Our amazing week on the Isle of Wight was coming to and end and it would soo be home time. Boo!
We had an early start to the day with everyone mucking in with the sorting and packing whilst trying to keep the kids happy and entertained. It was a tricky balance and there was a bit of arguing, but they were mostly good as gold.
When we were nearly fully packed and tidied, a previous Savoy Holiday Club attendee stuck her head in and asked if she could see the cottage. She had stayed in our cottage (or one of its neighbours) many years ago and wanted to report back to her family about how they’d changed. We lost Megan for a good few minutes as they reminisced about Spinnakers, the ballroom and many other Savoy related topics.
Before leaving we checked every drawer and cupboard at least three times (as is traditional), but we were finally out, in the cars and ready to face the day. We didn’t have much of a plan for the morning but had generally aimed to find somewhere to mill about before our ferry, but on a last minute whim we decided to chance our arms and see if we could get on an earlier ferry.
Our booking was for 1:00pm (delayed from the initial 12:00pm because of a reduced service due to COVID), so we got there at 9:30am hoping for the best. We were informed that the service was currently only once every two hours (!) but that we could check in and hope for the best with the 11:00am service. Crikey! When we’d been previously there was a ferry every thirty minutes so this was a bit of a shock, but we decided to check in anyway and went for a quick explore around Yarmouth.
We whizzed around the village in double quick time as we didn’t have very long. We bought postcards, wandered down the pier, Megan investigated an old bead shop (now sadly closed), I taught Genevieve and James about weathervanes, we discussed about how having ice cream that early in the morning would be a bad idea, and we threw stones into the sea (whilst collecting yet more shells and stones to take home). It was a very busy 45 minutes.
We returned to our cars and diligently awaited our fate. Would there be space on the 11:00am ferry for us? The short answer is no. No there wasn’t. Absolutely infuriating, but what can you do? We came so close and the car in front of us got on, but we received a stern shake of the head from the high-viz wearing man (in spite of our cheeriest smile) and watched as the ferry pulled away.
So we invoked backup plan A and tried to go to The George to sit on their terrace to while away the time. Unfortunately they didn’t open until 12:00pm and even then were fully booked. Plan B quickly became “Google anywhere nearby that served drinks and had outside seating (preferably with shade)”. It was at this point that the, shall we say, less than consistent 4G coverage on the island reared its ugly head. No-one could source a decent option. We were facing the prospect of not having anything to do for two hours with two small children as the sun got hotter and hotter. Not ideal!
But Megan came up trumps. On her earlier wander she’d been past Butterflies, a coffee shop that served drinks and sandwiches. Hurrah. We arrived to find some tables free, but they were all in the blazing heat of the sun and I was already starting to melt. As luck would have it though, a family was just leaving as we arrived and they had prime seats in the shadiest spot. What a result!
The adults had a big discussion about cold coffee as it was a new and eye-opening concept for both Grandma Lindsey and Grandad Lawrie. I suspect a new caffeine-related gadget will be acquired for their kitchen in the near future. The kids were thrilled about their milkshakes (strawberry and chocolate for James and Genevieve respectively) that included lashings of squirty cream and a healthy dollop of sprinkles. I had a moment of minor dismay as my order of toast and Marmite was scuppered by a total lack of yeast extract in the kitchen. All of the suggested replacement toppings were unsatisfactorily sweet (Nutella, jam, marmalade), but then the waitress offered cream cheese and cucumber which was the perfect alternative. Phew!
We wrote postcards to while away the time and enjoyed watching the neighbourhood sparrows dart into their nests as we finished our drinks. Then James announced that he needed a “wee” so I ushered him off to the toilet by the pier. It turned out to be a multi-session poo (just what a parent needs in a hot, cramped toilet when there’s a queue outside), but I was thankful that it wasn’t on the ferry or the journey home. Small mercies!
We wandered back to the cars at which point Grandma Lindsey observed that we’d not had a full-family photo all holiday. Grandad Lawrie was convinced that we had but no-one could find it. “I was wearing my brown shirt” was not enough evidence to magically produce the selfie, so we took another one instead overlooking the harbour.
We also roped in a nearby middle-aged lady to take a family shot as backup. I’m not normally one to stereotype, and she did take a couple of different shots in case one wasn’t good, but non-digital native people always tend to take terrible photographs. And low and behold the photo wasn’t centred and had a large chunk of the harbour that wasn’t needed. Yes, I’m a fussy so and so, but I’m always grateful for high-definition cameras and the ability to easily crop images so it was all OK in the end.
At this point the banter with Grandad Lawrie began about his “brown shirt” selfie not existing. As a joke I then blurred out his face in the family shot we’d just taken on my phone, and then I just cropped him out entirely. Yes, it was a smidge mean but it was also absolutely hilarious.
We finally made it onto the ferry and we rushed to get to the front of the upper deck again. We had wonderful views (although Megan noted that her family would normally sit at the back on their return journeys to the mainland to say goodbye to the Needles). James had great fun shouting out whenever he spotted a buoy (much to the amusement of the surrounding passengers), and both kids waved enthusiastically at the passing boats (even though none of the passing ferry passengers waved back – killjoys!).
Grandad Lawrie hadn’t put on any sun cream so fashioned a rather fetching headscarf to protect himself. Of course this was the perfect fodder for some more selfie fun!
Before we knew it the tannoy system announced that it was time to disembark. But there was just time for one last selfie on the ferry first, obviously.
Goodbye holiday – hello long drive home on a Friday afternoon. We were already fretting about hitting the M25 during rush hour, but this was quickly overshadowed by a disaster before we started. The main entertainment planned from the kids on the journey home was an iPad preloaded with films, but we realised that it was desperately low on battery. Oh no! But panic not, we had a charging cable. Phew.
However, it quickly became apparent (when the kids loudly told us that their film had stopped) that the charging wasn’t working. There are surprisingly few safe places to stop in the New Forest. Yes, you’re an area of natural beauty, but perhaps you might permit the occasional tarmacked area for frazzled parents to regroup? We found a likely-looking spot with ample space for passing traffic, but nerves were beyond fried (in fact utterly nuked) when a passing truck decided to honk its horn as Megan was leaning into James’s door to sort things out. We both swore using grade-A swears (and justifiably so) under our breath, but thankfully the kids were too distracted to notice.
Frustratingly the charging cable was a dud, or perhaps the iPad was on in its way out. Either way, we couldn’t watch what we wanted. So instead we hooked up the second iPad (with no entertainment preloaded) to my phone’s internet and attempted to stream Star Wars: Return of the Jedi as we navigated they New Forest traffic. I have to say, I was mightily impressed as it worked remarkably for most of the forest. It only buffered in a few places (and boy did the kids let us know that was happening) before we then hit the big roads and more reliable signal. Thank you 4G and thank you Disney+ for providing us with calm kids for the journey back to Orpington.
It wasn’t all plain sailing as we had two narrow escapes on the way home. At one point, an “enthusiast” Audi driver tried to ram us off the road after his lane “suddenly” closed, and by “sudden” I mean had been signposted for the previous mile and had closed a good twenty metres earlier. I rarely use the horn, but he almost caused a serious crash at 70mph due to his sheer cockiness and assumed ownership of the road, so he had a full three second blast from the car’s vocal pipes. Strong words indeed from me! No point in stressing about it though – let the idiot drive away and be thankful that I’d been adequately aware of what he was doing ahead of time. Knob.
The second one was ever scarier. As we exited a tunnel I noticed a huge plume of smoke ahead. I initially assumed it was a controlled farm fire or a factory, but it was swiftly evident that it was a vehicle fire in the opposite lane. As we approached it transpired to be a whole lorry on fire. It was genuinely terrifying to witness, especially when we felt the sheer wall of heat as we whizzed past. For what we could tell, there was not an accident but rather that the lorry had just caught fire and pulled over. As we proceeded we passed three fire engines battling though the traffic coming the other way to get to the fire. And we soon discovered that traffic in our direction was closed swiftly after that (and rightly so) for a good couple of hours. For the sake of a few minutes we avoided a multi-hour delay. Phew!
The only other incident was James falling asleep on his box. It can’t possibly have been comfortable but he did look amazingly adorable! After a couple of hours we arrived home without anything else of note happening.
I went upstairs to go to sleep as I was tired from the drive. Grandma Margaret came round to entertain the kids giving Megan a chance to unpack without interruption. It proved tricky to get the kids to go to bed, let alone to sleep, as it was too damn hot. We could have done with some of the rain from earlier in the week!
Megan and I had a well-earned curry for dinner, and I gave Megan a half-hour long shoulder rub as she was tired from all the sorting and unpacking. I then went to load the dishwasher only to discover that I’d inadvertently left a dirty chopping board on the machine while we were away. It was covered in mould and absolutely stank. I also had the unenviable task of disposing of the milk we’d forgotten in the outside fridge. The glamorous side of returning from holiday!
In spite of the masses of laundry to plough through, all off the toys to put away, and the mouldy chopping board that needed deep cleaning, it was so lovely to be home. We had had an incredible week but you can’t beat a good night’s sleep in your own bed.
The Smiths Family Blog 
A lovely and entertaining account of your holiday. Thank you
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