So train to Shanklin, where we learned that the connecting bus to the garden turned up by google no longer existed. So bus to Boots at Ventnor, and diverted as noticed at reference 2. A fellow traveller (not the commie sort) then told us about the Ventnor community bus - which seemed to be a bit like Epsom's Routecall - which would take us all the way to the gardens on production of our senor bus passes.. Which it did.
Echiums in fine form, although a little past their insect filled best. As was the rest of the garden. Swing left first, through the Australian and New Zealand departments. Inspect the outdoor lily pond and onto lunch in the cafeteria, where we had our first crab sandwich of the holiday. Very good it was too, although perhaps a mistake to have it on lumpy brown bread. Thinking about it, crab, like bacon, is best taken on sliced white. None of this health, baguette or panini carry on.
Swing right through the arid garden, including a fine display of aloes and quite a few lizards. Up to four or five inches long, either green or brown. But some of the aloes were losing out to low but vigorous palm trees. into the hot house to inspect the giant lily, in rather better form than last year.
Onto the hops, once again looking a bit feeble, despite the notice explaining that they were all picked on just one day in August, the day when the experts said that they would be at their very best. I would have thought that hops being large and vigorous plants would need more water than they were likely to get on the side of a cliff in the Isle of Wight, but I did not find anyone to ask.
Given the rather shaky bus situation, we thought we would walk the mile or so back to Ventnor Town along the coast path, which turned out to be very scenic. Also made up for the poor showing of our armed forces so far by a couple of fighter jets screaming overhead and a frigate cruising down below. Perhaps the jets came out just so that the frigate could practice tracking inbound bandits.
Just past the esplanade, we came across a house, the front bay of which had started to shed large lumps of masonry. We read afterwards that apart from the road being closed, causing much traffic disturbance, four or five apartments had been emptied of their mainly elderly occupants at rather short notice. Perhaps councils are a bit sensitive about this sort of thing just presently.
Then at the bus stop, we got talking to an inoffensive looking older lady, who turned out to have been a new age person in her youth, moving from London to Dorset with her husband, in the sixties of the last century, to live on a commune, with the idea being to grow beans and cabbages and generally to do the grow-your-own-food thing. Maybe do a bit of puff along the way. It only lasted for a year or so before it all fell apart, which left them looking for jobs out in the sticks. But they clearly managed.
Bused it all the way back to Brading, a ride which was a bit long and bumpy, although not much longer, maybe ten or fifteen minutes on a journey of a little under an hour, than it would have taken to drive. Notwithstanding, maybe we will take the car next time - even though doing it the other way got us to all sorts of things which we would otherwise have missed out on.
PS: the information provided on bus stops was a bit feeble compared with what you get on a London bus stop. In fact, more or less incomprehensible.
Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/botany-4.html.
Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/patent-medicine.html.
Group search key: vnb.
No comments:
Post a Comment