the cottage we’ve booked in the Cairngorms has a wood burning stove.

If you haven’t been to the New Forest, I would recommend it. I had less than 3 days there so would definitely like to go back but not during the school holidays and not over a bank holiday! It was pretty hectic traffic-wise.

How was your bank holiday weekend?

Rachel x