Parked at Puckpool

A short day, more next to the beach than on the beach, started by parking at Puckpool. I puzzled about the snap above, seemingly taken in the vicinity of the Dell Café. I eventually worked out that it was Ryde Pier middle right, but I had not realised that the beach curved so much.

I suppose that there must be storms in the winter to have bothered with the overhung concrete, although you would not think it in the summer, when it has always looked calm and peaceful.

Which led to OS. There is indeed a bump in the beachline, viewed foreshortened in the first snap.

It also reminded me of the proposed development we had learned about a couple of years previously and noticed at reference 1. I tried asking Bing and he came up with the West Acre development, which seems to be alive and well, with construction in progress. Middle right in the snap above. blue in the plan at reference 1, which leads me to Pennyfeathers. Which seems to be a dead end.

Gemini tells me that the proposals we saw were rejected, Pennyfeathers walked away from the project and Smallbrook Developments stepped up, whom Gemini thinks now own the land in question. Project stalled, mired in planning.

While the planners tell me of 1,543 documents relating to Smallbrook. I couldn't make a lot of sense of Gemini's last paragraph, but I shall certainly leave the matter to stew. Is it any wonder that developers need to charge fancy prices if they are to recoup all these up-front costs, a lot of which will turn out to be nugatory?

That apart, we took a few sits in the fish decorated shelters on the Esplanade and I took a short walk on the beach, after which we repaired to the Dell for lunch, where I had taking the precaution of booking. At a caff on the beach for goodness sakes! A precaution which was appropriate, as it is a splendid site and the place is busy at lunchtime.

Started with something called 'crab gratin' which was good, centre left in the snap above. Followed by mackerels - which turned out to be the wrong sort of mackerel - very small mackerels served with a lot of brown curry sauce. Not really my thing at all, but it did not seem appropriate to send it back. Smoothed things over with the odd glass of Malbec, which went down rather well.

I associated to once having had a much larger Tandoori mackerel in a subcontinental restaurant in Glasgow, in the margins of something or other. A bit spicy for me, but not bad for all that. A restaurant otherwise notable for having large pastel coloured sheets hanging down from the ceiling - bowl style, not washing line style. Very fetching.

One wonders why it was thought necessary to have such heavy steelwork to hold the awning over sea side seating.

Service pretty good, with the formula being young people doing most of the work with the proprietor hovering in the background, keeping everything up to the mark.

Lots of interesting passers by.

Ironic that the menu should have been so heavily influenced by holidays in and around the Mediterranean, along with a lot of other eateries on the island, which voted heavily for pulling up the draw bridge, cutting ourselves off from our neighbours.

But I guess the real issue, exploited by Reform, is the decay of seaside towns all around the country. Too many people want foreign, even if they don't want foreigners here.

Going back to the car, we spotted this bit of heritage on the way back into the Old Battery to collect our car. BH in the driving seat at this point. But what used to go on through the bricked up arch, so carefully protected with a little brick wall and a post?

PS 1: Gemini was a lot more helpful about the bridge featuring the BBC film 'Stonemouth' after I had logged in, than he had been beforehand. Just checking! I presently think the bridge to be the first road bridge over the Forth, snapped above.

PS 2: I was interested to see from the headline at reference 5 that the PM is going to cut our cost of living. It occurred to me that maybe he was hatching a deep plot to flog the Falkland Islands to the Chinese in order to raise the necessary. Maybe with an even deeper plot being to provoke POTUS into chipping in to help the Argies outbid the Chinese. Gibraltar might be more tricky.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/07/ryde.html. Pennyfeathers and other matters.

Reference 2: https://onthewight.com/dozens-more-affordable-homes-proposed-for-major-ryde-housing-development/. The project which is on the move.

Reference 3: https://thedellseaview.com/.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forth_Road_Bridge.

Reference 5: Burnham’s UK tour to focus on cutting cost of living and helping high streets: Prime Minister returns from holiday next week with plans to visit every region - Lucy Fisher, Ashley Armstrong, Financial Times - 2026.

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