Bournemouth (7-11 June 2026): Day 1: Sunday 7 June 2026

Before we begin ....

In case you're not familiar with a blog like this, bear in mind that it runs like a diary, with the latest entry appearing at the top of the page and earlier entries further down.

If you want to enlarge any photo, just click on it.

We usually run a blog when we're away and Elizabeth particularly likes them as they become a sort of free online photo album.

Apologies that the images can appear to be in a random order. Blogger software isn't always an exact science and I have found over the years that some aspects of blogging using this software get better while others can go downhill.

Marian and Mike's flight (TS122) is due to land at Gatwick at 10:45. From there they'll get a train towards London, changing at Clapham Junction and then travelling on to Winchester where we plan to meet them. They hope to arrive there on the 14:42 train, but that may prove optimistic

We plan to set off from home at 9:00am and make our way steadily towards Winchester with a couple of stops en route. We'll lurk in Sainsbury's car park nearby until we know that they're getting close and then we can drive across to the drop off/pick up area at the station.

In the event we left home just after 9am and made our way to our first stop at Peartree Services. If Carlsberg made service areas they definitely didn't make this one. It had seen better days and Graeme was disgusted that Greggs had no Belgian buns!

As we travelled, we got messages from Mike and Marion who landed just about on schedule at Gatwick and caught the train to Winchester via Clapham Junction.

We got to Winchester in good time but hadn't expected the main Street to be closed off for a market. We drove round and round looking for the Sainsbury's we had earmarked to stop at but never found it.

We met Mike and Marion off the train and headed to Winchester Cathedral for a drink and cake, then to Bournemouth to the Holiday Inn where we would be staying for the next few nights.

After a pub meal we had a walk to the cliff top but it was unseasonably chilly and murky so we headed back to the hotel.

Starbuck's at Peartree Services. We stopped here to get some Belgian buns from Gregg's, but they had run out - as usual - so we went to Starbuck's for a drink and bought a meal deal from the Waitrose outlet there - plus a couple of Belgian buns of course!