Miles

Last year I set myself the goal of taking a Blip everyday and writing a little bit of commentary. I'm delighted that I took the all the photos but I didn't quite write all the entries Nonetheless,  I have an uploading backlog and last year is only completed to October. I intend to backfill but am starting 2023 with a daily entry so that I am not continually showing three-month old pictures. 

In the flat we have a very limited set of kitchen stuff - although I have mentioned the air fryer a few times. We have an air fryer because there has been an issue getting a new oven wired in and we can’t stay here for more than a day or two with only a microwave and a pan.  And I totally understand why they have been hard to get hold off this year: they seem much more efficient than a full oven for small things and we’re all worrying about The Cost Of Living Crisis. A wonder if that will continue to be a thing in 2023?  

Anyway, we used this very limited kitchen equipment to make toasted muffins with wilted spinach and poached eggs for breakfast. And they were delicious. 

After breakfast we set off for a New Year’s Day walk. We had plans to walk to Sandown where there were some fireworks this evening.  The walk started well: along the beach by the sea where I wrote 2023 in the sand - probably because I’d seem somebody do it on Instagram - and we got beyond Seaview before we encountered part of the route - the Costal Path - that sent us into a field.  The field was a bit boggy underfoot. If it had been a movie there would have been some foreboding music. 

At the bottom of the field was a path that was a sodden quagmire.  We pulled out a map and wondered if this was the best route.  I took three steps onto the path and could tell that my shoes were not going to get me further. We abandoned that route and found a road. But many of the roads on the Isle of Wight are not really suitable for walking along and we’d found one with a lot of standing water so risked being soaked at any point by passing traffic. Eventually we made our way to St Helen’s Common  then on to Bembridge Harbour and along the waterside looking at the houseboats - and other waterside properties - before getting to Bembridge proper.  

We had hoped a cafe  would be open but, sadly, there wasn’t one but we found The Old Village Inn and settled in for a well-earned pitstop as we were about 6 miles in.  I had pizza, PY had the roast pork and we earwigged on a family playing Uno behind us.  After lunch we realised that we still had about 3 hours walking, a lot of it seemed like it would take us over land likely to be boggy and it was unlikely to be light for the whole journey.  So, we looked up the bus times and Souther Vectis took us toward Sandown.

We got off the bus at Yaverland wand walked into the town. It was starting to rain so we dived into The Bay, a vegan cafe, for coffee (and PY had cake),  We decided that waiting another couple of hours in the rain for fireworks was not that appealing when there was a train back to Ryde. So we diverted to the station, which looked quite pretty lit up and is today’s picture, and boarded an empty train. I think we were the only passengers for most of the journey.

A lovely way to start the new year even if the original plan was slightly ambitions.  Back for a couple of hours on the sofa wondering what all the banging in the upstairs flat is all about while listing to the radio with an interview with Robbie Williams, The Victoria Wood Songbook and Celebrating 20 Years of Bombay Dreams!