ladyofastolat (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ladyofastolat) wrote2012-03-24 08:07 pm
ladyofastolat) wrote2012-03-24 08:07 pm
Mainland trip
When we first started keeping a Mainland Car, we intended to use it to do lots of sunny day trips to interesting places, but sunny weekends tend to get eaten by dancing commitments, so we've barely done any day trips at all. Today, however, we headed off to Portchester and Portsmouth for a castle, a boat trip, a seaside stroll, and an awful lot of tapas.
I like Portchester a lot. It consists of a large green space surrounded by Roman walls, with a Norman castle in one corner and a priory church at another. All the dog-walkers of Hampshire appear to use it for their Saturday morning romps. Numerous cars with sad imprisoned dogs in the back were reduced to trawling the back streets, disconsolately looking for parking spaces. (This we watched at length from the top of the Keep, pausing only briefly to reflect upon the fact that if we stopped watching and went back to our car, at least one of the sad dogs could bounce forth wild and free.)
Pellinor claims that I can't see a hole in historic stone work without taking a picture through it. I resemble that remark.
Twas very hazy, as it's been for days. Portsmouth is barely a hop, skip and a jump away, but was lost in the mist.
Oh, and here are some daffodils, with an out of focus castle peering down behind them. I think the castle looks very happy to see them.
The castle was used to house prisoners of war in the late 17th and 18th centuries. People in Yore seem to have had much better handwriting when it comes to graffiti than they do nowadays. I wonder if they were taught it in school. So many noble, ancient crafts have been lost to us!
I liked the beams inside the Keep:
Apparently the monks who settled in the priory bailed out after a mere 20 years, and moved elsewhere, having found Portchester not to their taste, though we were not told why. Too many dog-walkers, perhaps? I failed to take a picture of the priory from a sensible direction, merely taking a silly one into the sun.
There was a maze in the Priory grounds. The presence of recent flowers shows that it's not just Probably Ritual, but Definitely Ritual, but why? What is its significance?
We left Portchester, yielding our parking space to a dog-bearing vulture, and headed into Portsmouth, where we proceeded to eat a ridiculous amount of tapas, sitting outside at a table as warm as on any day in July. All around us were shoppers eating two or three quick dishes before returning to the fray, but we had a veritable mountain. It was very nice. :-)
We then did a harbour boat tour, and saw lots of Royal Navy ships, the Spinnaker Tower from the sea, and some pretty ripples.
After that, we walked down to Southsea and back. Thousands of people had had the same idea, and Southsea Common and seafront were absolutely packed with people lounging in the sun, enjoying the amusement park and eating ice cream.
The ferry home was pretty packed, too, full of Southampton football fans, though we couldn't work out from their demeanour whether they'd won or lost. A song was sung about "Pompey scum," so we kept very quiet about where we'd been. (I really don't understand that, by the way. I emphasise with fannishness, so I can comprehend fanatical devotion to a sports team, but I don't understand this passionate detestation of the "enemy" team.)
Oh, and here are some swans, which I actually photographed two weeks ago, but forgot to take off my camera. We saw swans in Pompey, so let's just pretend I saw them today, shall we?
I like Portchester a lot. It consists of a large green space surrounded by Roman walls, with a Norman castle in one corner and a priory church at another. All the dog-walkers of Hampshire appear to use it for their Saturday morning romps. Numerous cars with sad imprisoned dogs in the back were reduced to trawling the back streets, disconsolately looking for parking spaces. (This we watched at length from the top of the Keep, pausing only briefly to reflect upon the fact that if we stopped watching and went back to our car, at least one of the sad dogs could bounce forth wild and free.)
Pellinor claims that I can't see a hole in historic stone work without taking a picture through it. I resemble that remark.
Twas very hazy, as it's been for days. Portsmouth is barely a hop, skip and a jump away, but was lost in the mist.
Oh, and here are some daffodils, with an out of focus castle peering down behind them. I think the castle looks very happy to see them.
The castle was used to house prisoners of war in the late 17th and 18th centuries. People in Yore seem to have had much better handwriting when it comes to graffiti than they do nowadays. I wonder if they were taught it in school. So many noble, ancient crafts have been lost to us!
I liked the beams inside the Keep:
Apparently the monks who settled in the priory bailed out after a mere 20 years, and moved elsewhere, having found Portchester not to their taste, though we were not told why. Too many dog-walkers, perhaps? I failed to take a picture of the priory from a sensible direction, merely taking a silly one into the sun.
There was a maze in the Priory grounds. The presence of recent flowers shows that it's not just Probably Ritual, but Definitely Ritual, but why? What is its significance?
We left Portchester, yielding our parking space to a dog-bearing vulture, and headed into Portsmouth, where we proceeded to eat a ridiculous amount of tapas, sitting outside at a table as warm as on any day in July. All around us were shoppers eating two or three quick dishes before returning to the fray, but we had a veritable mountain. It was very nice. :-)
We then did a harbour boat tour, and saw lots of Royal Navy ships, the Spinnaker Tower from the sea, and some pretty ripples.
After that, we walked down to Southsea and back. Thousands of people had had the same idea, and Southsea Common and seafront were absolutely packed with people lounging in the sun, enjoying the amusement park and eating ice cream.
The ferry home was pretty packed, too, full of Southampton football fans, though we couldn't work out from their demeanour whether they'd won or lost. A song was sung about "Pompey scum," so we kept very quiet about where we'd been. (I really don't understand that, by the way. I emphasise with fannishness, so I can comprehend fanatical devotion to a sports team, but I don't understand this passionate detestation of the "enemy" team.)
Oh, and here are some swans, which I actually photographed two weeks ago, but forgot to take off my camera. We saw swans in Pompey, so let's just pretend I saw them today, shall we?
