Working Harbour - Portsmouth

Portsmouth is a busy, important harbour with commercial traffic to the Isle of Wight and the continent, ferries across to Gosport, many local sailors and of course, the Royal Navy Dockyards. Tucked away in Old Town is the working doc with tugs and fishing boats jumbled up alongside the quay.

We stayed overnight in Portsmouth at the Ibis Hotel after the Runrig concert. Very good the hotel was too. We had an excellent evening meal before the concert and a lovely breakfast in the morning which set us up for a 9 mile walk along the seafront through Southsea and back again into Portsmouth, the Gunwharf Quays Outlet Centre and then on to the Old Dockyard where we had a brief look around without visiting any of the attractions. It was a walk of two halves as the return journey was into the teeth of a very strong wind that had the ability to blow you to a stand.

Enjoyed an excellent scone at the Cornish Cafe at the entrance to Gunwharf Quay, the latest in a sequence of excellent scones from up and down the country. By the time we'd enjoyed the scone and coffee the weather had deteriorated so we made haste back to the car for the journey to Kent, which thankfully was uneventful.

A very pleasant weekend, the concert was, as you know from yesterday, superb and today was different but nonetheless very enjoyable. A Runrig fan had found the set list on yesterday's blip and posted the link onto the Runrig FaceBook page with the result that this blip has now had over 300 visits.