Bus

When we are in the flat on The Island, I am very conscious of noise that he other flats will hear.  The floors are wooden and, if upstairs is stomping around or moving furniture, it’s very audible. So, when PY had a wash on before 10am on a Sunday I worry the neighbours are being woken.  Nonetheless, once the wash was done we went down to the seafront to The Beach House cafe and bought a couple of breakfast buns (bacon and egg for PY and sausage and egg for me) which were delicious.  It was nice sitting out near the marina looking out to sea.  The visit was spoiled only by a a man insisting on taking the table I was heading for so that his party could spread out across multiple tables for breakfast. And they only say down for a couple of minutes.  It wasn’t so much his jumping on a table and unnecessarily  spreading himself out when space was limited, it was the attitude that nobody else matters - only his group of eight and the dog, 

Afterwards, we walked up to the Isle of Wight Bus and Coach museum, a free-to-visit attraction with around 20 historic vehicles that all ran on the Isle of Wight at some point; mainly, but not all, under the Southern Vectis banner. The place is run by volunteers who were were incredibly knowledgeable and friendly; some of whom still drove buses. Some of the vehicles are waiting restoration, a couple in the workshop are at various stages of deconstruction and there are plenty to see wandering around the museum proper. The building is a former bus depot so, itself, has a transport history. It’s interesting comparing the styles of bus that ran on The Island against those that I remember from my childhood. In Wigan, we didn’t have the double decker with the strange sunken upper floor that was designed to accommodate some of the low bridges on The Island.  

When I was little I used to have a fleet book (I think that’s what they were called) that listed all the registrations of buses run by the former Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive. It was like train spotting only easier as you could do it from the back of Mum and Dad’s car as we were driven around. I was surprised to see that there are number of this kind of book still available in the little shop at the museum’s exit. I would have thought bus spotting had died out.

We had lunch at home - more crab pate because it was so delicious yesterday -  and then did a bit of cleaning until we left on the 16:45 ferry with onward connection at 17:32 and home about 18:15. A quick run to the shops discovered that the two main supermarkets nearby were out of butter beans but the corner shop is ever useful for such things.  An episode of Full Discolour with Carol Voderman was a lovely listen on the train on the way back. She is quite passionate about fighting the pocket-lining that goes on by som politicians. 

After dinner we started watching Why Didn't They Ask Evans? on ITVX.   It was adapted and directed by Hugh Laurie. Looking forward to the next one.