Another school inset day meant we were able to link up once again with our most common travel companions, the Khimasia family. We resurrected our booking for a weekend on the Isle of Wight, which had to be postponed from last year, because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

We got the Red Funnel Ferry from Southampton to East Cowes. Our girls found it amazing that we were actually taking our own car on the ferry across with us, a concept that as adults we’ve long taken for granted. Once on the island, we headed straight to the sandy Ryde Beach. We spent the whole afternoon here. It was quiet, clean, and all the children wanted to do was build forts with their new buckets and spades. The tide was out, which allowed us to wade in the warm shallow waters between the sand banks out to some considerable distance. With the sun beaming, and the view of the Portsmouth skyline visible across The Solent, I was reminded ever so slightly of my holidays in Dubai. That evening, after freshening up in our AirBnB, we went for dinner to The Cadet Beach Club, where we enjoyed great service, very nice food and cocktails, and a lovely view across Appley Beach.

Saturday was our one full day. We took an anti-clockwise route round the island. We first visited the world famous coloured sands of Alum Bay, which, with it’s 21 different shades, is one of the most picturesque beaches on the Isle of Wight. From here, we made the short walk up to The Needles chalk stacks by the Old and New Battery. It was a clear day, but we still weren’t able to make out Old Harry Rocks across the water, at the start of the Jurassic Coast, where we’d been just a few weeks before. What we did not expect to see from here, however, was Hurst Castle, by Milford on Sea. Hamel and I went on one of our first dates there, some 14 years ago, before we got married. It was very windy here, which instantly reminded me of how it had been there that day, and in that moment a decade and a half of memories blew through my mind.

We then moved on to Compton Bay with the ‘Dinosaur Footprints’, where we spent two hours on the beach, watching the sea, while the kids did what they love doing best… digging holes in the sand. We returned back to our accommodation via a scenic drive around the Southern Coast, briefly stopping for a photo in the slightly more upmarket Ventnor.

The Island is so small, that before our late afternoon ferry home on our final day, we had enough time to first drive all the way down to the Southern Coast again. Along the way, we made a visit to the lovely Garlic Farm, where we saw an albino peacock and tried some black garlic ice cream. From there, we drove down to Shanklin for afternoon tea at The Old Thatch Tea Shop, which had a kind of feel of the ‘old world’ about it. Our last experience before going back to the mainland was hopping on the Cowes Floating Bridge to go and have a look at the Yacht Haven, which looked a nice area to explore, had we had more time.

And with that, we felt like another part of England had been conquered. This again, is an example of a destination very close to home, that we had put off visiting for so long, at a time when the whole world had been open to us. But this trip confirmed why it had been on our wish list in the first place. The global pandemic has undoubtedly been challenging, but we’ve done our best to look for opportunities in these difficult times, and in doing so have learnt to appreciate more and more of what is already around us.