Every year until I was 8, we went on holiday to Lane End in the Isle of Wight. The long car journey and particularly the car ferry crossing from Portsmouth were always exciting.
Lane End is a small section of the larger village of Bembridge. It had a wonderful cafe on the beach - called The Rendezvous - with beach huts beyond. Here we all are:
Who wants an ice cream? So exciting!
The Rendezvous had a little shop to the side that sold ice cream cones, shrimp nets, buckets and spades and, typical of the time, saucy seaside postcards. The one that made us laugh the most (although when I was that little I am quite sure I had no idea what it meant!) was the one that said "This is Mrs Lovitt" - because I was one of 6 children and this poor woman obviously had even more than that...
One of the excitements of our journey down to the island was putting a message in a bottle and throwing it over the side of the ferry into the Solent. I have a memory that my brother once got a letter back from someone miles away who had picked up his bottle. Of course this would be thoroughly frowned upon now - but - and to bring this entry into much more tasteful waters - lots of us enjoy searching for sea glass on the beach.
This year's little haul from the beaches of St Ives with sweet new pot bought from Fish Pye Pottery in Back Road East
We still visit the Isle of Wight but also love Cornwall and we have just got back from a week in St Ives. We have been there many times and there always seems to be something new to discover. For some reason we had never been to the St Ives Museum - a wonderful private museum absolutely full of all sorts of historic bits and bobs in old-fashioned display cases - I hope they are never the recipients of a grant for any sort of makeover! St Ives also pulls me south-west for a bit of yanking on the wetsuit and over-excited, chucking myself about in the surf, body-boarding. Apart from that, the main draw is the quality of the light and the colours. When there it is hard not to go on and on about the colours - the colour of the sea, the sand and the sky:
I recently bought some rather gorgeous, slightly matt, agate beads in all the colours of the sea and made a necklace and earrings to match - see shop for details.
There are a number of new holiday-inspired pieces of jewellery over in the shop so do have a little look...
