The other island: Part I

The turn of the month saw a birthday outing to the Ryde Castle Hotel on the Isle of Wight, a place that can be conveniently reached by train from Epsom. A journey which includes a short stroll at Portsmouth Harbour station from the train to the check-in for the catamaran service across the water.

For once in a while we walked to the station, getting there for 09:15 - which was just as well as it took a little while to procure two 'through return senior off-peak return' tickets to the Esplanade. But our senior railcards certainly earned their keep on this occasion.

Taking in this clump of carex pendula on the way, not far from the ceremonial arch which marks the entrance to the Chase Estate.

A small flock of buzzards over a tree at Clandon.

The long ramp at Guildford. Not something we get on the Epsom line, although I do remember one at Norbury, probably part of the Southern domain.

At least two boats sailing inside Portsmouth Harbour. Real men sail, lesser men drop their sails and turn on their engines. One of the boats looked to be a half decker sloop. Once very popular, good for day tripping and camping, now not much seen at all, at least not by me. A diagram of a sample of the class is snapped above.

The catamaran moved about a lot more than our usual Portsmouth-Fishbourne ferry and one was advised to keep to one's seat and strongly discouraged from being out on deck.

Presence of significant wind was confirmed by our passing a couple of boats with reefed mainsails.

One of the twin cranes from Chatteris at Ryde Pier Head, first noticed at reference 4, a rather similar outing, just about nine years ago.

I learn from a correspondent that they still do carrots and boxers at Chatteris, even if the engineering has withered away. See also reference 5.

The platform at Ryde Pier Head. Once more in the domain of Southwestern Trains. The eastern part of Ryde being visible top left.

It was plenty warm enough still to take our picnic on a bench at Ryde Esplanade, more or less opposite Michelangelo's, shut on Tuesdays and Wednesdays - the two days we were in town. I once entertained the waitress there with an arty snap I had taken of the fancy glass in which my grappa was served at the Caldesi, behind the Wigmore Hall. A place we used to use, but have not used for a bit. Time to return!

Sadly, the high tide had brought some yellow foam in, yellow foam which used to be a very striking feature of the beach at Great Yarmouth when we used to visit, around forty years ago. Great banks of the stuff. Ryde Pier upper right.

The Council have put a lot of effort into smartening up the Esplanade. With these planter flowers surviving into October.

The shaded wall where we had spent quality time earlier in the year, when it was rather too hot to do anything much else. Plus more ivy in full seasonal bloom.

Onto the Castle where the clock from Smallcombe of Essex was still there; a clock whose provenance I failed to run down after our last visit. While on this occasion we were told it was near working; that is to say it did go, but kept rather poor time. Probably needed a good clean, something which, I imagine, would cost a good bit these days. A good bath for the mechanism in white spirit or something of that sort?

A handsome but nearly new wooden staircase. A replica, we were told, put in after a fire took out the last one. Very much the sort of thing that the brewers taking over ornate bank premises do in central London. Thinking here of 'The Old Bank of England' in Fleet Street, previously noticed on the spot, if not in these pages.

Our room, complete with bedside chandelier, was very like the room snapped at reference 4. Chandelier rather fun in this context, but I guess it would look a bit silly at home.

A bit of a snooze, then out, refreshed, for the evening's activities. Starting with a modest flock of noisy starlings chattering away in the masts - see top left in the snap above - of the boats in the harbour. At least what I took to be starlings. And they even had a go at one of their aerial displays, although there were not really enough of them.

Aside: perhaps in the margins of the digression into collective nouns, I have recently learned that a murmuration of starlings is so named for their collective murmuring in bushes at dusk. Nothing to do with their antics in the sky at all.

A little early for our table at the Duck (of reference 7), so we took a beverage at the 'Veteran', a place on the Esplanade now run on semi-commercial lines and catering particularly for veterans of the forces. Lots of Falklands memorabilia. Lots of older gents, with a sprinkling of ladies in attendance. A comfortable establishment, although I dare say there was quite a high concentration of Reform voters and people with substance issues.

Followed by a quick turn on the beach.

There are some big old houses facing the beach along this stretch, and the one above was one of the small ones. But who would want the bother of such a house now, handsome though it might be? Far too big for a family without servants, probably rather run-down and likely rather cold in the winter.

The Duck was a place which had been through various incarnations over the years that we have known the building. At one time it was thatched and at another time it burned down. A little up itself, but friendly enough and we were lucky enough to be sat between two older couples, one about our age, one a little older, who were happy to natter.

Kicked off with a bottle of entirely satisfactory red. I try Bing today on the clue 'Closerie de Vaudieu; Châteauneuf-du-Pape - Famille Bréchet - 2022'. Plenty of wine but no wine yard, and it took the power of Google's AI assistant to get me to reference 8. A place, it seems, with plenty of history.

A bit poor that it has only just occurred to me that the 'du Pape' bit is probably all to do with the Pope's time in Avignon. A thought which the assistant was happy to confirm. And there some crossed key on this very bottle.

Smoked mackerel for him to start, with a small loaf on the side. Both rather good. They even managed to deliver the bread with just butter, without the other trimmings on offer.

Once again, I passed on beef and went for a rather fancy take on chicken. The chicken was a little dry and the take was perhaps a bit too fancy. While the chunky chips in the their skins were quite wrong, for some reason a complete mismatch of flavours. 

But all pretty good, all the same. A change from our usual restaurant fare. Complete with a fancy looking knife from Branik to cut the bread with.

I failed to find a website for these people, although plenty of people looked to sell their knives. But Gemini explains, as snapped above.

And as it turned out, one of our neighbours was a retired pilot who I think started out with BOAC. Nuts about aeroplanes as a boy, did the Air Cadets and then wangled a two year scholarship to be a pilot with BOAC. After, I think, doing engineering at university. These days you have to pay for your own training as a pilot.

He then moved onto (jumping) race horses and fancy cars  - it seemed that he had something of a collection of Bentleys and such. I learned that a Bentley was a far better car to drive than a Rolls, a far better drive all round. A story which, as it happens, I have heard before. A chap who was clearly into speed in one form or another. 

I also learned that old cars were a bit like the old buses I was looking into a few months ago. First, the chassis and engine was put together by one firm and the coachwork by another. Second, in the beginning, the coachwork was all wood - in way of the coaches which came before - and the wood was only gradually replaced by metal.

Then that car racing, in the beginning, was run on very much the same lines as horse racing, complete with racing silks. With the difference that purpose built race tracks like Brooklands are very unusual; around the world there are very few of them.

Gemini agrees, but with qualifications. Most importantly, that there are plenty of purpose build car racing tracks around the world, but they are nothing like Brooklands. Then, England after the second war was a bit strapped for cash and went in for converting old bomber bases, rather than full-on new builds.

A fine evening out, closed with the illuminations of Portsmouth across the water. It all looked rather well at the time - but I failed to get my telephone to make much of it!

PS 1: a footnote for the hotel inspector: the curtains in our bedroom were real. You could pull the two of them together. We have been in other places where the curtains are complicated but just decorative. Blinds being used to shut out the light, to shut down at night.

PS 2: before lights out, I had another go at Trollope's back stairs in a big town house, lit by a little arch from the front stairs. I think I am starting to see how this might have been laid out. See reference 9 - inter alia, for the complicated origins of my interest in this matter.

PS 3: a bit later I was intrigued by the piece at reference 11. A cynic might say that this was just protectionism, Trump's tariffs dressed up in religious clothes. But perhaps trying to tick two boxes at once: combining the need to protect one's fledgling industries from the rough old world outside with care for religious sensibilities. Perhaps we Europeans are not the only people to be worried about the long term effects of a diet of cheap consumer goods from China.

From the problems of interpretation of the Qur'an, I associate to the problems - complete with fee-earning lawyers - they have in the US adapting their two hundred year old constitution to the ways of the modern world.

References

Reference 1: https://www.greenekinginns.co.uk/hotels/isle-of-wight/ryde-castle-hotel.

Reference 2: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/05/cork-oak-acorns.html. Greene King is now owned by a gentleman from Hong Kong. Gemini confirms that this is still the case this afternoon.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Li_Tzar-kuoi. The heir of the gentleman in question. Inter alia, a director of HSBC.

Reference 4: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/10/pensioners-outing.html.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Boy_Green. Found via Bing and a post in Facebook on a clue something like 'boxer carrots chatteris'.

Reference 6: https://www.ristorantemichelangelo.co.uk/.

Reference 7: https://www.theduckiow.co.uk/.

Reference 8: https://www.chateaudevaudieu.com/.

Reference 9: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/09/pots-and-lollipops.html.

Reference 10: https://www.bsil.uk/. 'Branik is a premium knife brand built on a foundation of quality and excellence. Specializing in kitchen knives, Branik sources its materials exclusively from Germany, renowned for producing some of the world's finest steel...'. They do kitchen sinks and bathrooms too.

Reference 11: Indonesia’s sweeping new halal rules spark business backlash: World’s largest majority-Muslim country to force companies to explain how products from clothes to toilet paper are permissible under Islam - A. Anantha Lakshmi, Diana Mariska, Financial Times - 2026.