Spinnaker Tower, again

I’m sorry to disappoint those of you looking forward to seeing a blip from Portsmouth Historic Dockyard today. I can see many of you enjoy visiting the place and some of you have personal memories of the dockyard too.

We woke to a fine, sunny morning and after researching the various ticket options felt that £50 each for an annual ticket to all sites was too much given our plans for next year.

So we decided to take the foot ferry across the Solent to Ryde and walk eastward along the Esplanade as far as we could before retracing our steps to the pier head to catch the 15.45 ferry back.

We made the 11.15 departure from Portsmouth by the skin of our teeth being confused where to buy tickets given that the ticket office was beyond the station ticket barriers. After much to-ing and fro-ing we got through.

A fabulous crossing in sparkling sunshine. The Solent and skies were at their best. The walk along the esplanade spectacular. We called in for a coffee in the way out also seeing a very dark brown squirrel which we took to be a “red”

All in all, we walked 11.5 miles today including the 1/2 mile each way along the pier to and from the ferry. The Wightline trains being prevented from reaching Pier Head by extensive engineering works on the pier.

A surprising and very welcome drive back along the A3. The M25/A3 junction roadworks behaved themselves and the M25 was at quiet benign except when funnelled through roadworks.

Despite the main purpose of the journey being for a funeral, we enjoyed today very much, despite it being different to what we intended.

As extras I’ve included HMS Warrior and the view from Ryde Esplanade across the Solent to Portsmouth