YOUR Easter eggs could be hard-boiled or melted, your trip to the coast may be bumper-to-bumper and your chosen tourist attraction will probably be jam-packed with fellow revellers.

But who cares, when weather forecasters are promising the hottest Easter weekend for 20 years?

Seaside towns like Lee-on-the-Solent, Calshot and Lepe are preparing for an influx of visitors keen to make the most of temperatures due to soar towards 27C (80F) on Friday and Saturday.

Don't snigger, but chill sea breezes in the Spanish Costas and Greek isles mean the south coast of England will be way warmer!

Home-based tourist businesses are bracing themselves for a bumper Easter.

In the New Forest, many campsites are already booked up. Six hundred campers are heading for Hollands Wood near Brocken-hurst. Ashurst is full too, as is Holmsley. Denny Wood and Roundhill still have a few spaces, as do Ocknell and Longbeech.

Forest Holidays spokeswoman Morven Taylor said: "If you want to camp in the Forest ring us straight away and we'll try and squeeze you in. But remember some of the smaller campsites have no toilets, so you need your own loo."

Tony Barnfield of New Forest Tourism, is delighted."The weather forecast looks good and that makes or breaks a bank holiday weekend," he said from his award-winning B&B The Nurses Cottage in Sway.

"The War in Iraq meant people didn't want to make up their minds about a holiday. Now it's calming down and everyone wants to enjoy themselves. In the Forest most of our customers are British. Only 6.79 per cent of our visitors are from abroad so a slowdown in foreign travel doesn't hit us. We rely on people from this country to come here."

Mr Barnfield said members of the NF Tourism association ranging from New Milton's five-star Chewton Glen Hotel, to one-bed B&Bs were looking forward to a record summer season.

At the National Motor Museum in Beaulieu they are putting their faith in scrap. An exhibition of monster machines from Channel 4's mechanical combat show Full Metal Challenge is already pulling the crowds.

Beaulieu's spokeswoman Margaret Rowles said: " We have the winning machine on display from the yet-untelevised final show in the series. Come along and see if you can spot the champion."

At Sandy Balls Holiday Park, near Fordingbridge, Good Friday is always a red letter day in the calendar, when the historic egg-rolling ceremony dating back to the 1880s takes place.

Anne Ruffell, spokeswoman for Paultons Park at Ower said: "It's already been a good spring, but we expect a bumper crowd at Easter to try our new rides and to see our frisky family of meercats in their Manor House are a big draw too. We are expecting some happy events in the family very soon."

The only cloud on the horizon comes from the AA which expects more than ten million drivers to take to the south east's roads over Easter. Drivers are urged to avoid the busiest times - mid afternoon on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday - if at all possible.