Day off work

Today my people didn't go to work. The weekend was the Isle of Wight Festival and all the people are travelling back, disrupting my person's journey to the mainland and our man person's journey to Newport, so we decided not to bother.  Like any day off in the week we started with breakfast out.

We are lucky to have French Frank's in Ryde, just five minutes walk from our home.  I gave them a very favourable baboon rating for their croissants with apricot jam!  Very French!!  Then we went for a walk.  We avoided all the areas where the crowds would be travelling and drove to a little place called Hollingford, just near Arreton, to walk another disused railway.

It did look a long way from the start.  We walked along this path, hardly any people were around, that's one of the nice things abuot having a day off in the week.  After a while I met these calves and stopped for a chat.

They were a little shy but very sweet.  We went on and came to this bench where we stopped for a little sit down.

There is a man on our island who carves these lovely benches and other nice carvings.

We carried on and soon I met these highland cattle.  I thought they were a long way from home but they told me they live here now.

I'm not sure why they wanted to stand in the muddy water and I didn't join them in that particular pastime.

We carried on for around three miles and then we turned around.  On the way back I looked at a couple of different things.  Near the bench there was a mill and I looked at that.  You could hear the water running over the steps.

I also wanted to have a look at the scenery around us, we were on a path between the downs.

Its a real country walk.  I also saw lots and lots of wild flowers, in the end I stopped for a rest in a cluster of them.

I love these big daisies.  I also like poppies and there were some of them too.

After our walk we decided to pop in and say hello to the donkeys at the donkey sanctuary as it was not very far from where we were.

 

Most of the donkeys were busy eating because it was lunchtime.  These ones were outside the barn waiting to go in and get their hay so they were a little more friendly.  Well as I say it was lunchtime so my thoughts turned that way too.  We went to a Rhylstone Gardens in Shanklin for our lunch.  I had my supplies with me, banana bread of course.

It hadn't been the sunniest day but the sun came out for our picnic.  I can't imagine why our man person thought I needed a fork, I'm a baboon!  I eat with my paws!  Anyway, after lunch we went home to relax for the rest of the day.  We did some napping (to get in shape for #TeddyOlympics) and some reading and blogging and this evening we will go to the Hong Kong Express cafe on the seafront to finish our day off in style.

Who's New at Baboon HQ

I did a series of blogs on Who is Who at Baboon HQ.  Since then there have been unexpected new arrivals.  I introduced Charlie, sent by Miriam, on Twitter.  However, after him three more baboons arrived who will stay at Baboon HQ, for various reasons.  I'll let them introduce themselves.

Hi my name is George Baboon.  I am the biggest of the new arrivals, but I am still pretty small.  I was meant for rehoming but when I arrived somebody was home sick and unpacked me and I gave cuddles and then, well, that was that!  I am named George after the Arsenal legend manager George Graham who won things with them in the 1980's!  I have made myself useful at Baboon HQ by climbing trees to fix the wind koi Miriam sent and I might become a climbing instructor when I am older.  At the moment I tend to hang out with Freddy Baboon and play with toys.

Hi wavy paws I'm Theo Baboon and I am the tinyest baboon ever to be seen at Baboon HQ.  I am a finger puppet and my job at Baboon HQ is entertaining people and baboons.  Like George, when I am older, I might become an instructor at Baboon HQ, my subject would be baboon entertainments.  I took my name after Theo Walcott who I think is the smallest player at Arsenal.  Kolo things he will never see a smaller baboon than me.  I am staying at Baboon HQ because I was a present but I have cousins who might be rehomed with smaller anipals or those with less space for baboons.  I spend my time hanging out with Dixon Baboon, see below.

Hi, I'm Dixon Baboon.  I might be familiar to some of you as I have a few brothers, sisters and cousins rehomed with some of you.  I have magnetic paws and can carry things around.  I am staying at Baboon HQ because I was a present to Kolo.  I don't really know what I will do at Baboon HQ but I am very happy here and I am sure I will find a roll.  Maybe carrying things for baboons whose paws are not so handy.  I also like climbing and swinging so might help with the instructing in those areas.  How did I get my name?  Well my full name is Dixon Winterburn Adams Keown Baboon after the famous Arsenal flat back four.  I got so many names because Kolo thinks I will be the last baboon to arrive and he wanted to honour all the back four.  I am quite a small baboon for such a big name but I can handle it.  I hang out with Theo Baboon and we giggle a lot.

Landslip

Today we went for a walk from Shanklin to Ventnor, which is the town where Edward was working in the shop.  Usually we start this walk by climbing the Downs and come back through the Landslip.  It was a bit too windy for that so we decided to go through Landslip both ways as it is sheltered.

We started off on the costal path between Shanklin and the village of Luccombe.

It was quite windy up here so we did park on the coastal path rather than walking up.

From the next gate you could see Sandown Bay behind me.

When we got to the village of Luccombe we were pleased to see that the Luccombe Jam man is still in operation.

We carried on through the wooded area of Luccombe Common until we reached the Landslip.  I stopped to read this notice as it told me what I shouldn't do while we were there.

We climbed up and down lots of steps and finally reached the wishing seat.

I wished the climbing up steps wasn't so hard.  The Landslip is very beautiful.  Some land fell into the sea in the 16th century leaving this very fertile area full of trees and interesting plants.

I climbed this tree to have a look around.  Its a real baboon adventure playground.

It really is a beautiful place with lots of climbing up and down.  Every year more bits fall away so we never know where the path will be next.  This was our first visit this year so we found quite a lot of changes.  New plants grow wherever land falls away so it is fascinating.

At the end of the Landslip you get to the village of Bonchurch where, I am told, Charles Dickens wrote part of David Copperfield.  There is a lot to see there a pottery, an old church and nice beaches.  However, see those waves, it was far too windy for me.

We walked along towards Ventnor.

 

It really was windy and splashy!

There were lovely wild flowers all over the cliffs.

We got to Ventnor.

Now was time to feed my coffee habit.  We went to the Met Bar on the seafront.  This places gets an extremely high Baboon rating as you get a Flake chocolate bar with your coffee.

After coffee it was time to walk back.  When we got back to Bonchurch we found a spot to eat our sandwiches, on the cliff path, out of the wind.

We got back to the car by the same route and came home for a traditional baboon nap.

I hope next time we will be able to do the Downs part of the walk too.

Garden finishing touches

Over the last two weeks we have done lots of work on our garden, laying decking, assemblying benches and waterproofing the decking although that is a job for people who don't have fur.  Today we put the final finishing touches.

You didn't expect this! Much to our surprise out manperson gave my person an Arsenal garden gnome for her birthday.  Today he decided where he would sit in the garden.  He will be guarding against any invasion of Baboon HQ by anyone associated with that blue team.

 

George climbed up into one of the bay trees to hang the wind koy that Miriam gave us from Germany.  We understand that luck will blow down it and come to us.

 

Yaya, Thierry and I set up the garden furniture and then had the difficult job of making sure it was in the right place to get the best of the sunshine.

So there we are, garden done, we can relax for the summer and use our lovely roof garden.

Brighstone walk

Today was lovely again so we decided to do another walk.  This is a circular walk where you start and finish in the same place. It seemed more oval to me but who am I to say.  We started in a village called Brighstone in the south of the island towards the west.

Brighstone church has had three of their vicars who became bishops, so the pub in the village is the Three Bishops.  One of those bishops was Samuel Wilberforce, the son of William Wilberforce, the great anti-slavery campaigner.

After leaving the village we climbed a beautiful path that was overgrown with wild flowers.

This took us to our next path along the cliffs.

We walked towards the forest you can see in the distance.

I had a bit of trouble climbing these trees, well it is only Mini-Kolo here and I am not as experienced as Kolo with all this and they were high trees.

We had quite a steep climb in the forest and then walked along this beautiful path.  After leaving the forest we walked across some fields.

This took us to a road which we needed to walk along for just a few minutes and then a long a beautiful field path until we reached the longstone.

Now nobody is 100% sure what this is but these two stones are thought to have marked the entrance to a neolithic burial ground around 5,000 years ago.

We carried on along footpaths that took us up onto the downs.

I could see towards the western tip of the island from here and I could even see Portland Bill in Dorset in the background.  We had a long but more gentle climb up to this neolithic burial mound on top of the downs.

There are quite a few of these in the west of the island.  After the burial mound we stopped briefly as somebody had not had enough breakfast and needed to eat one of their sandwiches.

Then we walked on along the top of the downs and slowly descended until we had to cross a road.  We climbed up along the edge of Brighstone Forest.  We must be getting close to the end of the walk.

Before turning down to Brighstone I looked back at where I had been.  I could see the cliffs at Freshwater int he distance, where I was on Friday.

It was a long walk.  After that we needed to get back down to Brighstone.  This involved descending two quite steep paths, where humans and young baboons need to watch where they are putting their feet and being careful not to fall over.  There were beautiful wild flowers but we couldn't stop.

Finally we arrived back in Brighstone.  I am sitting outside the town museum and library, the next thatched building is the post office and at the back you can see the thatched village shop.  It was a lovely walk and we were tired, so we ate out sandwiches here and then came home to have a Sunday afternoon nap.

The Freshwater Way

Today was beautiful and my person is on holiday from work so we went for another walk.  This time we went over to the west of the island, to walk the Freshwater Way.  We usually start in Yarmouth but it was very busy there with a festival so we started in the middle and did a figure of 8 walk.  More about the festival in a minute.

We started on the causeway at Freshwater, this picture is from another day but it is the same spot.  Then we walked down the disused railway to Yarmouth, you have seen me there before too.  Just to remind you.

It is woody and there are trees to climb. 

Near to Yarmouth there is an old watermill which we belive belongs to the family of A J P Taylor, the historian, but I don't know this for sure.

We got to Yarmouth, you have seen me there before but it was different today because they had the Old Gaffers' Festival.  We are not islanders and it took us a few years to find out what this was about.  As far as we understand it gaffers are a type of old wooden boat and they gather together at Yarmouth at the end of May each year to chat about old times.  They looked very pretty with their flags flying.

After leaving Yarmouth we went along a wooded path.

and then a field path

then more woods and fields until we got back to the causeway at Freshwater where we looked at this interesting church and grave yard, it is All Saints church.

When we do the walk the normal way, starting at Yarmouth, we only visit the causeway once but doing it this way you meet it three times.

We decided to have our sandwiches at the reed bed by the causeway.

We could see a view when we got up on the wall.

The hill in the background is Tennyson Down I have shown you close up pictures of the Tennyson memorial up there before.

After lunch we carried on.  After a little bit of walking on the road we got to a big field with horses.  We had to cross that and were making for the golf course. You can see the buildings of the golf course in the distance here.

Now baboons aren't silly when we got to the golf course we just kept walking fast, golf balls can be painful to the head and we weren't hanging around.

We climbed down to Freshwater Bay.

I had a disappointment there!  There is a cafe called Cafe Delicius at Freshwater Bay and I would have had tea there.  Sadly I have been forced to give this cafe a very low baboon rating.  It does have nice cakes and a great view of the sea, but it is never open when we are there, even on a sunny day in half-term week it was closed.  Very disappointing.  If you are ever at Freshwater Bay go to the Dandelion Cafe in the walking holidays hostel, it will be open and they do nice scones.  Sadly we didn't stop today.

We carried on through a nature reserve.

and, after a little bit of walking on a quiet road and through another pretty path, we reached the End of the Line cafe at Freshwater.  Now this cafe never disappoints!  Nearly always open and great cakes and lunches.

 

This picture is when I went there with Jens on his visit in April.  We stopped there briefly to buy some of their delightful date and walnut slices, for breakfast tomorrow.  We always give this cafe a 5 out of 5 baboon rating.

After that we walked down more of the disused railway (see where the cafe got its name), back to the causeway, where we had left the car.  It was a lovely walk on a beautiful day.