Back to Yaverland

A week or so ago, we made it back to the beach at Yaverland, stopping at the church at Brading on the way. That is to say the church, the church hall and the church farm, with the piano in the church hall having already been noticed at reference 1. Does caretaker get into her job description?

The church sheep.

The rather fancy church goats, just about visible middle left. A community project in the field next to the church, in the care of an enthusiastic lady parson who also has care of two other churches, besides this one in Brading.

Some of the older parts of the graveyard have been left unmowed, so a good growth of grass and other plants. Maybe they cut it once a year or so to stop brambles and the like taking over, but it looks well enough now. Sensible enough to my mind, with very few if any of these older graves still being attended by relatives.

A large, old cherry tree, complete with a modest number of ripening cherries. An orangey red rather than the deep crimson of the cherries we have been buying from Spain and Greece.

And so onto Yaverland where we parked in the municipal car park, right on the beach. Rather dearer than parking in the car park across the road, mainly intended for the tiger zoo across the road, now rebranded as the Wildheart Animal Sanctuary, as at reference 2. To be fair to them, I think the tigers always were rescue animals, that is to say no longer wanted pets from people with more money than sense.

Hundreds of boats on the horizon, sailing from right to left, that is to say north, some of which can be seen if you click to enlarge the snap above. No trace there of the light sea mist which was coming and going all day. We were told that it was the day of the round the island yacht race with some 1,200 participants and it seems that the fastest boats do the 50 odd (nautical) miles in just over four hours. So fast, but not as fast as the boat at reference 4. While on this day, I saw a catamaran which probably was not fast enough to do the four hours and an old style gaff rigged sloop which certainly wasn't, despite sporting a genoa. Read all about it at reference 3. 

On this occasion the cliffs towards and at Culver Cliff seemed very alive, with the results of lots of action, past and present to be seen.

The red cliff, as tall and stark close to as ever.

There was also a fair breeze, which occasioned a small discovery. There is a common enough phrase about the wind whistling in one's ears. So on this occasion, if I pointed my nose in the right direction, relative to the wind, I did indeed hear a whistling in my ears. I then thought that there was some elementary physics about what happens if you blow across the top of an open tube, that is to say the wind blowing across the aural orifice. Sadly, I cannot now recover this physics. Plenty of stuff about how blowing across the top of a milk bottle can produce a whistle, the pitch of which can be varied by putting various amounts of water in the bottle. Suggestions that the presence of water might be necessary, that it was doing more than vary the amount of air. Not the Venturi effect? Maybe the Bernoulli effect? Maybe something to do with the Helmholtz resonator? Maybe something to be looked into on a dull winter's evening.

One hardy sun worshipper, male. One buzzard like bird. Two thrush-like birds in the rocks at the foot of a chalk part of the cliffs. Thrush-like but dark, with what seemed like longer and narrower beaks. As is usually the case, RSPB identification guide failed me, and it and Bing between them only turned up various rather unlikely exotics. A fieldfare which had got a bit lost?

One dog walker who seemed very knowledgeable about what would be involved in getting around the point, deploying various climbing words as he told us all about it. Including telling us that at one point you had to get past a deep pool at the foot of the cliff, getting out of which would be challenging, should you happen to fall in.

Lunch in the cafe took the form of one of their excellent rock cakes, followed by bacon sandwiches, all taken Covid-style.

Later on we turned out for pizzas (and unwanted football) from the Bugle, only bothering with food on Saturday night, and then not bothering with a menu. So pizza nights, curry nights and so on. But fine.

Wheatsheaf still there, despite never seeming to be busy. Kynges Well, formerly the Dark Horse (for ten year old notice of which see reference 6), shut up and boarded up. Heima of reference 5, now long gone, replaced by the Hungry Bear, the proprietors of which have graduated from residencies (if you please) at farm shops. They looked to be doing pretty well. Perhaps as well as residencies at farm shops they do curation of menus.

The next day, the broad beans and tomatoes turned out very well. Not least because, for the first time, we went in for cooking the big hard beans a few minutes longer than the little soft beans. Perhaps the most expensive broad beans we have ever eaten, being bought by the 100g as if they were sweets, but no complaints as they were the first broad beans we have had for a while.

We also learned that while the water on the Isle of Wight is presumably hard, there being plenty of chalk about, some of it very close to the surface, even inland, it is nothing like as hard as at Epsom. No scum or slick on the tea, no tough stains to the sides of white mugs.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/07/piano-45.html.

Reference 2: https://wildheartanimalsanctuary.org/.

Reference 3: http://www.roundtheisland.org.uk/web/code/php/main_c.php?section=home.

Reference 4: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/07/boss-boat.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/07/heima.html.

Reference 6: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2010/07/round-up-on-holiday-grub.html.