The day started cold and very foggy - by the time we had packed clothes into suitcases and cats into baskets the fog had mostly gone, but where the fields were turned earth they steamed as if they were cauldrons. Ginny left her coat as we went to drop off Tabitha and Amelia at Auntie Phyllis's, not many cats apparently resident there at the time. So we returned to home camp before setting off on the way to Hampshire.

We had an easy journey down to Hampshire, stopping at South Mimms and patronising KFC there, then let the Satnav (for some reason the spell checker corrects this to saunas) kindly lead us to East Meon. Well not so kindly - here as elsewhere the Satnav thought it easiest to take single track anonymous country lanes which stressed me out. Some bewilderment when we reached the farmyard of Drayton Farm, at 3pm which is the earliest we could, and weren't sure how to gain admittance to our holiday cottage. A dog on a plastic leash, and two cats, looked at us but refused to help. We didn't have to wait long to be advised that we needed to park round the side, and the door of the cottage had been left open for us!

And a very nice cottage it was too! Complete with towels and toilet rolls and tea and coffee and Scrabble and Skribble and shortbread biscuits and bottle of wine! And comfortable sofas to read Tim Powers' "Medusa's Web" on. It is a working farm, and as neighbours we had several barns of ewes and frisky lambs - their bleating was tolerable. There was a smell of fuel right by the boiler - but I found the cottage very comfortable.

For the evening meal we went to Ye Olde George Inn in East Meon, which is an enchanting village. A decent hill with a decent Church overlooking, a stream running through it, old flint walls, centuries old buildings. Wonderful. We were too early for the Inn to open (6 pm), and then too early for them to serve food (6.30pm). Only by chance did we realise you could order before 6.30pm, if they said that we missed it. Good real fire, food upmarket so perhaps we should have ordered sides of vegetables too as well as the main dish.