OUT OF SEASON

The Intrepids and I are on holidays once again. This time it’s the Isle of Wight, a 150 square-mile island off the coast of Hampshire. I say ‘square’; it is of course, diamond-shaped with its four sides angled neatly into the English Channel. Colonised by the Celts, built on by the Romans and popularised by the Victorians, the place has a provincial, quaint feel, a sort of island of old-fashioned seasides. We came here for quite a few family holidays years ago.

The ferry was fun! After an arduous drive through clouds of spray and rain on the M3, we found ourselves in clear skies, aboard the St Clare, chugging across the Solent from Portsmouth. The blue-grey sea churned beneath the boat and the wind gently rolled the vessel from side-to-side. Behind, the Spinnaker tower and the Naval Dockyard; ahead, the green trees and gentle landscape of the Island growing larger.

This was always going to be a bit different, this holiday. We were supposed to come in July but, as the history books will note, the summer of 2020 was sketchy at best. The holiday here was postponed until October. And so, here we are.

Speaking of the history books, today also happened to be the day that President Business went down with the virus. It seems this pandemic really has found its way everywhere. The world feels incredibly unstable all of a sudden. I hope he recovers quickly.

“There used to be a lot more sand,” said my Mum quizzically, walking along Ryde Esplanade. The wind blustered up from the sea across the seaweed-strewn beach. Over the Solent, England spread out beneath deep cloudy skies, and on this side, on the Island, the white waves rolled into the bank. It was all very ‘end-of-season’ somehow - drab and autumnal, like turning up to a party to find upturned chairs on tables and the cleaners whizzing round with a vacuum cleaner. The ice cream parlours were boarded up, the pirate crazy golf was locked, and the tired old pavilion buildings looked chipped and battered, selling cheap, warm beer to old men in leather jackets. There was a dreariness about Ryde I didn’t think it deserved, and certainly couldn’t remember.

I hope that won’t be a theme! It is ‘out-of-season’ and it isn’t the summer as it would have been (had the virus not bitten chunks out of the world). So it will have to be a different kind of time here, no doubt: different to what we expected and very different to one any of us could recall.

“Things do change,” said my Dad, prosaically. The chilly wind picked up a bit and started swirling around the flat sand.

That being said, out-of-season has its advantages: fewer people, for one thing. Hopefully that means fewer people wanting to do the things we’d like to do this week. And for another, I think this will make the time here feel much more relaxed. Relaxed is what I feel I need, in or out of season.