I went to visit the New Forest recently, which is so pretty! It reminded me so much of ‘The Wind in the Willows’ that I almost expected Mr Toad to go hot air ballooning past me in a Harris Tweed suit. Alas, that was not to happen, but I did get a fantastic recommedation for lunch at a lovely little pub in Fritham called The Royal Oak.

It’s a super cute little place with a thatched roof and two back to back log fires inside that are so enormous they’re practically the size of the rooms themselves. The pub also has lots of lovely quaint little details, a bookshelf filled with books on country walks and some lovely framed old timey photos.

By the time we got there, an hour later than indended after completely missing the turn off and zipping for miles in the wrong direction down the motorway, they were only serving ploughmans platters. This suited me just perfectly. I had the hard cheese which included two massive slabs of cheesy goodness with pickled onions, salad, chutney and a crusty hot bread roll that tasted like cake. Naturally, I gleefully gobbled up everything in sight.

I washed it all down with a glass of Merlot and was all in all a very happy lady, really, I could have felt happier, but for the PONIES!

Seriously, go to the New forest and you get to see ponies. If gobbling up cheese and seeing ponies doesn’t make your day I really don’t know what will!

I love a good ploughmans, so it you have any recommendations for great places to try one can you let me know?