Crossing

It was very clear from my trip to Boots to pick up a prescription that the Christmas shopping season has started, as the queue to pick up click-and-collect parcels was longer than anything for the things the shop was selling off the shelves.

I noticed the cancelled train in time to leave home and travel on an earlier one. This gave us more time at Waterloo before boarding the 5:30 p.m. Portsmouth service. I text-chatted with R for a lot of the way. I also learned that the Holderness coast of East Yorkshire is the fastest-eroding coastline in Europe, at 2m a year.

The crossing was considerably less bumpy than I imagined, given the forecast. I am not sure what I was trying to capture with this photo through the seat backs; whatever it was, I failed. When we arrived in Ryde, it was pouring, and we were soaked while walking down the pier. We stopped at the Chinese, which we ate while watching old episodes of Top of the Pops. The 1977 Tony Blackburn-hosted episode was particularly odd as it opened with the complete 30-to-1 countdown with pictures of the acts and no voiceover. There were no graphics on screen at any point. It felt pretty odd.