Easter Holidays

We're having a quiet holiday at home as we're both tired. The weather has mostly been lovely so far, and we've pottered about doing housework jobs, a bit of gardening and tootling around the Island.  Last week we went for a wander around Newtown with chums (see previous post), and now we are doing things to add to our Challenge 2014 list.

On Saturday we drove out to Shorwell for the annual Mammoth Jumble Sale in aid of the Hospice. I have been meaning to go for years. I was rather disappointed to be honest. Nothing at all that I wanted to buy, and I'm usually a sucker for some old tat at a church/ village sale. I bought a fairy cake for 20p then we wandered back to the village, buying some eggs from the farm gate on the way, and visiting the village shop so we could get some sweets. Shorwell village is pretty and needs investigating further; there are several footpaths leading off it so I suspect walks will commence soon.

Today we ventured to the tip to get rid of the garden rubbish, then drove to Briddlesford Farm. While there we stopped for tea, cake, coke and ice cream at Bluebells Cafe. This came to £8, which I thought was a bit steep, but the chocolate brownie that I had was to die for so I forgave them their prices.  Afterwards we popped in to the farm shop, but saw nothing that we wanted to buy. We then drove to Arreton Barns and pootled along to the Carp Pond. We bought some fish food from the Maritime Museum and spent quarter of an hour throwing it at frenzied carp and some deft ducks. Very pleasant. We carried on along the path and came to the parish church. This was open so we went in and had a look around; there were medieval tombstones, 17th century chests, the remains of an ancient font, some nice tiling by the altar, and bells.  I found it very calming and interesting, but my companion was not particularly interested, apart from by the organ. She could not work out how anyone could play it! The church is about 1000 years old, and is very weathered on the outside but appears to be in good condition inside.  To finish off, we went into Farmer Jack's Farm Shop where we found a few interesting things we wanted to buy, and lots of things we wanted to buy but couldn't really justify. My favourite was frozen, ready to bake danish pastries. Yummmmm!