Something Old, Something New

I chose my  title in reference to this photo; it depicts HMS Warrior and, behind that, the Spinnaker Tower; but I might just as well have named it Robin Thursday, because this was definitely Robin's day.

It was raining when we got up this morning, and we weren't quite sure what to do. In the end, we went to Portsmouth to tour the ships. When we got to the historic waterfront area, I immediately got testy, because I couldn't see a Costa Coffee Shop, and there was no way I was going to go looking at war ships without a cup of coffee in me. "Where's Costa?" I cried. "I need a Costa Coffee!" But there was no Costa to be seen -- until we gave up and went into the building where we had to buy our tickets, and there it was. We drank our coffee, bought our tickets, and found out that our admission price included a harbour tour. The boat was to leave in ten minutes, so we got into the queue right away. For the moment, it wasn't raining, so we thought we would seize that moment. It was a good thing we did. We had about a 40-minute window of dryness before the sky opened again, and the cruise was 50 minutes long.

When we got off the tour boat, we scurried over to the Mary Rose Museum, where we found out that today was the 30th anniversary of the raising of the Mary Rose, Henry VIII's favourite ship. The museum is in a bit of a schmozzle right now, because there is a new museum under construction, and a lot of the exhibits have been moved over there. The new museum is a dome; it is being built around and over the hull of the Mary Rose, quite a bit of which is intact. We watched a film about the ship and about the archaeological work that has been done over the last thirty years; and we had a look at what exhibits there were. One that interested me was the display of pocket sundials.  I had no idea there was ever such a thing as a pocket sundial, but by golly, there was.

Next on our list was HMS Victory, which involved a slog through the rain. Once aboard, though, we were mostly dry. There is a plaque that marks the spot where Lord Nelson was standing when he was shot.  My tour consisted of looking around, thinking [gun gun gun gun] Oh, look! A bucket. [gun gun gun gun] Oh, there's an officer's bed! [gun gun gun gun] Oh, my! Look at that writing desk.

I am not the best companion on tours of war ships. I pay attention to all the wrong stuff.

After walking through HMSVictory, we swam ran to HMS Warrior, a considerably newer, ironclad, steam/sail vessel. Again, there was some lovely china in the captain's quarters -- but my camera's batteries died suddenly, long before their time, so I don't have photos. (Next time, I'm going back to Eveready!) And by the time we finished that tour, even Robin had had enough of climbing up and down companionways while wearing water-soaked clothing. We drove home through a driving rainstorm on the M27, came gratefully into our hotel room, decorated its radiators with our various items of outerwear, and breathed great sighs of relief.

Later, we ventured out for a Chinese dinner down the street -- it had stopped raining, finally -- and still later, we went out to the pub with friends. The day ended a whole lot better than it started!

Cars, Ferries, Trains, and Even a Bicycle!

Today's adventure started with a drive through the New Forest to Hythe. We parked the car there and walked to the Hythe Ferry terminal, which is just what we did on the day we were married. Again today we rode the little electric train from the terminal to the end of the 640-meter pier and boarded the ferry for the 10-12 minute ride to Southampton. On our wedding day, I made the trip in full wedding regalia, and I felt like royalty. Everybody wanted to wish me well and shake my hand. This time, I was dressed much less formally, but the trip was still fun. Robin and I sat in the second-to-last compartment on the train. Another couple sat in the last compartment, but there was no wall between us -- just different sets of wooden benches. When we were perhaps halfway down the pier, a man rode past us on a bicycle, only the top half of him visible; moving just barely faster than we were, so that he reminded us of the scene in The Wizard of Oz when the witch bicycles past Dorothy in the middle of the tornado. We burst out laughing. That was a great way to start our journey.

When we got off the ferry in Southampton, we immediately boarded the Isle of Wight ferry (the slow one) for the trip to Cowes. That took about 50 minutes; I enjoyed reading my book along the way; when we got off, we discovered that we were in East Cowes. Oops. We really wanted to be in West Cowes. By land, we would have had to take a bus all the way to Newport, then back to Cowes, which would have taken at least an hour. It turned out that there is a chain ferry running from right beside the ferry terminal -- and it's free! So we boarded the chain ferry and rode across the open sea to West Cowes, a journey of about three minutes' duration.

We walked along the esplanade to Egypt Point; watching the birds, boats, and ships ply the water; huddling against a biting wind; keeping a watchful eye on the darkening sky. Along the way, we stopped to eat the pasties that we had bought down by the pier. I took pictures of everything except the pasties.

After a brief rest at the outward end of our walk, we turned around and walked back to the pier, caught the fast ferry, and rode back to Southampton in 25 minutes. This ride was much bouncier than the first one. I did not read. From there, it was another 10-12 minutes back to Hythe. When we got off the ferry, Robin rode the train back to the terminal, but I walked the length of the pier so that I could find the plank we had had carved. [I should explain that a sand dredge ran into the pier a few years ago -- a case of drunk driving -- and there was a campaign to raise funds for the repair of the pier. That's how we came to have a plank of our very own.]

A quick stop at Waitrose for groceries; another ride through the forest; and here we are, safe and sound in Lyndhurst.

A Day Off

Today was another family day. We didn't go to visit any cathedrals or cities, or do anything exciting, really -- just climbed into the car and went to Hythe in the rain, had a good long (and happy) chat, and came home in the rain. That being the case, I decided to take the day off from blogging. I mean, really, how much do you folks want to know about a day like that?

Then it occurred to me that this might be the time to display some photographs that didn't make it into the posts of the days on which they were taken (and probably some that did, but which I've forgotten posting).

So here goes:

First of all, here us one of the bridges
that we encountered along the canal.
The thing about these bridges is that they seem big when you're crossing them, but when you approach them in a boat, they appear to shrink, so that by the time you get to them, they're about the size of a can of soup. You may also notice that on one side, the tow path pokes out from the wall, giving you one more obstacle to avoid.

I seem to have a thing for reflections.

These poor horses were as wet as we were, but they had no central heating out in the field.

So were these guys, but they didn't seem to mind.

Sunshine!












St. Michael (Coventry Cathedral)








 

Rugby School

Rugby High Street (pedestrian mall)

Captain Robin

What a lovely day that was.

Driving in the New Forest is always an adventure

In St. Michael's Churchyard, Lyndhurst







And finally, this little video I shot on the Isle of Wight. I could have stood and watched the water for hours.