So anyway, we left the ghetto boardinghouse at 12:05pm on Sunday. Checkout time was midday, so in the words of Lisa, "It's only five past - that's what I call on time". Naturally I'd been too tight to book a hotel that gives you breakfast, so we made our way across a busy road with no green men to 'Dock o' the Bay', an upmarket greasy spoon which had removed some of the grease, given the walls a coat of paint, and therefore felt justified in charging £8.50 for a fried breakfast. Much in the same way that I felt justified in ordering a dessert afterwards. It may have been breakfast, but technically it was lunchtime, so I had to have pudding.

Eating over, we headed west into the New Forest and arrived at the Otter & Owl Centre near Ashurst. My brother took his girlfriend there in 1993 and proposed to her, so keen to form some kind of family tradition, I did exactly the same. The only difference was that he proposed marriage, whereas I proposed that we go to the cafeteria for ice cream. Although much like my sister-in-law, Lisa said yes.

As for the place itself, it was very nice. I have numerous photos of Lisa trying to levitate a deer by waving her hands over it in a mystic fashion, but sadly I haven't got the lead which connects my camera to my laptop, so they'll have to wait until tomorrow. Or until hell freezes over, if Lisa has anything to do with it. We also attempted to take some romantic woodland photos of the two of us together, but unfortunately we failed to achieve a single shot in which neither of us looked fat. One or the other is fine, but getting us both looking thin at the same time is clearly an impossible task. It was hard enough getting Lisa to face the camera and stop checking over her shoulder for escaped otters.

Anyhoo, we left the New Forest at 4pm, and drove back east along the south coast, surprising Lisa, who thought that Southampton to Brighton incorporated the M25 at some point. A Sunday evening traffic jam near Bognor, and we eventually got back at 6pm, a surprise weekend away successfully executed. Although what's more surprising is that I managed to fulfill one of Lisa's greatest musical ambitions without once using the phrase "You've been Framed".