O to be a caulkhead!

Once upon a time we harboured ambitions to move to the Isle of Wight and to become honorary caulkheads when I gave up work - full rights to use of the name being only generally allowed to those born on the island. But once I had given up work and the move became more possible, it also became less attractive and we never did it, although we continue to visit the place for summer holidays.

We were reminded of all this a couple of weeks ago when taking a stroll through Seaview, an Isle of Wight version of Southwold or Wells-next-the-Sea. A place full of Surrey accents and Range Rovers; sufficiently Surrey that the inhabitants are far too tasteful to go in for the Hummers that you see in some parts of the island.

Round the back of the part of Seaview which looks more like the estate agents picture which I am about to post, we came across the collection of overgrown beach huts illustrated, one up and one down and you can stay over in them although you are not allowed to live in them over the winter.Yours for £200,000 or so a pop.

Or if you don't fancy that the same people have refurbished a close full of beach chalets just up the road for upwards of £250,000 a pop - and you are allowed to live in them in the winter.

After toying with the idea over the cup that cheers, we decided that this was far too strong meat for us, tying up far too much money in what looked like a very speculative venture. Much better to stick with renting cottages from other people.

PS: during the composition of this post, there being a hiatus in the supply of home baked, we tried out a 'stoneground boule' from Waitrose, a small white loaf for the large premium price of £1.83. Looked good from the outside. First slice from the outside looked good from the inside. Good texture and taste. But as one progressed further into the loaf, one found that it was decidedly under cooked and doughy in texture. I think this particular soi-disant in-store bakery does not bother with flour or anything like that and takes in their bread half done and possibly frozen, just finishing it off in-store - so maybe they forgot to thaw this one out before trying to bake it off. In any event, not impressed by this particular effort from the usually reliable Waitrose. Although that said, I have noticed that their regular white loaves are not very good either. Fortunately, we only rarely need to buy such things.

An up side was that the transaction did suggest that my shiny new bank card is indeed in working order.