We were up early and after breakfast we drove into Lymington. Dee dropped us off in the town where we made a quick all at the Tourist Information Centre, finding out that bus travel to Polegate the next day was not very convenient or cheap. On our way to the Port to meet Dee, we stopped to buy me another hat – my last one having just about given up the ghost – walking along pretty cobbled streets down to a sea front where people fished and crabbed, organised their boats or simply lazed in the sun.
Dee raced back to the station with us on the bikes to get advice on the cheapest way to do everything and bought tickets, as well as entering the helpful station master into the employee of the year competition. I used Dee’s name and details since I didn’t think a long gone traveller would be much use if he won and the paper wanted to do an article on his virtues.
The Puffin chugged into port and we boarded, lining our bikes up below deck and sitting on the top for the best view. We could see the Marina where prior to her long overseas trip, Dee had worked as manager, and where, when her children were very small, she had operated her own boat cleaning business, employing other mums with young children. This whole area is a highway of boats both big and small, with the ferry picking its way steadily through to the quay on the island, all within view of Hurst Castle, which we visited yesterday.
The Isle of Wight is diamond shaped and we landed at Fresh Water near the North West tip of the diamond. We didn’t take any time to explore the area around the port, but leapt on our bikes and headed off towards a stretch of water where huge grey ‘teenage’ cygnets were lazing about doing the swan equivalent of watching TV and chatting on their mobile phones, while their hard working parents combed the shallows for tit bits for them. It was a beautiful place to ride, with overhanging trees occasionally joining to form a green tunnel and only a smattering of walkers and their dogs. Daisy ran along beside Dee, keeping up, whatever the pace. She rode in a basket for any stretches near roads, her head forward to the winds like a figurehead on a ship. 
Eventually we reached the village where Dee and Wilbur have a cottage that they rent out, and we stopped at a thatched roofed church called St Agnes Church, Freshwater Bay, which was built in 1908 to provide for the many people who saw The Isle of Wight as a permanent or seasonal home. It is a simple church inside, with the feel of a home, and it has an interesting beam structure for the roof.
After a chat with some friends of Dee’s, in their seventies and riding their bikes around, about their latest adventures in Scotland and their plans for their next boating holiday, we left the road and headed up towards the downs. Finally we chained the bikes up and climbed the last wooded hill. We popped out onto an endless sunny stretch of downs, leading towards the Tennyson monument that commemorates the time he spent here, and skirted by sheer white chalk cliffs. 
It felt as if we were walking on top of the world, on a beautifully mowed slope (really grazed low by rabbits and sheep), and like lemmings, we and all the other walkers and dogs headed towards the monument and the highest cliff. There was no following each other over the edge, thank goodness. We savoured the view and our picnic lunch before we headed down for a drink at the local pub. Daisy’s presence meant that the beer garden was the best venue, and she took only a few minutes to introduce us to the other patrons enjoying a quiet drink out there.
The ride back down hill was much quicker and we all enjoyed the freedom that bikes give you. We made it before the Puffin ferry arrived so Dee left us to purchase some local cheeses to try later. The trip back was very windy. Official boats guided yachts to moorings and motor boats hurtled through the waves, leaping up and slapping down as the motors roared louder than the sea and the engines guzzled maybe a week’s rent of fuel every hour. Keith and Daisy slept on, missing the snatches of French and English conversations that peppered the trip with tantalising bits of people’s lives.Dee showed us the four-spike antlers that she had found in the forest. Each spike stands for a year of the deer’s life, and the whole set of antlers are re-grown each year. The deer that lost Dee’s antler would have a five-spike set this year.
I started to read a book of Dee’s called ‘Man of the New Forest – New Forest Recollections’ by Gilbert Smith, who was born in Holly Cottage in the New Forest in 1906. His father was a forester and he and his brother went on to become foresters too, seeing the New Forest through many changes. It is an absolutely fascinating account. He had an idyllic, if fairly isolated childhood. His father was not allowed to kill any foxes, since they were needed for the weekly hunts, so when a fox killed their hens, he just put up with it rather than lose his job. The children and his wife were not so complacent, but they never told him that they went out and killed the fox. Gipsies regularly camped anywhere in the forest, leaving litter and general mess behind when they left and complaints of thieving from the local land owners. Eventually regular camps were set up for them to stay in, but some gipsies were not happy and it took a long time to persuade them to move. Finally council housing was provided for the forest gipsies, with other gipsies pretending to be from the forest to take advantage of the scheme.Deer numbers were a problem, with yearly culls providing free venison for magistrates, the police, foresters and local land owners who had suffered damage caused by deer. In the 1960s it was decided to sell the venison to local butchers, and once a wider group tasted it and realised where it came from, poaching and maiming of deer became a serious problem. Holly branches could not be cut lower than twelve feet, ensuring winter feed for the deer, and pine trees were not to be cut for Christmas trees at all. If Gilbert suspected that people were after trees he would take parts out of their cars so that they couldn’t get away. One time he hid a bicycle and when the people reported it missing to the police, they were charged with tree theft.
We met some friends of Dee and Wilbur’s at a local pub in a converted mill, where the owners are working on using the water mill to provide electricity. We drove down in Dee’s old Morris convertible, with the wind blowing our hair out by the roots and England’s version of a summer evening becoming chillier by the minute.
It was a very pleasant and relaxing time with friendly folk, followed by another meal and chat, and a lot more of Gilbert Smith until the wee small hours. 
Wilbur and Dee's back yard
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