We are now settling into island life which seems to revolve around the Co-op! Until recently it was the only supermarket (there is a butcher and a couple of deli’s) and they seem to have taken the covid restrictions very seriously so there is a traffic light on the door (only go in when the light is green) and at busy times they have someone policing this. If that person manned another till we would all be through in no time, as it is there is often a queue of more than twenty people outside (picture above).
We are staying in Hughtown which has a nice beach, a large harbour complete with resident walrus and about ten restaurants all of which are very busy. The town is pictured below.
For some reason known only to herself Gill did not bring rain gear, perhaps she thought she was going abroad so on Friday night when it was pissing down she had to don a bin bag in order to get to the evenings restaurant without getting soaked, not the most elegant way to arrive at quite a posh restaurant.
It was pouring with rain again this morning, fortunately the forecast for the rest of the holiday is good so as the only thing planned for today was reading the papers, a long lunch in a pub and then settling down in front of the telly to watch England v Italy it is not to much of a problem although Gill had to wear the bag again to get to lunch. The only disappointment is that we could not find a pub with a TV in order to watch the match in a crowd.
The only proper pub, the Bishop and Wolf, is closed, all the rest seem to be gastro pubs who frown on a TV in the bar. I normally agree but today is not normal. I was hoping to share my memories of the 1966 final with anyone who would listen (Dad and I came home from holiday early so we could watch it in black and white but I think a couple of neighbours joined us in the living room as they did not have TV).
Last week in Lynmouth whilst chatting to a couple in a covid queue we mentioned we were off to the Isles and they said they used to run the Bishop and Wolf but after four years returned to the mainland. They found island life too claustrophobic in winter so moved on, it has since had a number of landlords none of whom stayed long.
The island has a population of 1700 people and 650 cars yet there are only 4.7 miles of road (info from Wikipedia). Why on earth would you have a car?
If you drove there and back along every road every day you would still only manage 3,500 miles a year. On the plus side cars don’t need an MoT but presumably the owners still pay tax and insurance. Cars can only be brought onto the island by using a crane to load them onto the ferry (pictured sailing into harbour) so in practice visitors cannot bring their own and once a car arrives here it stays put (the lazy visitors can hire golf carts).
On Saturday we did an excellent walk along the coast to a lighthouse taking lots of out of focus pictures of birds and a few more successfully of spectacular rock outcrops which tend not to move as much.
Tomorrow, weather permitting, we are taking the ferry over to Tresco to visit some gardens and have a long leisurely lunch in a restaurant called The Ruin, lets hope it is not too ruinous and we catch the last ferry back.