We started at 1000 sharp, the opening time, when we were told by the chap of the car park that on fine summer mornings there would often be half a dozen coaches lined up at the gate for the off. Just four on this day, as it happened. He also told us that the flashy orange sleeper coach - made by Mercedes and full of Germans - we had seen (but cannot now trace) on a previous occasion came every year, usually arriving at 0700 for a picnic breakfast. Presumably they made special arrangements to get into the car park. Illustration from one of the range exhibited by google; right colour, right maker but wrong shape - the Mercedes-Benz site itself not being terribly helpful.
On to the house which was interesting as ever. On this occasion I was particularly struck by the number of not very good paintings and by what now seems a ridiculously ornate taste in furniture and ornaments, although Osbert seemed to think it got even worse in the first decade of the 20th century, a decade for gross display of wealth, the end of a golden era. But I did like the wine glasses on display on the dining room table. We also liked the portraits, in various sizes, painted in enamel on porcelain. We needed to be reminded that the substantial iron gates which can be used to shut off the private apartments were not intended to keep out the mob (thinking here of Versailles in 1789) or nosey servants, but rather to keep out nosey tourists when the house was first opened to the public, the family not thinking it seemly to put the private apartments on display in this way. Times have changed and we are now free to inspect the royal water closet.
A big new plus was opening up a path to the beach, a very pleasant antidote to the rather heavy interior of the house, complete with a coffee hut.
Back at the house we lunched in Terrace Restaurant, actually inside what might have been a summer ball room rather than on the terrace, it being a little too hot and sunny for our comfort. Service was very slow, but the food & ambience were good. The cheese with the cheese and biscuits was dressed with sprigs of pea, new to me but good. But the cheese itself was only an adequate cheddar, albeit served at room temperature, which was something. And it was a pleasant change to eat in somewhere high, light and airy, so many restaurants in this country being small and dark.
Lots of fine trees in the gardens around the house. Lots of fine views further afield.
Rounded off the visit with a visit to the walled garden which was rather good, a pleasing mix of fruit, vegetables and flowers, with a couple of handsome glass houses with very lush contents up against a south facing wall. It looked to be mainly the work of volunteers, who, we were told, shared the produce with the staff at the big house. Not much went to the restaurants as they were now run by an outside contractor (with, as it happens, a French parent). All very proper.
Rounded off the day with a contrasting visit to East Cowes, once home to the workers at the local boat builders, quite apart from Cowes proper with its boaters, but now graced by a large Waitrose, complete with a separate building called the energy centre, powered by the same Mitie who used to have the maintenance at some at least of the Treasury's buildings. See http://www.mitie.com/news-centre/case-studies/energy-services-case-studies/waitrose_2.
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