Isle of Wight it is to be, decided at a very sparce group of volunteers that turn up at the meeting and somewhen, I cannot for the life of me remember, our hands (lesley and Malcolm) apparently went up! Well there is plenty of time, at least 3 months, to think about where we are to go on the Sunday of the 4 day break. To be fair, we did say we had a fairly recent HF holiday and we had been over independently since, albeit following Chemo Therapy and I still felt a bit rough as a big op was due in a month.
Daish's Hotel Shanklin, coach pickup from Worthing, no driving and use the island's busses where possible. It's into October so weather will more than likely be an issue and we will share the coach with unknown peeps and 5 coaches of people of a certain age....like us, will arrive during the afternoon.
The Recce 2 night break.....we decided to have a short break at the end of September, just the 2 of us, train to Portsmouth, bus to Southsea hover-port, hovercraft over The Solent, a new experience for us and finally a bus from Ryde to Sandown and a couple of hundred yards walk to what we later found out was the ageing pile of....our Bookings.com. hotel! Disappointment came fairly quickly after a trouble-free journey. A bit jaded would describe the hotel, in need of external decoration and a sort of 70's internal theme of furniture, wallpaper, carpets and subdued lighting. The bedroom was small and as promised, no-view and of course, no view we got! Single beds, an ageing non-thermostatic finicky shower over the bath was about as luxurious as it got. Our host, a middle aged bloke...one of 2 blokes running the hotel had little idea of serving up the meagre breakfast choice of serial, yoghurt and my seconds of scrambled egg on crispy toast or rather, yellow rubber with white 'Wonderloaf' slice that I was unable to put a knife through without it flying across the room and risk hitting the other, 8am. 4 guests. A boasted 22 room hotel, for 6 of us and NO VACANCIES hung in the window probably meant that was all the guys could cope with....................Wrong! they couldn't cope with that as room not made up, and same cups with tea dregs as we had left them. When we mentioned this to guy number 2 he said sorry but guy number 1 had had a bad day! Back to the recce. We had a little issue that this was September and end of month, before our actual walk in October and the summer bus timetable changes but no one seemed to know if our planned busses would be running or to the same time in winter, on Sunday, the day of our walk lead! We took the number 3 bus to Sandown from a diverted route & stop, due to a subsided road between Shanklin and Ventnor. This met up with the number 8 that took us on to Bembridge, the start of our walk. Weather was stunning, wall to wall sunshine and a chance to take a coffee on the beach outside the cafe at Bembridge Point. No toilets in the cafe sign , use the public toilets opposite right on the start of our proposed route on the Bembridge Trail. We followed our pre-planned route without a hiccup and walked all the way back to Shanklin via sea paddle and sunbathe, passing by Daish's Hotel before eating out at a seafront pub in the evening & catching the 3 bus back to Sandown and another night in our unmade up room! We left the island by hovercraft and took the train back home. Now we could look forward to our Ramblers holiday knowing that the cliff paths are OK and the distance is fine. We just await the winter bus timetable to see if it will all join up.................... The October Day arrived and some of our group were waiting at worthing for the Daishs coach to arrive. Exactly on time until we realised , by the sign in the coach front window with WEYMOUTH written on it. Had there been some massive error or... another Daishs coach arrived with Shanklin and we climbed aboard taking up our pre allocated seat number, apparently the norm on coach trips, to save arguments between the grumpy silver- haired brigades. About 20 seats had already been filled from Eastbourne and we were to pick up more at Arundel and Chichester. No hiccups after the driver announced the coach protocol of taking all rubbish with you and only to use the on-board toilet in a real emergency and then, not for a number twos! To be fair, it was only 45 minutes or so to Portsmouth. Plain sailing across to Ryde and everyone found the way back to the coach without any stragglers......even Babbette! All luggage was to be taken to our allocated rooms and to be honest, our room and facilities were fine, with the exception of not having biscuits for morning tea! After our short afternoon walk down Shanklin Chine we changed and sat down at allocated seating positions for our 3 course evening meal, luckily taken in the separate conservatory, exclusive to 25 of us. 
Very pleasant without being sophisticated was the order of the week. A pre-purchased bottle of red for the evening meal lasted us for the duration of the break. After dinner we went back to the huge bar area for (optional) quiz night, bingo and live music from the 60's! This sequence of events repeats each night so no surprises for the ageing guests. Breakfast was very organised and adequate, 8:30am without fail. To be fair, it is the only way this could work for the numbers of guests. The organised walks were all optional as some went off to Osborne House, The Donkey Sanctuary etc. etc. We participated in the walks on each day. 1st day was to the centre of the island, in glorious weather right up to one of the viewpoints looking east towards Worthing. Sunday was our own walk lead for about 17 of us going out by busses to Bembridge Point no hitches and yes, closed toilets. Back though woodland & along the Bembridge trail to Bembridge NT windmill where we all took a banana break or in a few cases, ice-creams! Onwards and upwards via bridel ways and footpaths to join the coast path for a few miles diverting up to the monument on top of Culver Down. Lunch was taken, cafe closed............a gripe of all of us is that so much is closed, bearing in mind it is a holiday island, all year round. Shops, cafes, restaurants, toilets and bus routes.......all or most, closed. The gentle descent took us into Sandown where we had a choice to walk along the promenade back to Shanklin or take the coast path that runs above the cliffs and back to Shanklin.
Democracy ruled..... and we split up, me taking a higher route and Lesley taking the lower. We finished with a pint on the beach front and a walk back up to the Chine park cafe for coffee and cakes whilst looking at the cute red-squirrels. Monday was another glorious day for a minibus full of us to take a walk to the Needles from Freshwater Bay and back. Lunch taken at the Needles in the NT cafe and a gentle walk over Tennison Down and back to the pub in Freshwater Bay to rest for an hour before the returning minibus. All in all, a good trip and thanks to Daishs for a slightly unusual (for us) holiday.