Last weekend

It has been a long time coming, this year, but last weekend we had really nice weather.  Harry went on some adventures.  On Saturday Henry @henryandfriends was visiting the island, so we met for coffee.

The boys had coffee in Michelangelo's in Ryde. Well neither were really interested in the coffee but you can see they were enjoying the macaroon biscuits.

On Sunday we went for a walk,  We started by driving over to Freshwater.

The weather was lovely so it was a great drive.

The first thing to do was to climb this hill.  Harry checked it out before embarking on it.  It's quite a long and steep climb.

From the top Harry looked over Freshwater bay and Freshwater town.  It was a lovely clear day.

More climbing, not so steep but very long, up to the Tennyson monument, on the top of Tennyson Down. This is a memorial to Alfred Lord Tennyson who was the poet laureate in Victorian times and spent much of his time at his house in Freshwater, called  Farringford.  It is a hotel now.

There were views of the English Channel, Freshwater Bay, all the way to where Blackgang Chine is, where we went for a tweetup last summer, and over the Solent (the stretch of water between our island and the mainland), to the mainland and Hurst Castle, which was one of Henry VIII's fortresses to protect England from the Spanish who he thought might invade by coming down the Solent.

Then we walked down the other side of the hill, where Harry could see the Tennyson Memorial.  This is when we told him that it was not a circular walk and we would have to go back up that hill later.  He was brave about it.

Harry turned around to look at where we were still going to walk.  This is Needles Down and takes us to above the Needles, the chalk stacks that stand off the most westerly point on the island.  There is another fort there, called the Needles Battery.  That one was built to protect the Solent from the French when Napoleon was trying to take over Europe and it has been used more recently.  However, that is at a lower level so we didn't go in.

Harry found a signpost to make sure we were going the right way.

He also checked out the way back to Freshwater, just in case.

Of course, as always Harry decided to do what we baboons do and climb some trees on the way.

It was a very nice day out and we were happy to feel the sun on our fur!!