By train, which dropped us at the far of the High Street from the Chine, thus affording the opportunity to inspect some of their various charity shops, in one of which, the Heart Foundation, I was offered Tovey's 'Musical Articles from the Encyclopædia Britannica ' of 1944 for £13.50 with dust jacket. A cheap war time edition by the look of it. As Tovey goes, it looked like an easy read and I was tempted but the lady behind the till was not going to move off the exorbitant asking price - with most of the books being priced at around a tenth of what was being asked for this one. A pity because while it is probable that I would not have got further than dipping, Tovey had been a favourite of my father and I have a soft spot for him in consequence. It is also true that my knowledge of music theory is feeble compared with my attendance at concerts and I would like a bit more of it.
We did better at a second hand DVD shop, getting a collected Sharpe for £15 (including a feature length bonus) and some additions to our Poirot collection for £5. Holiday viewing now sorted out, although we will need to be careful with Sharpe as I find Bean rather tiresome when consumed in large doses. Fine in small doses. Declined a rather sloppily made (from a large wooden bobbin) DIY egg timer for £10.
By the time we got to the top of the chine it was time for tea, so declined the cottage garden with loud music for the more conventional tea room with handsome, blue patterned oil cloth table cloths where I was able to take tea and toasted tea-cake in peace and quiet. BH took the coffee usual with her at that time of day.
On down the chine, with rather more people in it than usual, but otherwise its usual self. Some twittering in the bushes, but no tweet on this occasion (not counting the cage birds) and no grey wagtail. But there was a lot of carex pendula hanging off the faces of the rocks, of which the Lumia did not make a very good job, but the snap offered above does give some idea. Also some pleasing red fuschia bushes which seem to be quite common around here (including one in the front garden of the bungalow in which we are staying), some vigorous gunnera and some not so vigorous mare's tail. On exit at the bottom there was a truly splendid bed of begonias, the like of which I have not seen before and including some very flashy doubles.
We also got a small exhibition of drawings and water colours of the area by Turner and others. I was intrigued by the tickets on the drawings which said that the copyright was owned by the Tate Gallery, which left me unclear whether we were looking at the real thing or reproductions. The water colours looked real enough. We got the book of the show, discounted as the show was coming to an end, but I have still not got to the bottom of the mystery.
Lunch at the Lazy Wave Café. I took a substantial baguette made with warmed up, left over roast beef, moistened with a portion of the sort of onions usually served with hot dogs. They remembered not to garnish the thing with salad and together with an excellent rock cake it made a substantial and satisfactory lunch. Along the way I was very impressed by the chap opposite who managed two of the baguettes, a plate of chips and a generous portion of tomato ketchup. Tall but not fat at all.
Strolled back to Sandown just in time to catch the train back to Brading. Navy in attendance, in the form of what I took to be a frigate out on exercise. No bangs or clouds of smoke but I think it was one of ours - unlike the occasion in 2013 when the biggest contribution to the naval scene was a Japanese squadron lined up at Southsea - the occasion being recorded at reference 3.
PS: Amazon offers the Tovey in question at various prices, some less and some more than £13.50.
Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/twit-log.html.
Reference 2: http://www.shanklinchine.co.uk/.
Reference 3: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/royal-navy-hosts-japanese-warships-in-portsmouth.
No comments:
Post a Comment