Rock cakes

The second part of our last full day on the island was given over to packing and cleaning up, but the first part saw us in Yaverland and Sandown. And we finally managed to take two of the fine rock cakes, with sugar sprinkles, to be had from the beach café at Yaverland. After which we strolled down the esplanade to Sandown.

Rather more people about than there had been the previous week, probably because the school summer holidays had started. There was also a modest amount of jet ski activity.

Amused by the fake snapped above, some sort of cement or concrete dolled up to look like old timber. Not altogether clear from the snap, even zoomed, whether the iron clamps are for real or not. My guess is that while perhaps not real iron, they were added on, bolted on, to the otherwise completed casting.

While inside, there was a very impressive display of carex pendula, topped off by some imports from some hot country. Unfortunately for BH, the bandstand café, behind the camera and which she had rather liked for its fine views over the beach and the sea beyond, was firmly shut. Perhaps it will come back to life next year.

Crane action outside the park, behind the steel work for new flats already noticed.

A close-up. Four plus one axles. Four legs.

The once grand entrance to the once grand Ocean Hotel. Note the four pilasters and the other classical features. FIL & MIL probably stayed there at some point, on one of their coach-enabled holidays, and we may well have eaten there with them at some point. As I recall, old-style cafeteria food, served by waiters and waitresses to give it a bit of class. Possibly one of the places with holes punched in the roof when viewed from the other side, the sea side.

Sandown was not always as run-down as at might appear now, with the plaque above offering a selection of visiting celebrities, not least that founding leftie, one K. Marx.

The nearby Sainsbury's could manage olive bread and a Guardian but had nothing in the way of greens. For that I had to go to the Co-op, nearly missing them there because they were in a glass fronted cool cupboard, rather than on open display. Perhaps someone should write a social history of the demise of the green vegetable over the half century from, say, 1950. Taking in the large supply of fen-grown greens for sale in the Cambridge market of my childhood, quite possibly mostly being sold by the people who grew the stuff.

Picnic'd on the olive bread in the sea facing bus-shelter like shelter on the way back to Yaverland. From where we clocked the large but confusing passenger vessel previously noticed at reference 2. Notice which, I might say, is still generating emails advertising cruises. Which prompts the thought that one might have hoped that people with enough money to cruise would have enough sense not to spend quality time squirting global warming into the sky and other stuff into the sea. On the other hand, spending quality time flying would be even worse and as it is they are providing employment for lots of young men and women from the Philippines, young men and women who might otherwise be tempted to become migrants. Boat people even.

Home for another round of bottle stew, from the same stable as that previously noticed at reference 1.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/07/bottle-cooking.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/07/shipping-news.html.