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This afternoon Jackie drove us around the forest,
beginning with Tanners Lane where ponies, delaying our arrival at the beach, played at disrupting the traffic.
They crossed and recrossed the narrow lane in their eagerness to crop the grass
and prune the hedgerows.
When we actually arrived at the waterfront, a cyclist who had weaved his way through the horses ahead of us, was already sunning himself on the shingle;
a young lady carrying an Ordnance Survey map soon sat on a lump of concrete to take her rest.
The now familiar boat floated on the tide which was the highest we have seen it.
On the approach to St Leonards lies an apparently insignificant field that performed an important role during World War 2. Across The Solent in the background the Isle of Wight can be seen. Here Jackie reads
this explanatory sign. (I haven’t managed to enlarge this image in WordPress’s improved editing facility), so
I offer this information from the D-Day Museum website:
“Needs Oar Point, like Bisterne and Lymington airfields, was a temporary two steel track runway built in 1943. The runway was built to support the D-Day operations. On D-Day and for the next four weeks, squadrons flew sorties in support of the troops in Normandy. Additionally the Hawker Typhoon ground-attack aircraft flew from here. This provided low-level close air support to the Normandy beachhead.
During the Second World War there were twelve airfields in the New Forest, nine of which were built in wartime. Flat areas of land in this region made it suitable for creating airfields. Being situated near the south coast of the UK also made the The New Forest a useful base for aircraft operating over continental Europe.”
This evening we dined at Lymington’s Lal Quilla, where we received a very warm welcome and delicious food. My choice was Purple Tiger, which is a dish of tiger prawns, tamarind, and various other spices. We shared special fried rice, onion bahji, and a garlic naan. We both drank Kingfisher.