Swell

As PY was out of the house, I had to go through the process of locking up before heading out on my morning walk. Another quick stop at the little Tesco at Wimbledon Chase (raspberries and cashew nuts today) before completing the same loop I have done all week.

Our requirements and solutions team meeting - which is 90 minutes to run though tickets and upcoming stories between a small group of us - was uneventful.  When PY returned, soup was prepared for lunch and the kitchen doors that are destined for The Island were removed from the box in which they’d been delivered to us, separated and bubbled wrapped, so that we could transport them by train to Ryde.

I did a bit of personal admin today; the kind of thing I keep in a pile and then need to address. Unfortunately, I discovered that I’d missed the deadline to apply to be a Team London volunteer this year. I am not sure why I had it in my head that the deadline was the end of the month.  Hopefully, it won’t prevent me from volunteering next year.

We made the platform for the 5:13pm train to Guildford with the hope that it would be tonight’s route to The Island and we’d catch the 7:20pm boat. Unfortunately, it was delayed enough to mean that we’d miss the connection and so we opted for the slightly more convoluted Surbiton-Woking route which seemed to be running to time.  We tried to get coffee at Woking but everywhere was closed and the vending machines for a cold drink were not working. On the Woking to Portsmouth Harbour train we had plenty of room to spread across two rows which was needed as the kitchen doors being transported don’t fit anywhere easily. At the Wightlink terminal for 19:40. It was pretty quiet when we walked in as we’d missed the earlier boat. 

The boat was on time and, even with the influx of passengers from the later connecting train, it was pretty quiet which was, like the train, nice because we had space for the doors.  Even though the weather was calm, and only a little drizzle that we noticed as we were boarding, the crossing was quite bumpy. A swell from the south west - or something along those lines- the captain said. It’s only noticeable because the crossing is usually so smooth. 

We were last to disembark; keeping out of the way of the people with suitcases. But when we got into the pier itself we could still feel the rain. For once, we jumped into one of the minibuses that act as a rail replacement service while the track is being renewed between Ryde Pier Head and Esplanade. It dropped us off beyond the roadworks and,  probably, took away half of our walk back to the flat.  It made transporting the doors easier even if she driver nearly pulled away with the bags in the boot. 

In to the house for 9pm, settled with a stir fry and a glass of white wine.