3 May 2010 (Monday) - Portland

After a bit of brekky, some crossword puzzles and a morning ablute, we set off to Portland. Yesterday Weymouth was awash with posters advertising Portland’s Bank Holiday boot fair, so we thought we’d have a look. To be fair there were more than half a dozen stalls, but we had seen the lot in twenty minutes. Having said that, I did get a waistcoat which I’ve been after for some time, and a silly holiday hat, so the trip wasn’t entirely wasted.

We then drove down to Portland Bill. Regular readers of this drivel may recall that two years ago we walked from Littlesea to Portland Bill. Having done this trip both on foot and in a car, I can confidently recommend the car. We played tourist and looked at the lighthouse and the monument until the wind got so cold we were turning blue, and then we adjourned for tea and cakes. It was at this point that I realised my watch had stopped. Having got a watch with hands on is something of a novelty for me, and earlier in the morning I managed to bash my wrist. My watch was stopped at that time. I took my watch off and clouted it on the table, and it started going again. So I set it to the right time and hoped for the best. I set about my tea and cake as quickly as possible before the resident spanner came to talk to me. Wearing a cycling helmet whilst cycling is a good idea. You look stupid, but being on a bike you get away with it. Resident spanner was wandering around in his cycling helmet, but with no bike. It’s the sort of thing I’d do to wind up the normal people. Perhaps he was on a wind-up. If so, it worked.

It was at this point that my new camera bleeped and asked me if I would like to update it’s firmware. I told it I would not. I have no idea how I might do so. Let’s hope I don’t need to.

And then back to Weymouth. The kite festival looked even more pathetic than yesterday. Admittedly we weren’t right up close, but from a reasonable distance we could only see two kites, so we decided not to bother with it. Instead we went to Asda for more supplies, and whilst we shopped, seemingly the world and his wife texted to ask why we weren’t at Hastings for Jack in the Green. Maybe next year…?

And then as the weather was clearing up we popped into Matalan for warm jumpers and then went back to base. Whilst Chip cooked a smashing roast dinner, I set about crosswords. After the washing up was done we photographed a glorious sunset and settled down to watch a film – “Master and Commander”. Again I watched the lot, whilst listening to everyone else’s snores….