Just one of the many House Boats at the end of Bembridge Harbour.

May 07:

Marine Conservation Society Good Beach Guide 2007 results are now included in the beach guide, 17 beaches on The Isle of Wight achieved the highest standard of water quality, which is good news.

The proposal to demolish The Mill Bay Inn, Ventnor Esplanade {a conservation application because it is within a protected conservation area} has been refused by Ventnor's Town Council. This is a good start to those who oppose such an action {which appears to be a large majority} however this is not over yet.

April 07:
A new page outlining Cheetah Marine's building proposal on land next to Ventnor's paddling pool on The Esplanade and the Councils sale of this land, this planning application has now been unanimously passed on Tuesday 24th April at the County Hall, Newport. Links to plans and details as well as who to contact with your views on this subject.

The Mill Bay demolishment with revised building proposal has raised its head again, a fresh set of planning proposals have been put forward to I.O.W. Council.

March 07:

The White Horse pub at Whitwell is now open after becoming damaged by a roof over a year ago.

Feb 07:

There are some fantastic satellite views to be seen of The Island courtesy of Google Earth, and the whole Island is lucky enough to be in high resolution. So this is the start of a new section with some cool pictures and some information on how to get this FREE viewer. Another page added to the Sandown beach picture gallery and The Driftwood beach bar has a recommendation in my small pub guide.

Jan 07:

The Isle of Wight Donkey Sanctuary now has a page with pictures added to its recommendation. Some comments have been added to my guestbook in particular the opinions of visitors about The Mill Bay demolishment proposal put forward to the I.O.W. Council several weeks ago.

Nov:

Another page added to my favourite pictures section. Ventnor Blog has been added to one of my  recommended links pages. This is an interesting community blog site all about Ventnor and other parts of The Island. Excellent pictures as well with nice slideshow options - sit back and enjoy the show!

Oct:
Landslip and Erosion pages have had a revamp and there are a few new pictures. A new map of The Isle of Wight showing where the main beaches are and which ones are featured in my recommended beach guide.

Attractions pages are in the process of having a revamp as well as some other older pages, this should improve navigation through the site.

Shanklin and Ventnor's picture galleries have had an update with some recent pictures added. Some new pictures from this years visit in another additional couple of pages at my favourite pictures gallery.

Sept:
A short and easy walk to St. Catherine's Lighthouse near Niton. Rylstone Garden's pages have some new pictures added.

Another page added onto Shanklin Old Village picture gallery and a few onto Ventnor's with some Victorian pictures.  Another short walk has been added - Walk to The Tennyson Monument.

August 2006:

A large update is now under way with details of where new pages and pictures are will be revealed in this section very soon.

On our visit to The Island {July 23- August 6 2006}  we encountered very hot beach weather especially in the first week, during this time we experienced a fantastic electrical storm as viewed from the high point of Vernon's Cottage Tavern gardens one evening. We had some rich blue skies when it was hot. The second week we had slightly cooler temperatures with mostly more cloud cover, however there was still some typical days which would become beach ones. We went to some pubs that we had not been to before, found one that is notoriously difficult to find and walked some new routes along the way.

Worthy additions to recommended Pubs for food and pubs for drinking in my mini Pub Guide with some more pictures of the recommended King Harry's Bar. Typical prices for food on The Island has been updated. A new section and pictures of Bembridge Ledge beach and Life Boat Station.
Sandown beach recommendation has now had some pictures added. Picures and some info' about Yarmouth Pier.

The White Horse at Whitwell was still not open for trade in August after a thatch fire several weeks previously.

The Buddle Inn at St. Catherine's has had a bit of a revamp outside and also in the Barn, with new ownership.

There is expansion at Arreton Barns Craft Village whilst the Maritime and Shipwreck Museum is being relocated from Bembridge to here.

It was not quite finished when I visited the gift shop prior to the new museum. It was a recommended attraction however when it was at Bembridge.

According to a survey conducted by Wightlink The Spyglass Inn won the following awards from holidaymakers and Island residents:

Best Pub; Most Atmospheric Pub; Best Pub for beer; Most romantic Pub; Best Pub location; Best Pub service; Best Pub for Dogs and owners.

And if that was not enough it also came as a runner up in three other catagories!

The Vernon Cottage Tavern in Shanklin Old Village has also had a bit of a revamp but kept it's old character, emphasis is on serving food.

The Smuggler's Museum at Ventnor Botanical gardens has sadly closed for good. The old building still remains and is owned by The Botanic Gardens.

The owner of the artefacts surprised the Botanic Gardens staff by packing all the contents of the museum into a container lorry and shipped them to Texas!

Blackgang Chine's latest Cliffhanger ride is proving popular with visitors and more importantly there has been no landslip to this popular attraction for a couple of years now.

The New Inn at Shalfleet was winner of Best Pub for Wine; and Best Food Pub as well as coming as a runner up in two other catagories according to a survey conducted by Wightlink.
I though it was excellent too this year and it is a new addition to my recommended list of Pubs for food.

The White Horse at Whitwell was damaged by fire. It is thought a spark from a defective chimney stack set the thatch alight. The fire was contained to the upper floor although the bar and downstairs rooms are damaged by smoke and water.  The owners are hoping to be open for the summer trade, nobody was injured in the fire which started around 6pm.

10/07/06: Some additions to Reader's Memories, Reader's Picture Gallery, and another recommended I.O.W. pictures site at the end of my Links pages.

16/07/06: An extra page in Ventnor's picture gallery showing three views of Ventnor's beach and Esplanade as seen from the new harbour wall last year.

Recent Pages:  Three Miscellaneous pages, one about the sudden white fog that appeared on Ventnor Beach one fine day and two pages about the House Boats near Bembridge Harbour.

Beaches page three has had an update with links off to several new pages about St. Helens Duver beach and several more pages about the unique and hard to get to Luccombe beach.

Recommended Pubs for food and drinking have had a few new entries some with links to pictures as well as some new pictures of the popular Spyglass Inn.

Mottistone Manor Gardens is now featured in Attractions page 6 with a couple of new pages about this fine weather attraction.  Nearby and also linked off the last page is a walk to The Longstone near Mottistone.

Parkhurst Forest is featured in three new pages within things to do section which has had an update.  The previously featured walk to Luccombe Chine has also had an update with some new pictures taken along the way.

Osborne House has been recommended as an attraction to see for some time now and several new pages with pictures now accompany the recommendation.

Bembridge Windmill has now got some pictures to go with its recommendation.

Ventnor Park is a well maintained mature park complete with an 18 hole putting green.

Robin Hill Adventure Park has now 5 pages with pictures to go with its recommendation in attractions page 3.

Links page has been divided up into three pages with some new links put in.

New Pages: 

Shanklin Old Village has had another page put in with some more pictures on page 2.

Devils Chimney is a narrow fissure in rock in which a footpath runs through from The Smugglers Haven Tea Room to Bonchurch Pond area.

Readers'  memories pages  A section containing memories from visitors and Islanders.

Readers picture gallery  A picture gallery selection from those of you that have been kind enough to send me some of your own pictures.

My favourite pictures is a personal selection of my fondest pictures of The Island.

Another page and pictures has been added to The Godshill gallery, page 2.

Our visit to The Island 2005 {3rd - 17th July} was yet again a good year, with the weather being fair and warm during the first week where we only had one day of rain, this was the week that we did most of our walking. 

The second week was very hot indeed with rich blue skies and no rain whatsoever, and in one instance was too hot to be on a beach and we had to leave to find shade, even though we had factor 15 and 30 sun cream.  We went to many different places last year and we walked more than the previous year, and we saw red squirrels on three occasions.