isle of wight adventure

I’ve been on holiday in Lymington, south coast of England. Thurs I took the ferry to the isle of Wight. A glorious sunny day. Cycled… an anti-clockwise trip, first to the needles at the westernmost tip, sheer white cliffs, three sisters jutting from the foaming sea. At the top, the rabbit-clipped rolling grass plain swept off eastwards. Passed a sign to a farmhouse offering cream teas, and was reminded of a jaunt along the south downs way with an old uni friend, when, passing through quaint thatched villages, we joked about the possibility of Joanna Trollope style scandalous goings-on behind privet hedges, and getting ‘hopelessly waylaid by tea and scones’. I had bought an explorer map, which unfolded like a vast origami deck chair. I constantly had to renegotiate it to keep up with my position, each time stuffing it back into a small square plastic map wallet. By the time I finally folded it back the way it was to begin with, it was like a paper accordion.
On the ferry back, a shimmering tapering gold-flecked path drew the eye across restless waves to the sinking sun.