Osborne House

The big outing after Godshill model village was Osborne House, in part because of the picture noticed at reference 1.

The church

The impedimenta

The dance floor

First stop, St. Mildred's of Whippingham, Prince Albert's pet church. Tea and cake in the fine little tea room in the car park adjacent, complete with a walled garden which would be ideal for summer functions: church fêtes, weddings, garden parties and village hops.

Unfortunately we had to skip the church as a trusty was lecturing a bus load of pensioners, occupying most of the nave. A form of entertainment which is rarely to my taste.

Drain cover

Onto the car park of Osborne House proper where we found a very unusual drain cover. Perhaps Prince Albert tried his hand at those as well - and I dare say the people at Aylesbury would have been pleased to get his custom. Pity about the new surround.

Camping coach from Germany

We were pleased to find that the camping coach from Germany was back, which we had first seen, at roughly the same place and time, some years previously. See references 2 and 3. There was someone on the coach but I did not like to climb on and ask for a tour, interesting though that might have been.

Smoking den - outside

Smoking den - inside

Onto to the rather grand smoking den, built at the corner of the house by the fag-hating Queen Victoria for one of her sons. Shabby and seemingly unused inside. A pity the trusties can't bend the rules a bit, show a sense of humour and reopen the place for its original purpose. Plead heritage, live performance (the luvvies exemption, not as much exercised now as it was in the first flush of the ban) or something of the sort.

Saint Felicitas - 19th century version

Saint Felicitas - 15th version (also German)

Onto the house proper, to admire the mid 19th century painting of Saint Felicitas/y and her seven sons, with her getting her sainthood for being beheaded with her seven sons in the second century. Subsequently buried in one of the catacombs in Rome. But clearly good breeding stock. And another magic seven to be added to my collection of same - for which, for example, see references 4 and 5. The first snap is taken from the house, the second from Wikipedia, by way of comparison. Sadly we made a mistake with the date, which is the 10th July, rather than the 9th which we thought it was, the day that we visited.

Jam jar

At this point, late morning, we decided that it was far too crowded to enjoy the house properly. And too hot to play tourist outside, so snoozed in the shade of a large tree until it was time for lunch in the Orangery. We got the feeling that this last had been moved down a notch, it not getting enough custom in its original clothes, but it was still entirely satisfactory. And the large, airy room with its large windows has not changed. With my taking sausage and mash for mains, something called a Bakewell sponge for dessert, washed down with a spot of Pinot Grigio. Sausage and mash being quite a reliable dish in the sort of middling restaurants that we tend to use; one only has to remember to ask for the gravy on the side, so as not to have the flavour of the sausages drowned in some rich, red and sugary goo. And sometimes the sausages themselves are rather too strongly flavoured - although not on this occasion.

While BH was not best pleased to have her pink flavoured water served in a sort of jam jar. Not really a jam jar as it had been made for a handle for its present use: all rather silly really and I almost scored it as a fake. Heavy and with a thick lip not very pleasant on one's own lips. And not very hygienic, although I suppose in these days of near boiling water in washing up machines, it is OK. A sort of jam jar which seems to be sweeping through the catering world, rather as square plates did a few years ago. I am pleased to be able to say that she was happy enough with the rest of her lunch.

After which, back to the entrance to start at the beginning of the one-way system again. A system which I find tiresome, but which one has to put up with in heritage places which are busy. And by this time most of the morning coaches had gone on their way, and there was far less bunching in the queues.

A lady of Leeds

As noted at reference 1, plenty of fleshy paintings and bibelots. Presumably Victoria & Albert were only unusual in this regard in that they had plenty of money and got given plenty of expensive presents - and everyone who could afford it was at it. From where I associated to the bronze ladies outside Leeds railway station, much more striking, all rather raw, when I first came across them than they are now. Checking with Bing and Google, it took a little while to find them at all, but it seems that they are the work of one Alfred Drury who lived from the middle of the nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth and, according to Wikipedia, an English architectural sculptor and figure in something called the New Sculpture movement. It seems that there were nine of these ladies, and I recall them once being arranged in a circle, maybe 25 yards in diameter, so perhaps they have been moved as part as some remodelling of the town centre. Perhaps also the memory is playing tricks.

Anglo-Cork

A bit hot and bothered by the time we had finished with the house, so we spent very little time in the gardens and grounds, handsome though they are. But enough time to notice that the liriodendrum tulipifera there was a lot less scraggy than I remembered, middle right in the snap above, although not particularly healthy or vigorous. But the cork oak in the foreground seemed to be doing well; perhaps the north of the Isle of Wight is not that different from the parts of Portugal where they thrive.

I had thought that I had snapped the tree in Osborne a few years back, which would have done for comparison, but no trace now.

Back home to Brading, where we took another look at the church, scoring the piano at reference 7. And a quick walk round the stuff up for sale the next day in the HRD auction rooms of reference 6. Higher grade car boot stuff - which is perhaps where some of it will end up, having been bought up wholesale and sorted out a bit.

Tinned salmon salad for tea, which was very satisfactory. Although I am fairly fussy about cleaning the tinned salmon of all the bits, bobs and bones which do not, for me, add to the experience. But cleaned and mashed up with a little rape seed oil, it did very well.

PS: memory not so defective on this occasion, with the snapped tree in Osborne, or label to be more exact, now run to ground. A running which involved a quick visit to the archives. See reference 8.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/07/piano-16.html.

Reference 2: https://www.rotel.de/. The front page shows a far more exotic location than the Isle of Wight. The sort of place where one really can see the point of such a bus.

Reference 3: http://psmv2.blogspot.com/2014/07/osborne-revisited.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/01/a-new-puzzle.html. A new seven for the New Year.

Reference 5: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/08/old-sevens.html.

Reference 6: http://www.hrdauctionrooms.co.uk/.

Reference 7: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/07/piano-17.html.

Reference 8: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2016/07/tulip-tree-1.html.