Tour de Wight

Opted for a day of exploration and discovery today; less culture and more sea and sand. Hardly uncharted waters or sands, but a new experience for me and one that felt surprisingly foreign - a day trip to the Isle of Wight. My first and only memory of the island involves the somewhat unsavoury tale of pooing on the beach at Ventnor, unknown to my poor parents, due to my inability to vocalise my need for the loo. Luckily some more memories were unearthed during the course of the day which were more quaint and less lavatorial; worrying what sticks in your mind...
Very excited to take my first hovercraft 'flight' and comic discovering a piece of technology so past its prime and possibly soon destined for the museum. The island itself seems unsuprisingly stuck in a time warp but full of memories and relics from its days as a premier holiday destination - loved travelling in an old London tube train; all the same noises, seats, buttons for the ticket man... transported to the green pastures of an island in La Manche.
Shanklin's hight point was some amazing 'ghost' clouds that kept skittering up the beach and over the sand flats, teasing around the kids playing in perfect retro with their buckets and spades. The only other time I have seen such lovely little mist spirits was in Tuscany, where they used to freak me out driving up the hills late at night; great to see clouds with little minds of their own. We found ourselves among the wispies ourselves as we walked along the sands and it was surreal watching them scoot past in little clouds around our ankles. Up at the top of the crumbling cliffs the real estate perches, debating its doom; one gazebo seemed particularly close to becoming matchwood on the beach, and some rather futile netting wasn't holding back the forces of erosion.
From beach to cliff one can ride (for a fee) in a lift - helpfully labelled 'LIFT' in huge type on concrete; this was one of the items that jogged a memory as I imagine its idiocy and ugliness were blatantly apparent even aged four. I remember Ventnor as having a proper funicular railway, but the 'cliff lift' deserves a mention as a celebration of how a good idea can not quite work in practise, but still last over thirty years.
What sticks in the mind, is that 'other country' feel that it shares with so many island communities and as such makes them both fascinating to visit and infuriating to live on. Kept being reminded of early Pink Floyd, Carry On films, Monty Python and the great days of English discovery and invention; all faintly absurd but in deadly seriousness - a strange and wonderous new world of crazy clouds, giant plastic hot dogs and very loud hanging baskets. And there is, I would imagine, so much more to see!
Off for a well deserved Indian tonight; I have been treated to the stories of the early Bangladeshi community here brought to work the docks in the war, the legacy of which, among many things, is the plethora of very fine Indian restaurants. We also sampled ice cream from the Minghella family who built their business on the Isle of Wight; a fine place to tour.