Postcard from Portsmouth - new roads, old town

Portsmouth. On the map, our hotel, in the Old Town and close to the Solent, looks easy to get to. Just get on the road, keep driving in a straight line and turn left before you ditch in the sea. In practice it's a little more difficult. This is because Portsmouth is the Town Of Many Roundabouts. This is, I presume, the result of Portsmouth's strategic importance and is a cunning plan in the event of invasion to get any enemy troops so hopelessly lost that they end up conquering the Isle of Wight.

We do successfully find the hotel and in truth the journey itself is quite charming, from motorway to city centre to, suddenly, driving over cobbles and feeling the pleasing burrrrrrrr in the pit of ones stomach that comes from driving in a heritage part of a town, and indeed from driving over cobbles.

The 'boutique hotel' is fantastic. It's located over a tea shop and seems to combine attention to detail with, let's face it, ready access to bacon rolls! Best of all is the view from the windows, only betted by the view from the bottom of the street, which is one step away from the water (and sometimes not even that, if the impressive flood gates dotted around the place are any guide). By the time we are unpacked, I am officially over-excited.

The street itself, though cobbled, features history in the shape of rails, down which no doubt cargo used to be transported after being unloaded. The nearby pub is called the 'Spice Island' and so one rather hopes that in days gone by sacks of exotic and wonderful smelling prices from the far corners of the world were unloaded here, the stevedores breathing deep of foreign fragrance and then sneezing heavily. Of course, it could be that this was the port for domestic traffic and the landlord decided that the 'Pig Iron Inn' was never going to capture the Gastropub crowd, but one likes to think the best.

My over excitement is due in part to the ferry traffic. The Isle of Wight ferry leaves from, apparently, the bottom of the street every two minutes or so. Ships the size of multi story car parks glide with balletic grace in and out of their port, performing the equivalent of a handbreak turn to do so. This is impressive enough, but I can see from the water that there is a tidal flow, and from the gulls and the chop that there is a fair old wind, so no mean feat to turn on a sixpence and steam home in style. I can also see from the shower of rain that it is time to watch all of this from inside the 'Spice Island' pub.

There is always joy to be found in spending an afternoon in the boozer, discussing lofty subjects, but there is a special joy when one has a view. In this case, the view over the Solent towards the Isle of Wight. One will be arguing the finer points of the role of beans in any pasty filling and suddenly the light will dim as another ferry glides by. As disconcerting as the IOW ferries are, this is as nothing compared to watching the Sea Cats that make the trip to and from France coming into port. These things are like skyscrapers set on end, on stilts.

And they do it all with such grace, as choppy as the sea is, it's incredibly soothing to watch the boats come and go, and the tide come and go, and the beers come and go.

And they glide past level with the balconies of the posh waterfront apartments. People sitting out in their robes trying to enjoy their coffee and Daily Mail find themselves being waved at by enthusiastic children and drunken stag parties. I think that if you had a flat here, you'd have to establish your policy on waving pretty early on, whether to wave back, or pretend that the group of drunken women twenty yards away from you at eye level all wearing plastic tiaras and flashing their tits are not there.