The Isle of Wight: Staycation that's 1/2 Cote d'Azur, 1/2 time travel

When I first started working in the UK, I was amazed to discover that none of my colleagues ever
went on holiday in their own country. Any time they had more than a long weekend, they were on a plane to France, Spain, Italy ...  anywhere with a better chance of sun. I, in love with every inch of my new land, just couldn't believe how little most people had visited of their home turf.

More than 25 years later, I have become them. Sure, I still do more sightseeing on the home front than the average Brit, but my husband and I have never done more than a long weekend on British soil. Until now. We hadn't planned any holidays until September, but the first half of the year has been filled with unexpected challenges and we needed a week of downtime to recover. We also needed to keep the budget in check and didn't have the energy to go far. The answer? The Isle of Wight.

The diamond-shaped island nestles against the South Coast of England facing the historic port of Portsmouth. We can go from home to the ferry in under an hour, then it's a 40-minute crossing. It's just two miles across the Solent at its narrowest point, but tides and traffic flow demand a longer V-shaped route. Brace yourself for pricey fares, and check with hotels who can often get you deals of half price or more. Locals boast that it's the most expensive ferry crossing-by-distance over any water in the world. I'm convinced they do this to discourage day-trippers and other "inappropriate" visitors. (The ridiculously expensive toll bridge to Sanibel Island, Florida comes to mind.)

It's a relatively tiny place. At just 148 square miles, you could fit more than four Isles of Wight inside the greater London area encircled by the M25. Being so close and well-connected to the mainland, you'd expect it to be much the same as the rest of Hampshire. But the Isle of Wight is gloriously different.

Many people describe it as Britain stuck in a time warp, circa 1950. It's not quite as antiquated as all that. I saw a handful of new housing estates and schools, there are a few grocery superstores and the main town of Newport has a shopping mall and plenty of modern brands. We discovered a handful of great restaurants, including one "on trend" enough to fit smoothly into London.

But most of the island is, undeniably, a throwback. Shops and restaurants are locally owned and one-of-a kind. I can't remember the last time I walked down a high street that was almost entirely filled with one-off establishments. Here, it's the norm. People talk to each other. Service is fantastically genial, though often a bit unsophisticated. Thatched cottages abound. Quaint tea shops do a thriving business. Souvenir shops sell the same tourist tat I saw in their windows on my first visit here 30 years ago. Given how badly the boxes of the Lilliput Lane miniature cottages had faded in one window, they might have been the same items. There are an enormous number of retirees on the island (one suspects most of the permanent population has pushed past 50) but the number of families on holiday with young children ... presumably trying to give them a taste of a sweeter, simpler childhood ... brings down the averages.

The overwhelming vibe on the island is late 19th century, thanks to its popularity with Queen Victoria. She and Albert built their family retreat here, she visited regularly throughout her widowhood and eventually died here. The architecture is heavily from that era, including town-scapes of Victorian row houses that could be in London and plenty of Arts and Crafts suburban villas with gingerbread details. But perhaps even more significant to the island's future was the endorsement of the queen's doctor, who proclaimed sea bathing a cure for a range of illnesses and said this was the place to do it.

While Victoria was settled in at Osborne House, closest to the mainland, the good doctor recommended the southeast shore. It became so fashionable that even the Empress of Austria came on holiday.

Here, a cataclysmic landslide near the end of the last ice age created a long shelf of coastline underneath a towering ridge of chalk. This "Undercliff", about five miles from Bonchurch to Niton, is essentially a giant sun trap creating a unique micro climate. It is, on average, 5 degrees celsius warmer here than the rest of southern England. The weather, the gardens and the architecture that followed all have a faint whiff of the Côte d'Azur, as if someone had awarded Cannes a "do over" and put it in the hands of sensible, unpretentious English people sworn to give you good value for money.

For an island you can circumnavigate in a few hours there is, however, a remarkable variety. Cowes, beloved of the yachting fraternity, is a bustling and affluent place full of trendy shops and restaurants and a vast range of places to drink. And, on any fine summer's evening, a vast number of drunken sailors. From Fishbourne to Shanklin, towns run around the eastern point of the diamond in a surprisingly charmless and almost continuous urban sprawl; neither the affluence of the Undercliff nor the sailing fraternity has reached here. The seafront areas look a bit down-at-heel and, were it not for the occasional, glorious views of the English Channel, you could be in any drab, hardscrabble bit of outer London. This part reminds you of the decline that most English seaside towns have faced since cheap airfares took their customers to the continent.

Yet on Shanklin's southern edge you'll find the old village, a cluster of pastel-painted thatched cottages in a wooded dell that is a hugely photogenic. It's a Disney fairy tale version of ye olde England and a must for any island visitor. Ventnor and St. Lawrence, just beyond, have obviously seen a recent influx of cash for building restoration and you sense that tourists are now sharing the space with a lot of affluent retirees.

The southwest coast of the IoW is almost entirely free of habitation, thanks to a vast track of National Trust ownership and protected wildlife areas, making an idyllic landscape for hiking or lounging. The National Trust car park at Compton Bay is the starting point for exploring this coast, which includes one of England's best sandy beaches nestled beneath orange cliffs that fade to white chalk as they turn and stretch to the island's western corner. The downlands there rise and fall to The Needles, a series of white chalk pinnacles rising from the channel (top photo). There used to be more of them, and they used to be higher, but chalk erodes. They're still an awesome sight, easily visible from the car park at The Needles amusement park if you don't fancy a long hike. (Top tip: arrive in the late afternoon and they no longer charge for parking.)

Inland, the landscape and mood changes once again. It's almost entirely agricultural, with rolling fields, forested hills and bosky dells inhabited by tiny, ancient villages. There's little Victorian incursion here; many farm houses look like they've been standing since King Charles I was held captive in nearby Carisbrooke Castle. Every village seems to have a sprinkling of late 20th century bungalows as well, but usually they're well enough dispersed and have nice enough gardens to blend in. It's all reminiscent of deepest, darkest Dorset, just over the water to the northwest. Placid cows and sheep decorate the landscape, but they decorate plates, too. Local meat is on most menus, as is the well-known produce of the island's garlic farm.

There are two vineyards and one distillery making the most of the island's bounty. Adgestone's wines are slightly better, and their gardens with views of vines and the distant sea are designed for lazy afternoons of drinking the product on site. But the team at the older Rosemary Vineyards is a friendlier bunch with a bigger shop offering a whole range of IoW delicacies. They're the same people behind Mermaid Gin. The distillery used to be in the vineyard but has now moved to its own place. Of all we tasted, it was the gin that proved most worthy of bringing home ... particularly the pink version produced with a subtle infusion of fresh strawberries. (Though we did buy a few bottles of Adgestone's blackberry and lavender country wine for summer spritzers.)

The pastoral inclination of the island and its appeal to walking holidays make for one of the most dog-friendly places I've ever visited in the UK. Your furry friends are welcome at almost all hotels and pubs and some restaurants. You can even bring them inside the Ventnor Botanical Garden. And, obviously, all those miles of coastal paths are a doggie delight.

Accommodation, however, can be surprisingly tricky. The rental cottage market was sparse compared to other top destinations. Most of the properties I liked weren't in walking distance to dining options, while the ones that were conveniently located lacked charm. So I switched to hotels and B&Bs. You really feel the "lost in time" mood here; boutique hotels and hip little B&Bs are few, old-style places with stolid, golden oak furniture and big florals abound. Most web sites show photos of interiors that look like they haven't been updated since the 1980s. When you do stumble on the rare property that looks modernised, it's stupidly expensive. (The good news is that the island overall offers one of the cheapest holiday options in the south of England, with most rooms under £100 a night.)

Once on the island, I saw a lot of places that hadn't showed up on my internet searches, then looked them up to find rudimentary web sites. My hunch: most places here are run by older people for whom social media, web design and search engine optimisation are alien concepts. There's vast potential here for someone with a modernising touch.

We ended up at the Eversley, a family-run hotel on the western edge of Ventnor next to its Victorian park and a  10- to 15-minute stroll to the waterfront with pubs, restaurants and promenades. The less fit should be warned that, according to my FitBit, the short walk includes an incline the equivalent of nine flights of stairs. But that's reality on the IoW. It's hilly. To the west of the town's bay, the Undercliff plunges to a deep valley, which rises to another hill, which then falls off in cliffs down to the water. The Eversley and the park sit in this deep valley. The hotel has its back to the seaward hillside, with gardens spilling down the slope, a pool at the bottom, and a path up to a private hilltop lawn with expansive views of the channel and a gate out onto the coastal path.

We upgraded to a superior room (No. 17), which definitely felt like someone had recently gone to the effort to get a boutique hotel look. The bathroom featured sleek tiles and an enormous claw-footed tub. The bedroom had a leather sofa, coffee table and large-screen TV for lounging, as well as a super-king bed. The room's real glory, however, was its huge windows looking across the valley to the Undercliff, and the towering Victorian ceilings. It was also tremendously convenient for the dogs, with quick access down a short hallway to a back yard and the upper reaches of the garden.

The Eversley is a quirky place that doesn't completely escape the IoW's "lost in time" negatives. The first thing you see upon arrival is a wheelchair in the front lobby. It never moved during our stay, but its prominent placement made the entry feel more like an old folk's home than a hotel. A feeling reinforced by vast expanses of anaglypta wallpaper, pub-pattered carpets in the public spaces and a lot of grey-haired guests. It also felt strangely empty. We only ever saw enough people to fill perhaps six other rooms, though there are almost 30 in the hotel. Several large and gracious reception rooms on the ground floor have almost no furniture and stand unused. Though they advertise a restaurant, it doesn't seem to be in operation. When we were too tired to go out on our first night, however, the hotel manager rustled up two tuna sandwiches for us to take to our room with a bottle of white wine. It's a lovely place with a deeply personal touch that I'd happily recommend ... just don't expect a modern boutique hotel.

Once you're settled in to Ventnor you'll find a surprisingly good restaurant scene and some fabulous things to do. I'll write about those in my next articles.

Royals, semi-shade and after hours access: Chelsea 2019 highlights

The BBC's official coverage was buzzing with discussions on the year of recycling, the predominance of green and the arrival of the first-ever judged show garden inside the floral marquee. But on the ground at the Chelsea Flower Show this year there was only one topic on everyone's lips: The Duchess of Sussex's garden.

It was not, to be accurate, the Duchess' garden, but rather the RHS' "Back to Nature" garden, designed by Chelsea veterans Adam White and Andree Davies, with royal input. But that didn't matter. To the fans queueing to see it (we waited 45 minutes, at times the wait was reportedly as long as 2 hours) or overheard talking about it, it was "the Duchess' garden" or "the royal garden". Was it worth the wait?

For me, and for most people I overheard: yes. It wasn't my favourite garden of the year, nor did it hold the best plants, but it connected on an emotional level the way few other gardens could. In my case, that's probably because I grew up playing in woodland. The tree swing, the woodland den, the fallen logs and the creek lined with shade-loving plants took me back to the forest in which I spent long childhood summers back in Chesterfield, Missouri. The tree house encrusted with branches to make it look like a bird's next was a particularly fabulous flight of fancy. The garden was also noteworthy for being a space the public can walk through, rather than the usual show garden that you view from the outer edges. Usually, only the media, sponsors and their guests get to walk inside the displays; I expect people would have queued for ages for the privilege even if nobody famous had been involved.

Here are some other highlights.

• The media have proclaimed this "the year of green" because of the amount of foliage on show. The story is more complex. I would have called it the year of the semi-shade garden. Shade, of course, isn't conducive to showy blooms. We saw a lot of impressive trees, spreading their cover over ferns, hostas, astrantias, foxgloves, heucheras and primrose.

• There was still plenty of colour. It was a year of traditional English palettes: gentle blues, purples and pinks contrasted with the occasional pop of yellow or white.

• Every year there seems to be one plant that pops up in profusion across multiple show gardens. This year it was Trollius, aka Globeflower. 

• My favourite garden, and the judges', was the Andy Sturgeon-designed M&G Investments Garden (below). Presumably, when you're the main sponsor of the whole show you can out-gun everyone else on your investment. Certainly, no expense had been spared here as the builders turned a flat space into a forested slope, terraced with massive oak sculptures that had been charred to a deep black. The way the plants and flowers "popped" against that inky background was extraordinary.

• There were fewer jaw-dropping, how-the-hell-did-they-do-that gardens than in previous years, but the Welcome to Yorkshire garden was extraordinary enough to carry that brief. It was an extraordinary feat of construction: a canal, complete with two ancient lock gates leaking in places, water at different levels and a lock-keepers cottage. There's always a debate on whether these things are gardens or stage sets. As impressively naturalistic as the grasses, weeds and plants growing out of seemingly-ancient crevasses in walls were, there wasn't much memorable here as far as flowers and plants go. But full marks, and a gold medal, for creating an illusion.

• Most years a sheik or sovereign wealth fund from the Arabian peninsula sponsors a main show garden for PR purposes. These work best when they bring a taste of the exotic. Dubai's entry this year did not. Aside from its painted earthen walls there wasn't much sense of place, and the planting ... while obviously draught tolerant ... was green and colourful enough to be European. It only dazzled at night, after most visitors have gone.
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• And what was I doing there at night? After more than 20 years of attending Chelsea, I finally scored tickets to some after-hours corporate hospitality. This is the invisible engine that keeps the show going. Corporations (some charities and the rare individual) pay to sponsor the gardens, and can pay more to entertain guests in them for an additional 90 minutes after the public must leave at 8pm. (Though your hospitality tickets let you in from 5:30.) The hour between 7:30 and 8:30 is magical, with unobstructed views and colours becoming more distinct in the twilight. The form is to use this time to see all you can, before turning up on the garden that invited you for drinks, canapés and a short talk from the designer responsible. Our host was the Family Monsters Garden, designed by Alistair Bayford and sponsored by Family Action, a charitable organisation celebrating 150 years of helping families in trouble. The garden was a birch grove, spiralling up a mound with an uneven path and boulders representing the issues all families face. Ultimately the garden leads to a space with benches and a quiet pool, where a family could gather to communicate and be together. This was a garden particularly suited for evening viewing, with the white birch trunks and spires of white foxglove standing out as the day's light faded.

• Almost as exciting as after-hours access was speaking to Kazuyuki Ishihara. The Japanese designer is the only example I can remember of an individual sponsoring his own garden, and he's come from Tokyo every year since 2004, winning 12 gold medals along the way. His trademark stones and boulders covered in moss turn up every year, inevitably with iris, babbling water features and fascinating trees. This year's "Green Switch" garden (below) was no exception, with a glass tea room pavilion on one side and a glass shower room on the other, both overlooking a tiny sylvan paradise. Mr. Ishihara often stands across the path from his garden, alone and un-noticed, as he watches people react. I spent a brief moment telling him how much his gardens inspire me every year and we shared a mutual bow.

• For the regular visitor, Chelsea's glory remains The Great Pavilion, where specialist growers and the nation's most prestigious nurseries come together to show off their wares. In a world where most garden centres are staffed by people who know little about what they sell, this is a chance to get all of your garden problems solved. I usually go with a list of questions, often accompanied by photos of specific issues. I emerged knowing that my geum is infested with whitefly, but cutting it back to the based and watering heavily will probably sort the issue and see the plant spring back from its roots. I understand why my passion flower vine isn't blooming, have the names of better allium varieties to intersperse in my hosta bed (Violet Beauty and Purple Rain) and have scouted out the perfect tulip to plant amongst my forget-me-nots next year (Louvre Orange).

• I emerged with three packets of sweet pea seeds, new gardening gloves and a £5 glass garden ornament. "I never worry about you and Chelsea," said my husband, inspecting my loot. "I know you can't by plants there. Hampton Court's the dangerous one." Quite right, my love. Brace yourself for the 5th of July.

Winchester, Kyoto and Tolkien combine for the perfect date night

Your sense of distance changes depending on your surroundings.

Growing up in St. Louis, pretty much every activity (including school) was half an hour away by car. Life was much the same in Dallas. Weekends regularly included two- or three-hour drives to local points of interest, and we thought nothing of a 300-mile weekend road trip to Chicago.

When I first started working in England, I brought that attitude with me. My first assignment came with a company car and a credit card for unlimited fuel. I used it. More than 500 miles a weekend wasn't unusual as I worked through every significant stately home, charming village, ruined abbey and dramatic landscape in reach.

More than 20 years on, and living permanently in the UK for 15, I've embraced a more British attitude. Infrastructure and expense are two culprits. Going anywhere in this country usually means sitting in traffic that will make the journey twice as long as it should be. Once you get there, parking will be hard to find, perilous to fit your car into and ridiculously expensive, and fuel is pricey. None of which, however, should deter me from weekend jaunts to our county town of Winchester, just 23 miles away.

Every time I go, I think to myself that I should go more. After this weekend, I'm making more of an effort to move our occasional "movie date nights" there. Winchester's Everyman Cinema is a marvellously sophisticated way to consume a film, and Kyoto Kitchen has been reviewed as one of the best Japanese restaurants in the country.

Each of the 28 Everyman cinemas in the UK is different, because they like to give new purpose to historic old buildings, but I think the ethos across all of them is the same. Intimate and sophisticated, they're more like some mogul's private screening room than a modern cinema. The manager gives a personal welcome and introduction to each film. Premium seats are oversized armchairs and sofas, and the lobby is a cocktail bar. They even deliver freshly-made pizzas to the seats. Clearly, this appeals to a rather niche target market: the pre-film advertising was for Sipsmith Gin, Hermes scarves and Green and Black chocolate. The only drawback is availability. With just two screens (in Winchester) rotating an handful of films, plus theatrical, operatic and ballet live broadcasts, you need to work to their schedule and booking in advance is usually a requirement.

We were there for Tolkien, the new biopic looking at how the youth of the master of epic literature shaped his writing. The difference between the mainstream reviewers' reactions (lukewarm to aggressively negative) and ours (highly positive) shows why I pay little attention to professional critics. I am clearly not their target market. Most of them griped about the film lacking daring or innovation, or how it was too pedestrian in its pacing. I saw an old-fashioned (in the best possible way) tale of love and friendship, and of dreams overcoming adversity. Set ... aside from the expectedly grim WW1 bits ... in a particularly easy-on-the-eye bit of English history. If you're a fan of Downton Abbey, or that elegiac twilight of British Empire, this film is for you.

The lush Arts and Crafts interiors, in fact, were almost a character in their own right. As well as I know that stylistic movement, and the tales of Middle Earth, I had never put two and two together.  Tolkien spent his childhood surrounded by a cultural zeitgeist that celebrated myth, legend and fairy tale. Of course that influenced his writing. If you know anything about the professor's life, the other influences ... the horrors of industrial Birmingham after a childhood in the countryside, the majesty of Wagner, the nightmare and loss of WWI ... won't be a surprise. But it's great to see them put together into a story both sad and joyous and, ultimately, inspiring.

Afterwards, it was a short walk through Winchester's picturesque Georgian and Victorian streets (Tolkien would have approved) to the Kyoto Kitchen.

This small (no more than 40 covers) restaurant in the repurposed ground floor of an Edwardian house in a row just off the high street was considered one of the best Japanese restaurants in the country by the late, great critic A.A. Gill. (I often quibbled with his film reviews, but almost never with his much-missed food writing.) It's also been awarded a plate in the Michelin-guide, one step below the star system. Kyoto Kitchen has, therefore, been on our "must do" list for years but, embarrassingly, we never managed to make it there. Now that we have, I suspect we'll be back soon.

The menu features a broad range of sushi, sashimi and tempura, plus main courses like grilled black cod, duck breast with raspberry teriyaki sauce and lamb chops with white miso. Thus you can assemble your meal as you wish: feast on raw fish, graze on a succession of small plates or assemble a more traditional European three courses. Since it was our first visit, we left ourselves in the kitchen's hands and went for the chef's menu. This featured a procession of nine exquisite plates, all shared between us, for the astonishing price of £34.95 per person. Here's another reason to love Winchester. I haven't seen a tasting menu in a Michelin-noted restaurant inside the M25 for any less than £70 in years. But even outside of London, we'd have been likely to spend as much at the functional, food-court style sushi place in our local mall. Kyoto Kitchen is a remarkable bargain.

We liked every dish, but thought some were particularly stellar. Tori Kara Agè combine the moreishness and comfort of chicken nuggets with gourmet spicing and light-touch frying. This is why panko bread crumbs exist. Their tempura is excellent, though don't dawdle. Every second it cools is a step away from perfection. In a world where sushi and sashimi have become commonplace lunch take-aways, this was a reminder of the vast differences you can find in fish. Itsu's boxes are excellent, but Kyoto Kitchen's sashimi was noticeably different: more delicate, yet at the same time more packed with flavour. We were less keen on the ume-shiso roll, where we thought the sea bass was overwhelmed by the shiso leaf and plum dust, but we appreciated the gourmet twist. Mochi ... glutinous rice parcels filled with azuki bean paste ... were far better than their description and opened my eyes to the fact that desserts may be my greatest leap into the unknown when we explore Japan later this year.

The restaurant decor says Japanese with a sparse elegance: light wooden floors, black ebony-style chairs, white tablecloths graced with an exquisite variety of pottery and kimonos and obi (wide belts) hanging on the walls. More essential to the properly Japanese experience is the staff. I've written before of the odd-but-typical experience of dining in London where the staff doesn't match the cuisine. Polish waitresses serving up Scandinavian, Australians presenting gourmet French, etc. While I don't have any problem with this, it certainly adds to the authenticity when the people taking care of you come from the same place as the recipes. Especially when your lead waitress takes the time to give you sightseeing tips from her home town and teach you some new Japanese words. We have now, usefully, mastered "oishī" with a big smile. That means "tasty". I suspect I'll be using it a lot when we reach Japan, and predict a few more practice sessions at Kyoto Kitchen in the mean time.

It is, after all, only 25 minutes away. And now, having scouted out exactly how far Kyoto Kitchen is from the train station ... just one stop past our own ... we can make the next trip by public transport, freeing us up for the matching 5-cup sake menu for an additional £20. Yes, that's right. A Michelin "plate" chef's menu, five courses with matching alcohol flight for less than £55. Londoners, eat your hearts out. Winchester is where it's at.