80

It was PY’s Dad’s 80th birthday yesterday and, today, we went to Southampton to see him and celebrate. The aim was to cook roast beef and have a ‘proper roast’.  I thought pairing this visit with some time on the Island would make a lot of sense. Southampton isn’t really that far from The Island and, if we were around the coast in Cowes we’d have a direct connection.  As it is, it shouldn’t be that complicated to get from Ryde to Southampton via Portsmouth.  Using public transport is not always that simple.

We had a 50 minute wait at Portsmouth once we’d made the crossing. We used this time to pick up some wine for the party, a cake and I even managed to do some shopping in the Marks & Spence outlet store.  Then we made our way to Hedge End and to Trevor’s house. We were carrying the present that I’d brought up on Thursday night - a personalised beer keg for the outdoor bar.

When we arrived, there were some banners on the gates. The neighbours had set it all up the day before and walking down the drive there were balloons.  The existence of a portaloo made us wonder if this was a bigger party than expected but that turned out to be for some unconnected building work next door.

Later, the neighbours came for drinks. By this point I think I’d reached a limit on eating and drinking and kept having to say no to offered drinks and snacks and by 9:15pm we had to leave to head for the train. The journey home was much longer than coming as we’d decided to spend the extra time with family and, therefore, catch the slower car ferry back.   When we arrived at Hedge End station there were already delays to the train so we started to get worried that me might end up stranded in Portsmouth until the middle of the night.  Luckily, we made it into Portsmouth Harbour with just enough time to walk through Gunwharf Quays to the car ferry,  We boarded and settled in to the 45-minute crossing with a hot chocolate.

The crossing was uneventful. I had, however, misread the bus timetable and thought there would be a bus to meet us in Fishbourne. Unfortunately, it seems that the only bus that is scheduled to come in to the ferry port doesn’t connect with any of the ferries currently running. Given that there is only one bus a week (I assume for the Saturday night crowd coming back from Portsmouth) and that doesn’t connect, it all seems very disjointed. So we had to take the walk to the main road with a handful of other people. I’d assumed that we would miss the next scheduled bus to Ryde but it seems that it was running late and, with  a bit of hand-waving, eight or ten people boarded for the journey into Ryde,

Eventually we were home three hours after leaving Hedge End which is only 15 mile away.  Getting used to the connections for Island life may take some more getting used to.