psmv4: Wash-up from the other island

Some bits and bobs left over from our recent visit.

Red bugs at it

Five visits to the beach at Yaverland in the course of our fortnight, involving four swims on three occasions. We took a while to get going on the first occasion, but the water was warm enough after that. The small number of jellyfish on the beach at low tide were not enough to put us off and we never saw one in the water.

Several visits to the beach café at Yaverland, which was just cranking up to seven day opening, which lasts for about six weeks. Rock cakes as good as ever, but they do sell out by the end of the afternoon, reducing us to Dorset apple cake on one occasion - but a perfectly acceptable substitute.

One walk up towards Culver Point, in the course of which we snapped the bugs above. Lots of white flowers and lots of bugs.

One warship, exercising on the horizon. Puzzled by the amount of gear and stuff aft, but I guess a frigate. In which case, necessarily a Type 23 frigate according to reference 1.

Not much in the way of raptors, but on one occasion we had a lot of swallows over the beach, straying from the marshes behind the beach. And at one point, a clutch of small goldfinches in some bushes outside Dinosaur Island.

One big change was the migration from the council car park on the sea side of the main road to the car park attached to the zoo on the land side of the main road. Which had the advantage of being £2 cheaper for the day, the disadvantage of have parking machines on which you had to read the instructions before you could use them. Very challenging to the older brain in bright sunlight.

One return visit to the Beach Shack at Sandown (reference 2) for a respectable crab sandwich. Declined alcohol.

A chine fern of some sort

Ornamental knotweed

Not a cow parsley, but branching like one

A first, and entirely satisfactory, crab sandwich visit to the Lookout Café at Shanklin, after descending the famous Chine. Chosen because it had a quiet and cool interior. Lazy Wave and Fisherman's Cottage public house declined; the first because it meant sitting in the sun, the second because they were into meals rather than snacks.

Blocked off door

A couple of visits to the church of St. John the Baptist at Yaverland. We noticed that the door snapped above had been blocked. Presumably, having a church so near was handy when it rained, but having a door so convenient meant that there were too many visits by worthy curates.

Horned Moses, exterior

Horned Moses, interior

It seems that when translating the Old Testament from the Hebrew into the Latin, some holy father made a mistake, with the result that Moses acquired horns. It became the custom to depict him horned, a custom which was retained long after the mistake was uncovered.

Paint soaked off the top, level rather down

Having liked his wine from Slovenia (a Movia Exto Gredič 2012 from Brda in Slovenia. See references 3 and 4), we returned to Meadowdale wines to take another half dozen (leaving him with just three) and topped up with a blind date with a couple of bottles of Tenuta di Castellaro Bianco Pomice 2011 from Sicily. The first bottle of the latter went down very well, as did the first two bottles of the former - although, sadly, one of the six bottles had leaked somewhere along the line, losing maybe the top inch; perhaps that is what one calls corked. But we decided against complaining long distance, at least if all the other bottles are OK. And who knows, maybe the bottle that leaked will be OK?

A solitary

Family parties

Ecclesiastical clock

From there onto the Abbey at Quarr, where one suspects that they are having trouble keeping going, with few if any new vocations. What was the stable block has been turned into a craft centre and shop and the café in the garden seems rather bigger and grander than it was. And included an ecclesiastical clock incorporating the magic number seven. There were also some very engaging pigs, which children were allowed to feed.

Side passage

The inside of the main church was as impressive as ever, and cracks in the brickwork much less visible than I had remembered. After that, down a path at the side to find, for the first time, a small and quiet chapel, somewhere under the east end. Most impressive, but it did not seem proper to take snaps there.

Cafeteria

After Quarr, to Ryde to take a fine baked potato with cheese in the café between the swimming pool and the boating lake (of the swans. See reference 5). A proper, old style beach cafeteria, although it had moved with the times to the extent of being licensed.