Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
9:53pm
Ramsey, Isle of Man
First of all, I must apologize for not writing yesterday. I seem to have come down with some nasty British virus, and I literally went to bed at around 8pm last night and didn’t wake up this morning till roughly 9. I’m feeling a bit better today, and trying to dose myself up on all sorts of remedial drugs.
Yesterday, we drove out to uncle George’s arboretum in the frigid, soggy, and windy Isle of Man weather. All I have to say is THANK YOU, Alli (the lady who owns the B&B we are staying in), for letting us borrow some wellies! Half the time we were wading trough puddles and bog up to our ankles! Uncle George’s arboretum is really quite a spectacular place. I’d never been before, and I was absolutely astounded by the sheer amount of land that he worked singlehandedly. The arboretum truly was uncle George’s life. He spent all of his time mowing, preening, cutting, trimming, and taking care of the land and the veritable plethora of species of plants he kept there. He had to stop working in his arboretum in the last two or three years of his life though, so it is a bit overgrown and untended right now. Unfortunately, no one has since taken up maintaining this gem. We don’t know what is going to happen to it. I just hope that it receives the same love and devotion uncle George put into it.
After we waded, thrashed, and trodded through the grounds, we drove a short way to a small town nearby, Lynwald, for some tea and lunch. We then drove into the town center to have a look at the old mill that was once in use there, before making our way to the town of Peel. The castle at Peel was actually the first landing site of Christians on the Isle of Man… And it was also incredibly, blisteringly, frigidly COLD. We walked around the outside of the castle (like pretty much everything on the island, it was closed for the winter), then drove to the capital city of Douglas as the sun started to set.
Douglas was also quite sleepy. We walked up and down the Promenade and looked for places to eat before discovering that just about everything was closed! We did manage to find a surprisingly good Italian restaurant down a side street though, so we ate there before driving back to our B&B in Ramsey for the night.
Today, we drove pretty much the whole length of the island and first visited Castletown, located right on the coast. We were hurled around by wind and splashed by sea spray before it started raining. So back in the car we went and continued along the coast, stopping at several other towns to snap some pictures and get some lunch. We eventually drove out to the Southernmost tip of the Isle of Man and looked across the Irish Sea to the Calf of Man, another, even smaller island, off the coast.
We came back to our B&B to get freshened up and relax for a bit before heading out for our last dinner here in the Isle of Man. We ate at a lovely pub / restaurant called the Harbour Bistro, right along the Ramsey harbour.
We’ve got an early-ish flight back to Gatwick tomorrow morning, so I’d better get going. Back to the mainland for our last day in the UK. This one’s for, you, uncle George. Thanks for bringing us here. I wish we could have spent our time with you. Sending you love, xo.
Phillipa
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