PORTSMOUTH (PART 1)

I've not long returned from what will probably be my last trip away from home this year. My old friend from uni days (we've known one another 55 years this month) offered to go away on holiday with me for a few days. She had suggested Portsmouth as a possible destination and, as I have never been there, I decided "why not?", although I must confess I did not really think there would be much to see. How wrong was I?

We booked into a hotel right down by the harbour and my train arrived at Portsmouth Harbour station, despite engineering works on the outward journey on a Sunday which involved a bus service between Arundel and Barnham. The train station was a few minutes' walk to our hotel and a few minutes' walk to the Historic Dockyard. My friend had arrived by car and we met up in the hotel foyer at 2pm.

Now, I don't know if any of you know Portsmouth well, but the Historic Dockyard is a must to see.  My friend had researched it well and had discovered, if we booked online and bought Ultimate Explorer tickets, which only cost a few pounds more than the day ticket, we could visit the dockyard for a whole year. It was certainly a wise move as a day is not enough to see everything there is to see. Having arrived in Portsmouth at 2pm, we immediately strolled to the dockyard at 3, only to discover that one of the things I wanted to see (a submarine) was not open on Mondays or Tuesdays. As I was returning home on Wednesday, I only had that day to see it. So I caught the 15.30 free crossing over to Gosport where the submarine is docked and was the last on board for that afternoon.

I wanted to get a feel for what it is like to be on board a submarine and it was a wonderful experience. I got to chat with one of the guides all to myself. He told me had worked on the Polaris submarines in his youth. There were normally 65 people on board and I tried to imagine how cramped and claustrophobic it must feel particularly when submerged under water. Here are a few pictures of it.

The following day, it took us all day to look around the Mary Rose exhibition and HMS Victory. More about that next week. There are so many photos to put on one post and I was absolutely blown away by what there was to see. If you have never been, I can thoroughly recommend Portsmouth's Historic Dockyard, but don't imagine you can see it all in a day - you need at least two days if not more to see a fraction of it. I'll get together more photos for my next post.

Holidays

I may have mentioned once or a million times before, that, being a widow with no close family whatsoever (siblings or cousins), holidays are now a thing of the past for me. I cannot really expect my loved-up daughter, Kay, and her husband, Darcy, to accompany me while I play gooseberry, so have accepted that, unless I go away on my own anywhere, I shall never go anywhere abroad any more. I don't have the courage to go on singles holidays, although various people have advised me to and said they are just fine. I would find eating out on my own in restaurants stressful and attract sympathy and curiosity from every corner, which I would hate. I have thought about doing trips to UK cities on my own for a few nights here or  there. Wandering around cities on my own would present no problems - after all I live in one of the biggest in the world and can negotiate myself round that - and snacking at cafes and room service would probably deal with the eating alone problem. So that is the way forward for me.

I have been very much absent from blogging myself in the last month mainly because, now that Kay's wedding is over, I have been able to turn my thoughts to escaping for mini breaks. First I went down to Salisbury for the day to visit an old school friend as well as the widowed husband of another schoolfriend. It was nice to travel on the train and see something different, as well as chat with old friends. Then over the August Bank Holiday weekend, I went up to the Midlands to visit my sister-in-law Jill, Greg's sister. She has been going through a very tough time as her partner has dementia and has gone into a care home. He was diagnosed as "end-of-life" a month ago, but has miraculously bounced back, but still causing worry as he seems to like standing on chairs near windows to get at imaginary things on the ceiling! It was lovely to stay with her and help her with household chores and the garden. Our drives through the countryside to get to the care home were lovely and I think Jill appreciated chatting to someone who does not have dementia! Finally last week, I went down to Brighton for the weekend to visit friends there. I had some spare time on the Sunday before I got my train back home, so went along to Brighton Pavilion. I had been there before as a child, but remembered little so wanted to make an effort to go now. I was not disappointed.

It was the plaything of George IV who wanted to enjoy the Brighton sea air and invite guests down there to relax and be frivolous. He was obsessed with the Orient, so the design and interior decoration is very heavily influenced by China with original hand-painted Chinese wallpaper; Chinese lamps and lanterns; dragons everywhere and Chinese furniture. The Pavilion was later used by William IV and Victoria, before being sold to  the town of Brighton in 1850. Here are some pictures of my memorable visit.