ALAN G

We went in May this year. The ferry from Lymington is large with a comfortable viewing lounge. The Caravan Club arranged a good discount as we were staying at Southland. The ferry from Portsmouth is in the LEZ but strangely enough our 2001 van is compliant and not chargeable. Worth checking on the Govt website. There appear to be a good range of bus services although we didn't try them. Driving on the IOW is the same as Dorset, Hampshire and Wiltshire. There are a great variety of road styles so the width of your van is probably more important than the length. Ours is 2.2 meters with the mirrors in and we needed to pull them in, sometimes, to clear approaching vehicles. The main roads are well out and quite fast. The towns are old and have many one-way systems. Just like the mainland you will find plenty of "rush hour" traffic. Osborne house was the highlight of our visit. There is plenty of parking and we went back to the van for lunch. The restaurants were too busy for us anyway. We took advantage of the buggy to go to the royal children's playhouse. Hope the weather stays fair.

If David thinks that the EU will force the phone companies to charge us less for their services he should remember that until the EU stepped in a couple of years ago there was "off peak" pricing that was quite reasonable...and for a fair part of the day and all the weekend, and I used it. When the phone companies reduced their prices they abolished the cheaper "off peak". Now I have no choice. It's always 38p plus vat. per minute. The phone companies are laughing all the way to the bank with the extra revenue they now collect off those who were patient enough to wait till evening.