Day Four: My birthday!
The day started lazily, in front of the back doors, on the
sofa doing some crochet with a hot chocolate. And then a dog appeared! We still
have no idea where this pup came from or who it belonged to, but it liked the
fuss.
We headed off to the Garlic Farm as we had been told that
this is a great place to see red squirrels. I admired their nice woven fences
and David admired the samples of garlic & chilli hot sauce they had for
people to try. After buying garlics in the shop for my allotment, and my second
christmas present for someone else, we headed into the café for a birthday
cream tea. It was very lovely and just as we finished up, we saw a red
squirrel!! And black pigeons!! And two white peacocks!! I’m not sure what got
me most excited.
In the late afternoon we headed back towards Compton Beach
so that I could go hunting for dinosaur fossils. We found several huge
footprint impressions – though we were a bit disappointed that that was it. It was
quite an anti-climax with people telling us “oh you must go and see them!” and “this
is the best place for footprints!” etc etc. If you don’t know what you’re
looking for they are easy to miss, and David didn’t believe that they were
fossil footprints until he did a Google image search of them and compared them.
My birthday ended with me burning my finger on the oven
shelf as I retrieved an also burnt pizza, so top marks for me! Starting 31 as I
mean to go on…
Day Five: David’s birthday!
Yep. This day started lazily with crochet and a hot
chocolate too. It has been the most indulgent sort of week and I have no guilt
whatsoever over it.
We headed up to Cowes so David could look at all the
boats he wants but will never be able to afford. We went for a wander and found
a bakery café and I discovered almond croissants (YES – pastry with a hunk of
marzipan in the bottom? Get in my belly!!). It was hard to imagine what this
island must be like in tourist or sailing racing season. Most of the shops were
closed and it was pretty empty of all life.
After this we headed across to the Alpaca Centre primarily
so I could go yarn shopping. Reader: I did go yarn shopping. I bought four
balls of wool for making into gloves for David for christmas. The weather was
really nice; sunny but crisp, so we headed across to Totland Bay. We went for a
paddle! Before we went for a paddle we nearly fell down the steps as they were
slippy with seaweed and algae, and then after we went for a paddle we nearly
fell up the steps due to a big wave. It was all very exciting. We went for a
little walk in the sun, and we saw a hare! We could see all the way to
Bournemouth (very hazy in the distance).
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| heart eyes for days |
Day Six:
I wanted to go for a walk. We haven’t done much walking as
David is still in recovery from buggering up his knee a few months ago. Big
walks are not possible yet, so I found a short-ish walk we could do (thanks,
Google!). We headed to Borthwood Copse as the internet said this is a great
place to see red squirrels. Within five minutes of being in the wood we saw
two! We carried on walking and we got lucky with more squirrel sightings – we even
saw two having a territorial debate and a bit of a squabble.
I collected some big fat sweet chestnuts to try and grow (as
last years attempt didn’t work at all). We saw a huge clump of yellow stagshorn
fungus, and I generally just enjoyed being out in a woodland in the autumn. There
is a chance we walked around it a few times trying to find the right exit to
get back to the car. We also saw lots of red admiral butterflies still on the
wing!
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| Big trees. |
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| yellow stagshorn fungus |
We headed up towards Bembridge to find some lunch but
everywhere was shut / it wasn’t a lunchy type place. We did go and mooch in the
lifeboat station though, before heading back to Shanklin on the hunt for fish
and chips. I followed this up with a morello cherry & white chocolate chunk
ice cream.
Day Seven, aka the day that I had seven hot chocolates:
Our last full day. We headed up to Ryde. It rained. It was
sunny. It rained again. We got there. We saw a hovercraft!! So we had to wait
for it to come back so I could see it land, and then watch it leave again. I
LOVE THEM. It rained again. We got soaked.
We took refuge in a chocolate shop with café, and I had,
yep, another hot chocolate. This one was REALLY yummy. Davids mocha came in a
really sweet little cup. We explored the town, mooched in shops, read up about
weaver fish, and then found another café for lunch. Guess what I had!! A hot
chocolate! We learnt a new whippy cream technique from the café lady. We tried
this new technique as soon as we got home (hot choc #5) and IT WORKED. Game
changer.
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| Spot the weaver fish: pro-tip, you can't. |
We covered the radiators in all our soggy wet clothes and I had
a soak in the bath to warm through. We also cleaned the house and started
packing in preparation for leaving the next day. For dinner, we headed back
into Newport to visit a Wetherspoons. I probably had another hot chocolate or
two when we got home.
Day Eight:
Our going home day. I started with a hot chocolate – well, I
had to use up the rest of the chocolate curls and hot chocolate powder to
reduce what we had to bring home, right…?
The sun was glorious and warm, the sky nice and blue. The
ferry was delayed and the M27/M3 was awful.
When I got home I had a hot chocolate.
