IOW for Mothering Sunday

Marc's Mum, Veda, lives in Sandowne on the Isle of Wight and we went to visit her for Mothering Sunday. When we got up in the morning, the wind was blowing a hooley! I jut couldn't wait for an adventurous ferry crossing.

We left the house at 8 am with plans to catch the 10 am ferry from Portsmouth to East Cowes. All was going according to plan until I started coughing up my lungs and we needed to stop at a services station for a hot cuppa tea for me. We were back on the road in no time and my husband dutifully and safely made up the time on the motorway. We arrived at the ferry station just in time to get ourselves on to the ferry. The crossing was uneventful and Seb and Abby were excited as always with the prospect of a boat ride. They didn't notice the white caps on the Solent.

As we neared the island Marc and I realised we were seriously to the right of the dock. The ferry had apparently crossed in record time due to wind and tide so we had to wait until the ferry going to the other way had left. We bumped 4 or 5 times before the captain managed to get us landed properly. Not a fun thing to watch from the car deck.

We arrived at Veda's home and the children served up kisses and cuddles for Granny. We distributed the Mother's Day gifts and Seb and Abby had painted some lovely pictures for display on her refrigerator. Veda said she had struggled to gt a table reserved for lunch so we were going to have to be flexible with our lunch arrangements. Somehow we ran into Marc's youngest brother in the street and he climbed into the car for the journey to the pub. We were happy to have him join us as we don't see much of him.

The first pub we went to had no tables available so we set off in search of another pub. We settled on The Eight Bells in Carrisbrook and had a plentiful and delicious lunch.

Then back to Veda's where we left from shortly for a walk down to the beach. It was chilly spring day and the wind was whipping about but the children loved running around on the sand. I have to say the cold air wreaked havoc with my coughing. We returned home after a short while with just a little time for a drink and back into the car for the return journey.

The M3 was badly congested on the way home and we were delayed a couple of times due to heavy traffic. We managed to get home by just after 8 pm. Our poor little Bailey was very happy to see us having been abandoned for the day.