Monday, 30 December 2019: Isle of Wight, a draft just re-discovered

I walked as far as I could along the seafront. Up until the fading light and my exhaustion caused me to turn back.

Then the long walk back to the ferry terminal where I’d arrived in bright and unusual for this time of the year winter sunshine earlier in the day.

Both esplanade coffeehouse’s I’d passed on my walk out along the coastline were closed in time with the fading dusk by my return walk and my regret at having walked so far. I also regretted having not stopped on my way out; it was that human thing of wondering what was around the next 'corner' of the coast that drove me forwards. In fact, I more than regret not stopping, I'm angry at myself.

Ryde, Isle of Wight. Just off the coast of Southampton and Portsmouth.

I was last here in 1986, that’s 33 years ago, wtf!

Was too tired to walk the mile-long historic wooden pier back to the ferry terminal, which is unusual for me... so I forked out the one pound seventy for the short ride.

What a blast from the past: It must have been a very old former underground tube train that had been put out to pasture here on the isle.

Only two carriages long. And very low on the tracks. The extremely comfortable seats with their springs sprung, well worn and sat out; the decor, colour scheme and furnishings taking me straight back to the London tube trains I obsessively haunted in 1986 and '87 as I trod the fine and sexual line between boyhood and becoming an adult.

Within four minutes I was at the terminal and within another four minutes relieved to be sitting on the much more clinical and sterile and (I suppose) practical ferry. Within another 13 minutes, we were disembarking at the Spinnaker near the Gunwharf Quays where everyone has that glint in their eye as they cruise the ‘premium retail space’. Portsmouth.

Then another train back to Petersfield, Hampshire.