Ryde

Ryde accounted for four of our holi-days, more than of any of our other destinations. All of these trips taken on the bus, our renewed skill with the necessary parking apps notwithstanding. And, oddly, the irregular bumping of the bus seemed to help with my present back troubles rather than otherwise. 

Also oddly, on none of these outings did we see fit to stop off at the big Tesco's on the way, despite the bus pulling right in on the way. Noting in passing, that near the end of our holiday we learned that there had been an even bigger Tesco's on the same site before, perhaps just about the time that we started going to the island. But it was too big, was ripped down and replaced with the current building, which is still pretty big. And smart looking to my mind.

This morning, I was not able to confirm this story, although Google did turn up the snap above from Flickr. Which is certainly suggestive of an older store in the vicinity of Ryde, built when they were going through their phase of disguising their giant sheds with funny roofs. And there were plenty of snaps of large Tesco's stores being demolished: clearly not into sentiment when the tills turn against them.

Day one was a day for strolling along the esplanade, perhaps taking in a little sand on the way. An esplanade where the council continues their smartening up operations, with some success. The roads around the train and bus station had been tided up, the flower beds were looking good and it was not raining.

Started on the harbour side.

Kicked off properly at the amusingly (re)named Café de Ryde at the western end of the boating pond, where there were, on this occasion some boats. They all looking pretty much the same to me, perhaps a racing class, about three feet long, four feet high and sloop rigged. Not terribly clever as a spectator sport.

The café had had a smart makeover in blue and white and was looking well. The  staff, however, were just working up and the toasted tea cake, supposed to be a speciality of such places, was poor. The cake was not of the best quality in the first place and they had not learned how to toast from frozen.

And so off down the esplanade, where there were plenty of dogs out for their Sunday constitutional. With owners taking varying amounts of care to read the instructions about dogs on beaches.

To find that Appley Tower, after being empty for a number of years, is finally being made over. A make over which probably does something about the absence of connections to mains services; mitigation at the very least.

A far cry from the rather scruffy rock & new age place where I once bought - for a fair sum as I recall - a twelve centimetre sphere of something with brown and white stripes, picked out with a touch of black. A sphere which still sits on the window sill to my left, after a spell on the back patio - although I have to say the spell outside did take the gloss off it a bit. More matt now. And despite the address given at the bottom of the snap above, to be found at reference 2. Not sure how Google play into this, but I am sorry now we did not bother to look them up while we were there. Hopefully next year.

And onto the Dell Café of reference 1, where we took a very decent crab sandwich. Despite being quite busy, the owner was pleased to be reminded him that we try and visit him once a year or so!

And so back to our bus, taking in various benches, dogs, sea and sand on the way. All very handsome and it failed to rain.

Day two was a festival of planning, in that we had noticed that in connection with the proposed development across the road from Tesco's - the orange spot middle right - there was to be a display at the Ryde Castle. The pale brown is the site in question, with the long tongue heading south bordering the railway line to Brading. A partially wooded site, presumably some landholding relic of the glory days of rail. The blue areas are developments already agreed, while the present proposals (to be found at reference 3) concern the core of the pale brown.

But to start at the beginning, woken up in the morning by the braying of our local donkey. Bus to Ryde, with entertainment on the way taking the form of a sofa either going into or coming out of an upstairs room of a secondhand furniture dealer. It all looked terribly precarious, with no rope and a chap balanced on top of a small truck. Another sort of precarious was what happened when a pair of double decker buses met at a tight corner and we learned that buses can turn pretty tight too. All a bit unnerving if you are sitting upstairs at the front

Made the mistake in a seafront cafe - perhaps the Alamo - of taking my bacon sandwich on brown. Perfectly good in its way, but not the same as a proper bacon sandwich on white. From there we made our way back to the top of the town, taking in these two grand town houses on the way, one of them sporting the sort of covered entrance which was clearly once all the thing here. With that house now being a care home.

I think a family would have to be pretty rich and pretty special needs to want to live in such a place now. Far too big and far too expensive.

Picked up the couple of kilos or so of broad beans previously mentioned, through the High Street and back down to the front, to take noodles in the noodle joint there. Preceded by some sort of confection involving toast, sesame seeds and prawns. Tasty and surprisingly filling. As were the fried rice and noodles which followed. Another place which we have visited occasionally in the past and which has not changed much over the years. A place where you write out your order by numbers on the special form provided, for the avoidance of doubt and worse. The Hong Kong Express of reference 4.

The planning display which followed was surprisingly low key. No presentations and no refreshments. just a bunch of developers and a fair number of interested locals. Nobody seemed to mind our gatecrashing, as it were. Interestingly, the developers were hired by the landowner and were not principals; the idea was to select a developer once (outline?) planning consent had been obtained.

The room used was the function room out the back of the Ryde Castle hotel, a place we have stayed in in the past and which made for a convenient pit-stop on this occasion. A large room, nicely fitted out, but one which had a low ceiling and which I would have thought would have got very hot in the course of a wedding on a summer's afternoon.

The discrete entrance to the side of the Ryde Castle. What has it seen over the years?

Day three revolved around around second hand books. First, there was the matter of Richard Church, already noticed at reference 6. Second, there was the matter of David Copperfield. As it happened, we had turned up a copy of this last for £3 at Shanklin a day or so previously. A decently enough produced book, probably part of a cheap collected edition from Odhams, but no clues as to date that I could find. In any event, with small print on cheap paper, which I found a bit heavy going. Clearly matters for the Ryde Bookshop, a place we usually manage to visit most years.

Catholic Church opposite first, which was handsome enough, but which seemed a bit sombre on this occasion. Perhaps I have got too used to the fancier churches of London, perhaps the Anglo-Catholic place in Margaret Street, by Oxford Circus. Two people at prayer, which I found a bit intimidating in this relatively small space. Two real candles at the altar. And one flickering sanctuary light to the side of the altar, white rather than the red that is proper.

After which the bookshop excelled itself. Two volumes of Church autobiography, the Hampshire volume of the County series and a proper reading copy of David Copperfield from the Readers Digest, a well made book (from the US), if a little florid, for the reasonable sum of £3.50. Snapped above with the other one left.

I also got a handy pull-out guide to this monument of world literature, right in the snap above, and an afterword by Somerset Maughan, who offered the opinion that while it was indeed a great book, this was despite Copperfield being a bit of a prat. I would not say that I am tanking through it, but I am making steady progress, now perhaps a bit more than a quarter of the way through. Not really my thing, too episodic, too improbable and too highly coloured - but I will get there.

I notice in passing that George Elliot appears to have adapted her Casaubon story line in 'Middlemarch' from a similar line here, from some twenty years previously.

Out to notice the curious design of the frontage of the Citadel. A relic of the days when there was plenty of business to be had from the recreational traffic arising from the dockyard and naval base across the water. Next door to the broad bean emporium previously noticed.

On to French Frank's for coffee and croissant. Then past the grand window by one of the entrances to Wetherspoon's, presumably a relic of its days as a shop. No doubt all is explained inside. The sort of curved glass window which was still common enough in shops when I was young in Cambridge, but we don't see them much now in the suburbs of London.

Settled on a bottle of water and an olive flavoured loaf from Sainsbury's for lunch, a loaf which turned out to be edible enough but rather undercooked - not something we had noticed with the white bread from Tesco's.

Taken, appropriately enough, in range of what I took to be an olive down on the Esplanade. except that, while that is what I have always thought, from a couple of close-ups of the leaves, one of which is included below, Google Images plumped for willow. From the snap above of the tree entire it went for olive.

I might say that while I did find a few sprigs of what might have been olives that did not make it, I was not very sure. So while I think I still go for olive, it being an odd place to plant a willow, I am no longer confident. Need to take another look.

We also had a small party of well dressed and cheerful ladies down from somewhere in London, perhaps for the day. Clearly bent on having a good time, which included their asking me to take a snap of them from behind, standing in a line on a low wall, doing a sort of jig together. Hindi speaking they told me.

A bit of a turn on the fine beach and so home - probably to broad beans. And to the pyramid orchids of reference 8.

Day four was an expedition to the end of the pier to check out the Chatteris twins, last noticed at the end of reference 9. Chatteris being a place in the wilds of the fens of north Cambridgeshire, perhaps once important in the world of railway engineering. We could have caught the train to the end of the pier from Brading, but we elected to take the bus and walk the pier. Much more proper. Not quite as long as would appear in the snap above, but a good length all the same, with a regular supply of bus shelters for seat & shelter, should need arise.

The curious arrangement of the tower of the church at Brading, as seen on the way to the bus stop for Ryde, perched above the west porch. With the church as a whole perched well above Quay Lane off snap to the right, a relic of the days when Brading was an important port.

Arrived at the pier head to find a couple quarrelling in an unseemly fashion, while their young boy looked on. The husband seemed very angry, possibly because his wife had got in a muddle about train times, ferry times or the difference between Ryde Pier Head and Ryde Esplanade, these two being a fair walk apart if you have luggage and are too mean to take the train.

The twins were present and correct, although they looked to have been out of use for some years.

Perhaps the people who do the heritage at Brading Station could be persuaded to take on the cranes? We thought that the café was a bit run down too, although we suspected it must have been quite a place when the pier head was busier than it is now. Maybe licensed, with quality warm beer as was the custom in station buffets of old? Maybe late night goings on?

We also thought that the heritage woodwork had been thinned out a bit, with that snapped above being all that seemed to be left of it. But I have not gone back through the archive to check.

I learned that a medium Costa coffee was more than I wanted at one go. BH explained that most of her friends bought one coffee and several cups.

On the way back, passed a large red handled trolley half way up the hill, possibly from the Iceland at the top of the hill, but we were already on the bus by then so too late. It would also have been a bit of a push up the hill. Bing confirms today that Iceland do indeed have trolleys with red handles - not a store I recall ever having been in, certainly not recently.

But I do notice that the trolleys in the old Tesco's snap above appear to be red too - although I have no memory of same. The current, smart blue livery must be masking any earlier liveries that I might have stored away. There is also the question of the various shades of orange and red that might have been used over the years.

And then, again on the bus, we had a scrawny young man cuddling up with his very large dog. I thought on both substances and benefit. Possibly a dealer in a small way. Irritating.

On the other hand, we got home before the rain kicked in.

References

Reference 1: https://dellcafe.com/.

Reference 2: https://sites.google.com/view/monktonarts.

Reference 3: https://www.pennyfeathers.co.uk/.

Reference 4: https://www.hongkongexpress.co.uk/.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/06/classical-and-literary-allusions.html.

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/07/raynes-park-on-sea.html.

Reference 7: https://www.ryde-bookshop.co.uk/.

Reference 8: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/07/pyramid-orchids.html.

Reference 9: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/10/pensioners-outing.html.