The Isle of Wight

This week started off with someone stealing our car radio. The only thing we can be thankful for is that they were obviously dab hands at this and did little damage and with a bit of effort on Harry’s part we could lock the door and close the window after the event. Though coming out of the house in the early frosty morning to that wasn’t very nice. In some ways, I can feel sorry for them as they can’t get much satisfaction from their lives if they have to steal someone else’s belongings. The feeling sorry for them didn’t last long but there you go – I’m not always thinking straight in the mornings. Harry was a bit disappointed as we had to drive to the Isle of Wight in the weekend in silence. Well not quite silence... one of the things that has struck us while here is the places we are seeing are the places we have read about in books, see in paintings and movies and sing about in songs ... it is coming alive ...
'When I get older, losing my hair
will you still be sending me a Valentine
Birthday greetings, bottle of wine...When I'm sixty four
Every summer we can rent a cottage In the Isle of Wight, if it's not too dear
We shall scrimp and save
Grandchildren on your knee
Vera Chuck and Dave
Send me a postcard drop me a line...Will you still need me
Will you still feed me When I'm sixty four'
Anyway, before setting off to the Isle of Wight...On Wednesday night we set off to go to the pictures and took a slight detour to a bed shop. We had so much fun lying on beds that we missed the movies but did buy a bed – one of those new ones with little springs stuck in foam rubber – ooh it felt so nice – and we just can’t wait until it arrives. Then our visitors can have the air mattresses!!! It’s even got a 10 year guarantee against ‘sinking in the middle’ but I am not sure if that will apply in NZ if we bring it home. We decided on Thursday night (that’s our night for the ‘what shall we do in the weekend’ discussion) that we would go to the Isle of Wight. It gets dark now by 4.30 and so an early Friday night could possibly mean that we would be able to get up on Saturday morning to get out of the house by 7.00. It nearly worked we were only about 15 minutes late and congratulated ourselves that it was a cloudy morning (no scrapping ice off the windows) and that we bet most of the traffic. We arrived in Southampton with a few minutes before the car ferry left and ate our bacon butties and drank our tea sitting on the wharf listening to the seagulls and watching the people fishing and the boats leaving and arriving. Although misty and cooooold it was peaceful and water calm. We need more polyprops!!! Had a long discussion with one of the ferry guys about NZ he has spent some time in Australia and is hoping to spend another holiday in NZ. (Incidentally we have found a good butcher – supermarket meat over here is not high quality – and one of the people in the shop is a young New Zealand girl from Otago – she lives in Horfield and could pick my accent !! The butcher sells good meat, but not too sure about some of the exotic stuff like springbok, buffalo and zebra steaks as I thought they were protected.)

If ever you want a good coffee in England we would suggest hopping on the Isle of Wight ferry just for the sheer joy of a very large, hot coffee that tastes like real coffee. We were amused by the lid on the disposable cup Huhtamaki – it sounded so Maori but looking at the web at home – it is actually a Dutch packaging firm. We sat outside on the way over with all the other tourists, I think most of the locals sat inside in comfort, but we did eventually give in and sat on the top deck in the ‘animal’ enclosure which protected us from most of the rain and cold breeze but still gave us a 180 degree view of the sea and the island. We shared it with a very big black and ginger dog who had a coat on to keep him warm. We drove to the Needles at Alum Bay on the other side of the island (its about 10 miles across so nothing takes too long). Besides enjoying the fabulous views from the 18th century gun emplacements we enjoyed rambling over hills and the climb down to the beach of 188 steps (in summer you can catch a chair lift but it was closed and it really did spoil the naturalness of the place). Anyway, on the beach where we stood Queen Victoria many years before watched the ‘enchanting coloured sands in Alum Bay and was presented with samples in glass containers’. If we wanted we could have still bought some – or if we weren’t environmentalists at heart we could have collected our own. The limestone cliffs are slowly being eroded away and it was fascinating to see a ‘man made’ building slowly being eaten by sea that is one of the photos.

By then it was getting darkish (3.30) and so we found a little b and b on the road to Ventnor and then wandered around Ventnor in the rain and the dark. At 4.30 we were feeling like dinner but decided that we should wait a while so wandered up some roads past some shops which we thought would be closed but weren’t and I bought some tops and some Christmas crackers with cats on and Harry a pair of gloves. We arrived back at the pub and found everyone else was already eating. Our little table in the ‘poop’ was cute and while we ate hotpot and cottage pie we could see the waves crashing in and the rain beating on the window. At our b and b the next morning we saw our first red squirrel hanging upside down from a tree. The grey squirrel is apparently native to America and is considered a ‘pest’ someone bought it into England (it could have been Sir Walter Raleigh when he bought gifts to Queen Elizabeth I – he really did it was in the movie) and now of course it is threatening the native red squirrels food etc. We were told that the Isle has no grey squirrels and we were also told that when a captain of the ferry discovered that someone had bought grey squirrels in their car he turned the ferry around and went back to Southampton – no law or tight customs regulations– but obviously the locals care. Sunday morning was very wet so we decided to catch an early ferry as everything we wanted to see was either closed for winter or outdoor (which meant we would get wet and cold!!). Next time we go back we will walk the gorges and the beaches and perhaps go to the miniature village and the wildlife sanctuary. We drove to Beaulieu via a little tidal flour mill. The Eling Tide Mill has been making flour for 900 years (some bits have been replaced over time so you could probably say that most of the mill is younger than that). Each day, when the tide comes in it fills the millpond and then as the tide falls the trapped water spins the water wheel, which turns the stones, which crushes the wheat into flour. The wheat makes very nice ginger biscuits and the ones we bought are now all gone. Beaulieu was huge, park like surroundings with a palace where Lord Montagu and his family have lived for years and abbey ruins. To modernise it they have added a car museum, James Bond exhibition, monorail, playstation exhibition and simulators and an exhibition of Stately Omes of England (SOE stands for Special Operations Executive – they trained spies during the second world war). If it hadn’t been raining cats and dogs I would have spent all my time wandering the gardens but instead did a quick skirt of the abbey (I was the only one there) where my umbrella was blown inside out (thought that didn’t happen in England), a longer look at the palace (they had a huge log fire burning in the dining room and heaps of family portraits dating from a few hundred years ago to 2002), and watched the video on the SOE’s before a 10 minute sojourn into the car museum. Guess where Harry spent most of his time?? We drove home in the dark – a long trip on narrow, wet and busy roads. The English sure know how to make puddles!! Now off to finish my book that is set in Bristol....