Saturday 13th Aug 07:30pm, Shanklin, Isle of Wight For the last two days the weather was not very appealing. Quite constant light drizzle, trademark UK drizzle of the sort you get very often over here, meant that I was mostly staying indoors, watching TV, reading books and having a discussion with the whole family at Roseberrys about blood pressure (Steven, an uncle of the kids, refused to believe me that 180/120 is Grade-3 hypertension that requires an instant ...

10th August 09:20pm, Shanklin, Isle of Wight The passage Portsmouth - Ryde: I would have really liked to travel by hovercraft but those depart from Southsea and cost about 20% more than the catamaran, which itself costs 20% more than the ferry. So I crossed the Solent on the 'Wight Ryder II', an obvious reference to Knight Rider for comic effect. The crossing, which took 15 minutes, was rather uneventful (duh, it was only a quarter hour, so what do you expect?)....