Isle of Wight Holiday Diary #8 - There's more to Bembridge than meets the Eye

Hi there everyone 😀

I know it seems like an age ago but for today's post we are back on the Isle of Wight, picking up on our three week break there at the end of the summer last year.

Having spent a lovely day exploring Culver Down & The Bembridge Windmill  we decided to head back over to Bembridge to see what else we could find ...

Day 10 - Monday

Whilst it was quite grey it seemed that the rain of the previous day had moved on, at least for a while, and we started out with a re-visit to the lifeboat station ...

We had a walk out to the station, but were a bit early so didn't get to see inside this time ... it's definitely worth a look though, if you've not been before.

We wondered back to shore, taking in the sky which just looked amazing ... 

We had a brief wander along the beach and found, what I would say is the best view to be had of the lifeboat station, especially with the light as it was ...

It was a good spot for a vintage selfie ... you know the kind ... where you prop your camera up, set the self timer and make a mad dash to get in front of the camera before it goes off ...

I have to say that I'd almost forgotten how much better quality this type of 'selfie' is ... even when taken with a phone with a half decent camera ...

We headed back to the car, taking in the new mural ...

... and Wave sculpture which had appeared since our last visit ...

It was time to head off and our next stop was Bembridge village, where we had a wander round a few gift and antique shops before having a look at the church ...

... before having to break out the brolly as the rain could hold off no more ...

By now we were ready to find somewhere for lunch and, after consulting the trusty OS map, we decided to head for St Helens Duver, which was just around the other side of the Bembridge harbour and somewhere we'd not visited before.

Being National Trust members we took advantage of the NT car park, which was a little off piste, but gave us a nice walk through the dunes to the sea front ...

... from where it was but a short walk to Baywatch on the Beach, which looked very inviting, so we headed in and had the nicest lunch with a fab view ...

Refreshed we had a short wander a bit further along to the remains of St Helens church ... 

The tower is all that remains of the church which was built early in the twelfth century and dates from about 1220. The church was ceased to be used in 1703 when the tower was bricked up and turned into the seamark, which is how it remains today ...

Apparently the derelict church became a source of holy stones which were taken by sailors to scrub down the decks of wooden ships.

We walked to the end of the footpath, which came to a full stop at Nodes Point ...

We decided it was time to call it a day and retraced our steps back along the promenade to head back to Bowcombe and Bramble Cottage 😀

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A Trip to the Bank ... Gringotts Bank

Hi there everyone 😀

I’ve long been a fan of Harry Potter and one of the 50 things I really wanted to do before I hit 60 was to visit the Waner Bros Studios to experience the Making of Harry Potter experience. We managed to visit a couple of years ago and were not disappointed. It was a real treat and you can see what we thought on our first visit here.

This last year has seen the addition of a new attraction to the tour ... Gringotts bank ... and I really wanted to visit again to get to see it.

This time we took mum and dad ... mum has read all of the books and seen the films and was really looking forward to it, dad being more interested in all that goes into the production of such huge movies.

In preparation for our visit Martin and I managed to re-watch the last two of the films, and we are so glad we did as we definitely got reacquainted with Gringotts.

It’s a bit of a trek for us but we had a fairly straightforward journey and it was lovely to finally be walking into the studios to be greeted by the dragon that we’d seen guarding the bank vaults in Deathly Hallows.
We were a bit early and were lucky enough to be able to get onto an earlier tour ...
This time we made sure to head for the left hand side as we entered the tour introduction, which we knew would give us a fab position in the cinema.

Even though we’d seen it before our entry to the great hall was every bit as impressive as on our first visit. I hadn't really intended taking many photos but some things were just too good not to capture again ... apologies for the quality though as this time all were taken on my phone ...

It was truly spectacular ...

From the great hall we wandered through the various sets ... the boys' dormitory ...

... the Gryffindor common room, decked out for Christmas ...
... Dumbledore's Office ...

... the Potions Lab ...
This time we got to see a demonstration of The Goblet of Fire ...

... the flying Ford Anglia, being periodically attacked by the whomping willow ...
... the Chamber of Secrets snake door ...

... before heading over to the magic of The Burrow ...
... and being confronted with the meeting of the Dark Lord's followers which was very fresh in our mind from the film we had recently caught up with ...
There was the Ministry of Magic ...
... and the Forbidden Forest ...
... before arriving at Kings Cross Station where mum and I had pictures taken on platform 9 3/4 ...

We then had a quickpitstop in the Backlot Cafe before heading outside and on to the next stage of the tour ...

We were starting to get excited now as we knew that the next stop was what Martin and I were waiting for ... and oh my goodness as it was revealed it took our breath away. It was huge and absolutely beautiful, laid out just as we had seen in The Deathly Hallows ... it was just stunning ... and so big ... my phone photos just don't do it justice at all ...

There were plenty of goblin tellers at work ... they looked fabulous ... and so realistic ...
The whole set was very ably watched over by this guy ...

From the public side of the bank we headed through and into the vaults ...

... where we were able to search Bellatrix L'Estrange's vault for Helga Hufflepuff''s cup ...

We then got to see the bank after it had been pretty much totalled by the dragon during Harry, Ron and Hermione's escape from the vaults ...

We exited the bank at the bottom of Diagon Alley and even though we’d seen it before it was still a firm favourite and we made our way up passing all of the familiar shops ... the apothecary ...

... Scribbulus ...

Ollivanders ...

... and plenty more besides ...

Last but not least was the model of the castle which looked every bit as beautiful as it had the first time we’d seen it and I couldn’t resist photographing it again from every angle ...

Isn't it just stunning?

We exited the tour via The Wand Room and Gift Shop ...

It was our second visit and we still spent about 3 hours on the tour and that was without really hanging about, not reading all of the information boards or watching all of the bits of film. It would be very easy to spend lots longer, especially if you hadn’t visited before, but we were ready to head for home.

We all really enjoyed it. For me, it was better for having reacquainted ourselves with the films, but dad hadn’t watched any of the films and he enjoyed it too ... so even if not a total Potter fan I would say it’s definitely still worth a visit if you are looking for something a bit different to do 😀

The Reading Corner

Hi there everyone 😀

When it came to setting new goals in the New Year there didn't seem to be lots of things I felt I really wanted to do in 2020 ... but more reading is definitely something that is high on the priority list.

I’ve always loved reading, but in 2019, for some reason, I barely picked up a book ... even when away on holiday. I didn’t even manage to finish reading all of the books I received as Birthday or Christmas gifts in 2018.

I think losing hours scrolling through social media and playing mind numbing electronic games on the iPad left me with little time for reading and it’s something that I am determined to be a bit more intentional about over the coming year.

Whether or not I will be going to the extent of planning in particular time for reading I am not sure, but I do know I have a shelf full of books by my favourite authors just waiting to be picked up and dived into ...

Add to that a bag full of new authors picked up from the free book shop and charity shops and it is starting to feel like a bit of a mountain to climb.

I've decided that I'd like to try and read at least two books each month, which should be more than doable. I don't want to set crazy high numbers as I want it to be a pleasurable pass time and not a chore and I always need a bit of downtime in between books as I move on from characters that I've become absorbed with. 

I was really pleased to get off to a good start for January and thought that sharing what I've been reading with you might be a good idea for a new series of blog posts ... so ...welcome to January's edition of ...  'The Reading Corner'.

The Book of Dust - The Secret Commonwealth

Philip Pullman

Hot on the back of watching the new His Dark Materials series on TV before Christmas, I borrowed the second of Philip Pullman’s Book of Dust series ... The Secret Commonwealth ... from mum and decided my new reading journey would start here. If nothing else, it would shift a big thick tome and once read could be dispatched back to mum and dad’s.

It didn’t start as expected. I kind of thought it would pick up from where we left off in Volume One, following Lyra’s growing up in Jordan college before being extricated by the evil Mrs Coulter at the start of His Dark Materials.

I was most surprised to find that it was set 20 years later, after the end of the Dark Materials series, so it felt like book 5 of the overall writings to me, rather than book 2 of the new series ... but if Star Wars can get away with it I guess Philip Pullman can too.

On first sitting I sat and sped through five chapters. It was easy to pick up the thread of the tale, though there had obviously been some developments in the missing 20 years that I hoped would be explained later on. There was also just a little sadness, especially when it comes to the relationship between Lyra and Pan, which had been so beautifully depicted on screen.

For a big chunk of this book it was hard to reconcile this Lyra with the Lyra of His Dark Materials. It’s almost as though none of her wondrous adventures ever happened or only happened in her imagination, which seems to have somehow disappeared for a while. It’s hard to understand how someone who had been through all of that ever could have turned into an ordinary scholar, though we do start to see a glimmer of the old Lyra with the introduction of The Secret Commonwealth.

Though it certainly is a mighty tome, I was totally hooked and managed to finish it within a couple of days ... I am left frustrated though as there are so many strands and sub plots building within the book but all have been left hanging ... to be concluded.

Two Chubby Cubs - The Cookbook

James Anderson & Paul Anderson

Over the last few years we have been on a bit of a self imposed ban on the purchasing of cook books as we just have so many. In fact our collection has taken a bit of a culling over the last couple of years so it was not without lots of consideration that I decided to opt for treating us to this one.

It's a low calorie cookbook from two chaps with a really funny and popular blog about their weight loss journey using the Slimming World plan.

They are quite big on cooking properly, using 'real' ingredients, rather than using food stuffs in different ways, or 'tweaking', to try and get round the plan rules and we’ve used a fair few of their recipes from their blog so decided to give it a go.

There are 90 band new recipes in the book, which was a big of a draw, along with a toned down version of their normal accompanying chat ... whilst not quite as filthy as on the blog the accompanying writing is pretty down to earth and funny.

We had a really good browse of the book and have intentions to try a good number of the recipes which is great as normally there are only one or two which seem to take our fancy.

So far we’ve tried the firecracker salmon and the chicken achari and both are recipes that we would use again. So all good so far.

Whilst the RRP is £20 we managed to pick it up in WH Smith for £10 on an introductory offer. By all accounts it has been incredibly popular with Amazon not being able to fulfill pre-orders on time and huge numbers of positive reviews so if you’re looking for a good low calorie recipe book I would definitely recommend giving this one a go.

Post Script

Cecelia Aherne

After a good start to the year it was not until the very end of the month that I picked up another book to read. I’d been struggling with a horrible cough for a few days and had been pretty much confined to bed, sleeping in between coughing, when I decided that a read might just be the treat I needed.

I opted for Cecelia Aherne's Post Script, the sequel to the much loved PS I Love You, which I think was the first of her books that I ever read.

Martin had bought it for me for my birthday back in November and I’d been waiting for the right time to dive into it ...

Having loved PS I Love You, I am so pleased that the sequel didn’t disappoint ... there was just enough background for a refresh on the original plot and it was very much a continuation of the original story .

It was great to reacquaint with old characters, whilst meeting enough new to make it feel different ... and the plot was totally believable.

Whilst for me it wasn’t quite as emotional as the original I would be lying if I said there were no tears at all, particularly towards the end.

I read it within 24 hours and really enjoyed it and actually was left thinking that there could be a place for the service on offer ... and not just in the world of fiction ... I’m sure there are plenty of others who will be thinking the same 💜💜💜

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So there we go ... the first edition of 'The Reading Corner' ... my new blog series for 2020. I hope you liked it and would love to hear your thoughts, so go on, make my day and leave me a comment 😀

I've already started my first read for February, something completely different to what I've read this month, so drop by next month and see what I thought ... and if I managed to fit another one in too.

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