We went to bed last night to the sound of the sea washing up against the sea wall some three stories below. A nice way to fall asleep.

Like Martin Luther king, Sue had a dream. It was about rabbits, Jamie had acquired another one and it was brown, apparently I had shut the garage door on it and bent its ear downwards. Unlike Mr. King’s, I don’t think her dream is going to change white rabbit attitudes to brown rabbits, but hey…… what’s up doc?  I just wonder if I was the substitute for James Earl Ray?

After a sumptuous breakfast buffet we decided to stretch our legs under a gorgeous blue sky and head off along the coastal path.

 

 

First stop was the little parish church of St. Brelade. After poking about in the delightful little fisherman’ s chapel located in the graveyard, (reputedly the oldest of its type, according to a lady we met inside) we moved on into the more impressive and certainly very old church. We passed the vicar at the entrance. He had his head buried in a laptop, I spotted straight away from the screen that he was attempting to connect a projector to it and didn’t appear to be having any success. Been there, done my time and lived to tell the tale, I left him to his thoughts and walked on  by. The fabric of the church was as it should be, but this priest and several other techy parishioners seen milling around, had obviously decided the 4th century needed to be brought up to date and had filled it with large screen TV’s and other visual paraphernalia on the walls and vestibules. Looked wrong, but I guess I am just getting too old now and it is probably the only way the church is going to get the younger generations attention away from their iPhones. I wonder what the vicar’s avatar is? Michelangelo Ninja Turtle?

We carried on with many diversions along the at times rugged pathway, stopping frequently to ogle at the splendid houses we passed, often taking photos of the cliffs and seascape when our fancy took us (Sue needed the practice on her new phone). We stopped in a small wood to collect sweet chestnuts which were peeled and scoffed as we carried on

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We reached Jersey prison situated high up on the cliffs and decided we had done enough and set off to find a road and a bus stop. After consulting one of the warders who was about to go on duty as to where the nearest stop was, we were pleased to discover it was only 50m away in the direction he was pointing. Around half a mile later we asked again at a garage to be told it was directly outside. He then pointed  to some big white words written on the road way that said ‘BUS’, we had passed dozens of them!!!! When you are searching for a bus stop, you look up, not down! Backward bloody islanders.

Some twenty minutes later we caught the bus into St. Helier.

Disembarking at the terminus, we strolled to the nearby Liberation Square, sat outside at an adjoining cafe and drank cider enjoying the warmth of an October sun.

We took a walk to the ferry where you can be transported to Elizabeth Castle situated just off the coast. It is walkable at low tide and there was indeed a clear stretch of lovely yellow sand visible when we arrived at the ticket office. Many people seemed to be marching purposefully along the narrow ribbon of concrete between the two. We opted to take the ferry on wheels. We had done enough walking today and even from this distance it looked a big castle and would require quite a number of steps to do it justice.

We were the ‘boat on wheels’ only passengers. We didn’t feel guilty as we passed and left the other tourists behind, it was more a feeling of lordliness, a looking down on the peasants. I felt the need to cast a few coppers among them in a charitable way, but Sue would have complained that I was wasting my money, they would only spend it on gin and loose women. So I didn’t.

Later, we met our subjects as we wandered around the fortifications, but they knew their place and didn’t speak. The castle is well worth a visit, it is large, it has a lot of history and we didn’t do it justice. There are many original features from the differing decades and there are several museums within its parapets that deserved more of our attention. Perhaps another time? We shall see.

We had company on our private carriage to the mainland. Noisy, loathsome commoners, but that is what the world has come to nowadays, no respect for your betters.

We caught the bus back to the Golden Sands, quaffing a well-earned goblet of coffee back in our room before changing for dinner. Appetite satisfied we finished the rest of the evening in the bar drinking refreshments and planning with the use of information parchments, what we were going to do on the morrow.