Osborne

This being notice of a visit to Osbourne House, near East Cowes on the Isle Wight. A visit made on rather a hot day, our last attempt of the holiday to be seriously out and about in the heat of the middle of the day. A visit which was productive of both pianos and Wellingtonia, as previously noticed under the umbrella of the search key given below.

We took the country route there, which included driving along the eastern half of the spine of the island. All very scenic, and including the sea mark of Ashey Down. Actually visited last year, along with its monster mushrooms, as noticed at reference 1.

Three coaches were there by the time we arrived at Osborne, with more booked to arrive. Lots of people going through the barriers, but they did not segregate us members into a fast lane, as they do in some of these heritage places in Surrey.

Inside to find it all very crocodilian and slow, which I find very tiresome. Quite a lot more roping off than there was in the era before the plague. While I like to be able to wander about a bit more. But I was to be reminded that the late monarch's children - or perhaps their successors - appeared to have played with the very same skittles that I had as a child. Pity the two wooden balls were missing. In any event, I do remember this afternoon that, as a four or five year old, my skittle set had an erotic charge. Maybe that was before the Freudian latency set in - a latency which I believe people are not so keen on these days. See reference 2.

The book said that the plaster peacock, top centre, absorbed some huge number of man-hours. In effect, a royal job creation scheme. While a young lady, who must have just learned to count, was much more interested in demonstrating that she could count the number of places at table. Which on the evidence of this snap was much larger than the 13 which used to get Lillie's Bertie - that is to say Victoria's eldest son - in a lather - once only placated by reminding him that one of the guests was pregnant and so counted as two.

Crocodilian and slow enough that we skipped the middle floors, containing the naughty pictures that the royal couple used to give each other as birthday presents.

Them apart, I wondered what the large party of Spanish schoolchildren, perhaps in their early teens, made of it all. Did they think that their day had been well spent? Aside: I had to ask one of their minders where they came from, with my completely failing to recognise the language, although I had thought Portuguese was possible. Used to be better at that sort of thing. And I remember this afternoon that my elder brother was very good at recognising European languages, much better than I ever was, even though he spoke none of them, bar a little Russian.

House done, down to view the heritage bathing shed, catching this rather feeble Carex pendula on the way. No sheep to be seen anywhere, despite the sheep fence visible bottom right. Nor did they seem to be cutting any grass for hay.

Bought a sandwich in the hut next to the bathing shed, which we were able to take in the shade. Then down to sit on the beach and admire the goings on in the Solent. Let's hope that the ship snapped above will be acquiring some more LNG tanks in the course of the year, as it looks like we are going to need them.

There was also a much smaller vessel, looking and painted like a harbour master's boat, something naval or something customs flavoured. A tug or a pilot boat? No.45 or thereabouts. That was not enough for identification, but the snap above turned up by Bing gives the general idea, even if the number is both wrong and in the wrong place.

We made several shade stops on the way back up to the terrace garden, during one of which we were intrigued by the state of the fence post snapped above. But in the hear, too dopey to go and take a proper look. Up top, that is to the right in the snap above, the cool looking terrace restaurant, perhaps once a ballroom, where we have lunched in the past, was open for sitting, but not for serving. Presumably no easier for them to get staff than anyone else.

Shelter after the heat of the walled garden. A little run down, but entirely satisfactory, complete with a reflection of BH. The walled garden was a little run down too, as the gardens are in most of these places, recovering from the lean plague years as they are.

Lots of handsome trees in the vicinity of the shelter, including the cedar, the middle part of which is snapped above.

By the time we left, there were seven coaches in the car park and rather more camper vans.

Home to stew made with Kosovan sausage - from Clapham Junction - and orange lentils from Sainsbury's.

PS: I feel sure that I have noticed these skittles before, but they don't seem to have made it to these pages. Search of the archive reveals five 'beer and skittles' and one 'clothes and skittles', for a change. This last might have been an allusion the the amount of money the Tudor rich were prepared to spend on clothes, the occasion being Hampton Court Palace. Furthermore, I don't suppose 'beer and skittles' is a phrase that anyone under sixty is likely to use. Seems perfectly natural to me.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/08/sea-mark.html.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latency_stage.

Group search key: oba.