I
slept like a log and woke raring to go only to find it was a quarter to three.
I then lay awake for much of the night on a bed that was on the “rock hard” side. I gave up and got up just
before half past seven, and just as I started my morning shave so my razor
snapped in half. Bearing in mind my shaving gel exploded yesterday and I’d
shaved using soap and water I’d got some more shaving foam last night. I had
been looking forward to a good scrape this morning…
"er indoors TM" woke… I say she
woke. I made enough noise so she would wake and we went down for brekkie.
The
guest house did a rather good brekkie. A choice of cereal followed by a choice
of cooked brekkie, all with toast. Muesli followed by a full English is always
good. The do-gooding healthiness of the muesli counteracts the cholesterol of
the fry-up, whilst the cholesterol of the fry-up counteracts the do-gooding
healthiness of the muesli, and all is well. The toast is neutral in all of
this, which is why I usually have toast for brekkie.
We
packed our stuff, said goodbye to the Somerton Lodge Hotel (I’d certainly go back!) and we went on a
little road trip. With seven hours until the ferry sailed we had time on our
hands. So we went on a little road trip across the Isle of Wight from Shanklin in
the east to Freshwater in the west, picking up random geocaches as we went.
Once
at Freshwater we carried on to the Needles tourist park. We went there when the
children were small, and (to be honest)
the place hasn’t changed much. We had a look about, then took the chair lift
down to the beach. I can remember taking a very small "My Boy TM"
on that chair lift years ago and he was terrified of it. Watching the general
public on that thing I think it’s safe to say people are still scared of it.
We
had a little wander round the bottom of the cliffs looking at the famous coloured
sands before taking the scary lift back up the cliff to where we had an ice
cream.
From
the Needles we drove (without stopping
for geo reasons!) to Osborne House. It was pretty much the only tourist
attraction we didn’t visit when we were last on the island, and I wanted a
look-see. After all, I have been getting very keen on ITV’s docu-drama about
Queen Victoria.
Osborne
House was quite interesting if you like that sort of thing. To be honest I
could have rattled round in half the time; paintings of dull subjects and
sculpture of nudey people without any clothes on soon pall.
It
would have been good to have taken the coach trips across the estate to the
private beach and the Swiss cottage, but time was against us.
I
feel I should point out to any of my loyal readers who might be going to the
area that the place wasn’t cheap. Their website said that the price of
admission was twelve quid per person. They charged us eighteen.
Fortunately
the ferry terminal at Fishbourne was only five miles away and soon we were
sailing back across the Solent. After a brief stop at Clackett Lane services for
McDinner we were soon back in Ashford. We visited both fruits of our loin to
collect the wolfpack, and were home just after eight o’clock.
I
quickly unpacked, and as I uploaded photos of the weekend (you can see the photos of today’s exploits by
clicking here – the others are nearby) I suddenly realised how quiet it
was. Both dogs were fast asleep. They’ve obviously both had good weekends too…
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