Last weekend Richard and I headed over to the Isle of Wight for the weekend. I’d never been before, and Richard doesn’t think he has been either.

We based ourselves at the Godshill Park Farm B&B, a lovely, relaxing place a short (10 minutes or so) walk from the pretty village of Godshill and its many eateries.

We spent Saturday mainly along the South Coast – concentrating on the New and Old Batteries at the Needles, as well as various bays along the way. We spent Sunday around the West Coast up to Cowes, ending up at Sandown, and then spent Monday on the East Coast up to Ryde and ending up on the ferry.

A really lovely weekend, and a feeling of England in the 1970s. We’re hoping to head off over again, maybe without the car next time, as the Island line train service combined with a plentiful bus service and the myriad of public footpaths make the island very accessible.

There are plenty more photos

Last weekend we headed off to Wakehurst Place, a botanic garden and conservation area managed by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Wakehurst Place was added to my to-visit list earlier this year when it was mentioned at a Cafe Scientifique talk about The Flower Hunters. It wasn’t the sunniest day, but it was warm and dry and we spent a good few hours walking around the gardens. We didn’t manage to get around all of it, and in fact missed almost all of the Woodland zone – a good reason to return.

I really enjoyed the Conservation zone and walking along the raised walkway above the water. At the end of the day, and after reading a few leaflets, and finding out that we’d get our admission fee back, we decided to join the National Trust for the year – we have a weekend in the Isle of Wight and a week in Cornwall later in the year and so hope we will be able to make a lot of use of it.

This weekend we took advantage of our new National Trust membership and visited Nyman’s – the closest National Trust property to our house (I think!) and had a very pleasant afternoon. Nymans has gardens, woodland and amazing views over Sussex and it seems to be a really great space – people were picnicking, playing hide and seek, sitting on the plentiful benches reading the Sunday paper – a really, really welcoming area. We had a short walk around and I’m looking forward to an opportunity to return and do some of the woodland walks and possibly even a visit to the house to take a look at the family rooms.

More photos here and here.