there must be at least a 100’000 crows nesting in the trees surrounding the north court: the racket they make is quite impressive. some of them are building nests, some already have occupied existing nests (built last year?), some are just flying around making a bloody noise (and some are bonking around in the trees — the 30m-high-club?). once night falls they just shut up (thanks for that!) and we enjoy a very quiet night which is just fantastic. however, once the sun gets up and about, so do the crows (not sure whether they engage in all of the above enumerated activities already that early in the morning, but, if not, then they sure are great planners as they start chatting and cawing about soon after the first beam of light finds its bleary-eyed way into their trees)…the bed in our room is in the premiere league (certainly for british beds, but also in general): lots of space (not just 1.40m for two of us), & a real duvet, quite nice! and we both slept really well.
after a quick bath (no showers in the ensuite, just a bath with a large cup to treat those parts of the body above the waterline) we are off to an “early breakfast” (well, early for us anyhow) at 8:00 
the breakfast is really good, although one american lady (part of the family party that stayed until today) turns out to be a toast snatcher! while i’m waiting for the rest of the toasts to be toasted (to complete loading the toast rack for our breakfast) she just grabs one of my carefully toasted bred slices and makes off with it! a toast snatcher! not enough that they invade iraq, now they also misappropriate my toast bred!…i silently move the toast rack (and, thus, temptation) out of harm’s way and am soon retreating to our table (not even an “oh, sorry” from mrs harm!)
as the weather is quite nice for walking (that is, it’s not raining) we are soon after on our way (with a small detour via the post-office-cum-shop/shop-cum-post-office to acquire todays guardian) to carrisbrooke castle. the walk starts almost opposite the lower entry to north court along new barn lane and after a bit of up and down leads us up to the the TV mast and then on the high plateau towards the north. things to note along the way:
rabbit city with hundreds and hundreds of these little buggers having taking over a sort of embankment-cum-hedges: the whole thing seems to consists of mostly holes with a bit of sand for decoration in between…as soon as we approach, one after the other switches into top gear and makes for the sponged embankment.
a rather long narrow path cutting in between fields and meadows to either side, completely overgrown, creating a long green tunnel
and, of course, lots and lots of nosey-but-not-that-nosey sheeps and lamps.
we finally make it to carisbrooke castle and enter through the still rather impressive gate and drawbridge…while we study the admission prices, both of us are coming to the same conclusion: £10.60 just to gain admission to the café — both of us remember the previous three times still quite vividly (hence, it’s literally an impressive exhibition) — is a bit dear: “how about we go into newport and have something to eat there?”…and we are again on our way to newport via mount joy which, interestingly enough, is also the location of the one of newport’s cemeteries: either the strong expression of our christian belief in an afterlive with god or the expression of a sentiment by the survivors…we end up eating lunch at the traditional pastry and bakehouse in st thomas square: good food, nice & clean upstairs seating, friendly service…two soups of the day & two pot of tea set us back £8.70 or so.
being quite a bit knackered we take the 7B bus at 15:45 back to shorwell: this is also a school run and, naturally, all kids have to travel on the upper deck — soon we are cruising around the twisted roads and lanes of the isle of wight in a rather top-heavy double decker: at times we come dangerously close to the tilting angle…not a ride for those of us with weak nerves, i certainly am glad when we leave the bus at shorwell; the formula 1, err, bus driver very helpfully assists us in getting to the front of the bus by deftly, quickly, abruptly applying the brakes on the downhill road into shorewell causing us to slide rather than walk to the front and out the door — very efficient and before we have a chance to yell a grateful “thank you!” to the race car driver, he’s closed the doors, stepped on the gas and has disappeared over the horizon, well, ok, around the corner.
