We had an uneventful crossing on the Wightlink ferry from Lymington to Yarmouth. It was so quick and easy that we really couldn’t understand why we hadn’t done so before.
It was a relatively short drive to the cottage near Brighstone (but then everywhere is a short drive on the IoW) and we arrived soon after the check-in time. The cottage was clean and reasonably spacious but was one of these places with mean owners who can’t part with a tiny sum of money to make things easier for guests. A good example here is the dishwasher. In recent years we have always selected cottages with a dishwasher and this is the first one that hasn’t provided some dishwasher detergent. We mentioned this to the gormless looking owner when he showed up and his only observation was that we could buy some and take the unused ones home with us.
In a similar vein there were no tea bags (coffee and jam was provided), sugar, salt etc. There were also only three books! Cottage libraries are rarely extensive, but in a country where books can be gathered for free from any telephone box it seems silly to not have a selection.
After dinner we took a short walk to the nearby beach by way of reconnaissance.
