Chine time

We may not have made it to Ventnor Botanic Garden, a pity since its dry country plants from places like South Africa and Mexico were probably doing very well, but we did make it to Shanklin Chine, important, inter alia, for the large numbers of carex pendula there. Rather surprised this morning to find that I have only been noticing all the carex for about three years, with an early example being found at reference 2. If I had been asked to guess, I would have said for about ten years.

Took the Island Line train from Brading (now a heritage, not to say historic railway station) to Shanklin, the line being a semi detached portion of the South Western Trains franchise. Rolling stock quite old now, with the roofs as illustrated and the seats as sat on. One needs to be careful when one's carriage bumps over the points. There seemed to be a marked disinclination to take our fares, despite our having bothered to take our senior rail passes on holiday and BH wondered whether there was some low level industrial action going on.

One can see that the line is a bit of an anachronism, but also that we find it very convenient and the few trains that we rode on in the course of the holiday were pretty full. We would be sorry to see it go.

On through the town, with far more retail space than is now needed, so lots of charity shops. Yet another town centre which somehow needs to shrink down to a size commensurate with modern needs.

Tea and cake at Cinderella's, an unusual tea shop which doubles as a sewing shop, with the proprietress working away on her sewing machine between customers. Lots of dainty china and lots of dainty clothes providing the decorative scheme. Plus two very dainty dogs, which we were told were an unusually small variety of Shih Tzu. We learned all about the scandalous matter of some circus people forcing their way into the empty shop opposite to paste their posters on the inside of the windows. The police, it seems, had declined to intervene on the grounds that trespass was a civil matter. The proprietress was worried about what such obvious breaches of good order and discipline would do for rents and footfall.

Looking for the name of the unusual tea shop in gmaps, I was amused to come across this view of a bus in Street View. The camera man clearly had a sense of humour. As it happens, we have eaten in the restaurant immediately to the right of the bus, a place where, as I recall, we took a nice drop of Riesling. And if you look down the street rather than up the street, no bus at all. An illustration of the interesting discontinuities which arise when panning around in Street View, discontinuities which arise from the fact that the view is not taken at an instant in time, rather it is a series or sequence of views taken through time. No amount of careful cut and paste can paper over all the cracks.

On and into the chine, a sort of Victorian relic, with the nearest other such that I can think of being the High Rocks at Tunbridge Wells of reference 3. Perhaps the first time in our history that there were plenty of people with a spot of time and leisure and who wanted something to do with it. So attractions of all sorts.

An interesting plant covering a damp and shady rock face.

A snap of some of the many carex to be seen in the chine, these one also on a rock face.

Some of the residential and holiday opportunities at the bottom of the chine. The glazed addition left usually houses a small but interesting exhibition of old photographs, water colours and the like. Cortana has not done a bad job, but the echium to the immediate right of the addition is a bit fuzzy. And, in any case, not in the same league as those at Ventnor noticed at reference 1 below.

Out to stroll along the beach back to Sandown where we settled for a bus back to Brading. Free with out senior bus passes, so a day of free transport.

On the way, taking in at least one snooze on the beach and the café already noticed at reference 5.

PS: a reminder to the curious: hovering over the telephone snaps, a long file name appears at the bottom of the screen (or at least it does when using Edge from Microsoft), a long file name which includes the original date and time. And in case of truncation the full long name can be recovered by right click, copy link and paste into Notepad. So you can check our movements!

Reference 1: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/07/echium-pininana.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2015/06/apsley-3.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2013/10/shorter-notice-2.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2016/07/keats-kitchen.html. Memory fails again, Gewürztraminer not Riesling.

Reference 5: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/07/things-went-wrong.html.

Reference 6: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/07/carex-deceased.html. The carex which had featured earlier in the holiday.