Deal 1b

From St. Leonard's continued into town to park next to the Royal Hotel, a hotel once graced by a visit by Admiral Nelson and his paramour.

Inspected the long and interesting High Street, interesting despite the large number of charity shops.

Found St. George's, which I initially thought was a 20th century construction, perhaps a reconstruction after bombing, but which turned out to have been built in the early 18th century. Large, handsome and apparently busy church, dressed on this occasion for a wedding. A double decker gallery with the lower gallery including the preaching chair and lectern, more or less in the middle of this snap. All most unusual, perhaps an ideal place from which to thunder out Finnegans Wake onto the congregation below. Perhaps with a learned explanation about the absence of an apostrophe.

Then found the Spires for lunch, a congregational church repurposed as a community centre. They did me a bacon sandwich, adequate but marred by the use of salty back bacon with too much fat and by decoration with crisps and a splash of salad. Not the real thing at all.

From there, along the esplanade to what was left of Sandown Castle (one of the three built by Henry VIII to keep out the French), then, having found a £20 note at the castle, back to the Foresters Inn for a drop of Paddy. Quiet and respectable house, catering mainly to older, respectable folk. Landlady ensconced on a handily swiveling chair. Rather busy for a weekday afternoon. Good atmosphere.

While there we pondered about whether it was reasonable for one Brian Thompson not to have known about the dark deeds being done in our name in Kenya while he was on national service there with the King's African Rifles along with a chap called Idi Amin - BH having picked up his memoir 'Clever Girl' from somewhere, maybe Raspberry Ripple (see above). Still not got to the bottom of that one.

PS: a toss up whether this St. George's was better than the converted church in South Street, Exeter, now a Wetherspoons, for FW purposes. The Wetherspoons has the minus of being an improper place, full of people who might not take FW seriously, but the plus of a very fine pulpit, carefully retained by the Wetherspoons conversion crew.