Travels or travails? That is the question.

Whether it is nobler in the heart to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or take arms upon a sea of struggle and, by opposing, overcome?

Aye, there’s the rub.

Shakespeare quote (or as close as I can remember without Googling it) – to be or not to be, that is the question.

Absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the post but I like it so there you are…

Easter

I was right – didn’t get the time to post last week, anything where daughter is involved is bound to end up like herding cats.

Thank whatever deity you choose there’s only one – the idea of two of them pursuing their own agendas in differing directions is truly, truly frightening…

Swift diversion within a diversion. Back in a while.

Fine – problem sorted

Had a super break, thank you.

Really enjoyed ourselves.

We went to the Isle of Wight (IoW) – it’s a little over 16 miles (25 km) from where I’m writing this to where we stayed, but

that distance involves a sea crossing and a pretty expensive sea crossing as well.

So you never seem to have the IoW on your radar for a short break, despite its proximity in terms of distance.

More fool us.

Picturesque and Instagrammable (another new word for the spellchecker) and surprisingly hilly in places it’s a super place for a few days’ stay.

And I’m not even getting paid to say this!

And, what’s more we DIDN’T run out of places to go so another visit is on the cards in a year or two’s time.

We even missed the largest tourist trap on the island – Osborne House, former holiday home of Queen Victoria.

Which – for reasons I do not profess to understand – has rechristened itself as “Osborne”.

if anyone can shed light on this, please let me know…

Mind you, if Jenna Coleman had been there, I feel sure I’d have made the time – even if I do still think of her as Clara from Doctor Who.

Interesting trick

Should you be inspired to visit IoW on your travels and you decide to take the Red Funnel car ferry from Southampton, they have a number of deals.

Discounted prices on various attractions, Osborne being one and the Isle of Wight Steam Railway being another.

If you intend to visit one of the attractions on offer the joint ticketing can save a good sum of money.

We went to the railway.

Actually, let me rephrase that – I went to the railway and the girls tagged along and indulged me…

It was heaving busy over the bank holiday though

Absolutely heaving! And not just the elderly from the North of England which I was expecting.

Don’t get me wrong – they easily outnumbered the locals, so much that one particular pub we went in that appeared to be a local “local” seemed to have a clientele that was almost exclusively over 35 and from Lancashire and Yorkshire.

Second homes or holiday homes I assume because they seemed to be on first name terms with the proprietors?

The thing I wasn’t expecting was the number of families from India and Japan we came across on our travels.

I REALLY want to meet the person(s) who managed to attract so many non-Europeans to the Island.

This is going to sound terribly patronising I know but – if you were coming all that way, would a week or fortnight on the island be top of your bucket list?

There I’ve said it and you can shoot me down in flames later…

Places to visit

Here are a few ideas for your travels – just what you would expect from a consultancy blog…

• The Needles and Alum Bay
• St Catherine’s Lighthouse
• Bembridge village and harbour (proper spelling not in the spellchecker) – check out the lifeboat station
• Carisbrooke Castle
• Godshill Church and the thatched cottages

and these are just from the weekend gone by.

Do any work this week? Anything wound you up?

Yes and yes.

But why spoil things…

The old Military Road on South Wight