Eastern Gardens

Today was a lovely day to be out and about in Ryde. We did some shopping at lunchtime—every trip to the Island requires a corresponding visit to The Co-op!

With no other plans, we decided to have a picnic on the beach. We already owned foldable chairs and found some colourful, reusable plastic plates in Poundland. During our supermarket visit, we picked up some sausage rolls and a quiche, which seemed perfect for a picnic at the time. We also bought some individual-sized bottles of rosé to enjoy.

On our way back from town to collect the picnic chairs and head out to the beach, I took a picture of the sign above the entrance to Eastern Gardens. It shows that today was nice and sunny. It's a shame that the left-hand side doesn’t show the pavilion because, while browsing the web this evening, I found a photograph of Eastern Gardens from 1927, where the pavilion is still very much in place. In my picture, however, what is now a white-painted extension housing the Superbowl was nowhere to be seen nearly 100 years ago. The pavilion was still in view, and in a colour lithograph that also appeared in my search results. The gardens in the picture look grand and prettier without a concrete block in the background. There’s so much history here, and I feel I should learn more about it.

My picture also doesn’t capture how windy it was. We quickly abandoned our attempt to set up on the beach, choosing a bench by the seawall instead. While the wind wasn’t blowing sand into our lunch here, it was still gusting, and by 4:15 pm, we’d eaten and given up hope of sitting and looking out across the Solent.