On the morning of Tuesday, 14th July 2009, we met promptly at Lyndhurst and boarded the New Forest Topless Bus (sorry, I mean the Open Top Bus) once we had bought our 5-go-for-half-price ticket (Bargain or what?!) and set off for Lymington - up on top deck with the fresh breeze threatening to blow our hats off!  We appreciated the impeccably-narrated recorded commentary which was neither too long nor too short and not too intrusive upon our enjoyment of the surrounding scenery, from New Forest villages/towns to open forest and wooded areas. 

On reaching Lymington High Street we disembarked, deciding between us to meet an hour later for lunch half-way down the main street at a small alley-way cafe called "The Old Schoolhouse".  We divided up for the hour to do some shopping, meeting (again promptly!) at the cafe and sitting outside to enjoy the sunshine.  We had a very pleasant time, chatting and eating, then realised we would have to "scoot" to fit in the rest of our shopping. We found an accessories shop "Neat". It is the most wonderful place, with jewellery, scarves, bags, etc., in all colours of the rainbow!  We had a ball there! It really was one of the best bits of our day out, before catching the loop bus from the bottom of the main street for our onward journey to Beaulieu.

We all sat upstairs again, not wanting to miss a moment of the well-loved views of the Forest, commenting on how lucky we were to be enjoying such gorgeous weather; it couldn't have been any better.  At Beaulieu we waved goodbye to Georgie who wanted to continue to Lyndhurst and thence to visit her mobile home at Shorefields.  The rest of us wandered up Beaulieu High Street (a very grand name for such a diminutive thoroughfare) and, feeling in need of a restorative cuppa, we stopped off at the tearoom (can't recall the name) on the right-hand side going up.  We sat outside and were immediately the objects of attention from other customers due to our conspicuous outfits.  Cream teas etc., duly demolished we set off to finish our inspection of Beaulieu's delightful collection of tiny shops and the garden centre then made our way back to where we had disembarked on our arrival in the village.  This was the site of our one and only hitch of the day.   We waited for the loop bus - and we waited - and we waited - and we waited... We weren't sure how we managed to misunderstand the timetable or the route map but all agreed both were very ambiguous and that we would make the point in the "feedback" page in the middle of the little booklets we were given at the start of our day out.