We're all going on a summer holiday

Anyway to continue, while Mother's house moving was going through, Ned and I managed to grab part of our previously booked holiday in Cornwall. The first time we went down there the weather was fantastic and we had the most marvellous time. Every year since then the weather has been ... 'unreliable' is probably the best description. Last year was the worst when we had to come back early because the rain and gales were getting worse and worse and threatening to destroy the tent. This year wasn't quite so bad, but the overall impression was one of grey dampness rather than summer sunshine. But it was at least good enough to visit some of our favourite places, like Port Isaac, which is the setting for the fictional Port Wenn in the TV series Doc Martin. It's very picturesque

with very narrow streets in the old part of the village. We'd meant to park at the handy car park at the top of the town and walk down, but we took a different route which led us down a worrying ("Please don't let there be anything coming the other way") lane right into the centre
so we ended up parking in the harbour. Our car is one of those down there on the shingle.


We couldn't do our usual long walks, a, because the weather wasn't conducive to admiring the views and b, because Beattie's arthritis would mean she'd be in a lot of pain. So we contented ourselves with shorter strolls on the beach.



As we'd never been to St Ives before (and the Chysauster Iron Age village was shut because of the lashing rain) we thought we'd have a browse around. A word of warning to others who think about going there - when you see a sign suggesting that vehicles don't go right into the heart of the town, take heed, or you'll find yourself testing your handbrake to the limit whilst simultaneously shortening the life of your clutch by several years!

It wasn't the best place to go strolling in the rain (with a very reluctant and resentful dog in tow!) but had a better selection of art galleries than some of the other places we've been. One very nice little shop even allowed Beattie in as I was admiring the work of Stewart Middlemas. One day I'll buy something of his.

Where the sun shines brightly?

Well, we're back, and rather sooner than planned. The journey down was as expected and we got the tent put up in fine weather, which was lovely. So we took a little evening stroll down to the beach local to the campsite so Beattie could stretch her legs. The beaches down there are wonderfully dog-friendly, which makes a pleasant change.

Next day we got a couple of caches under our belt to break ourselves in for what we planned would be a mighty effort. The first required a fair amount of pushing and shoving and squeezing to retrieve ... but only minimal DNA was left behind on the thorns, so that was all right.

The Cornish have a different idea of what 'hedge' means - an awful lot of stone is involved.
Then it was back to the tent for a rest. Honestly, you'd have thought that for two people and a dog that two chairs, a double airbed and a dogbed would be fine, wouldn't you? Well that's wrong. You need spaces for three, because obviously Beattie isn't a dog, but she kindly allowed me to sit on her chair sometimes
and was willing to let me share the bed. Ned and I both fell off several times each night when she turned over or stretched.
Next day was fine and not too blowy, so we went caching in Boscastle. Guess where the cache is in this picture?
Some of the houses there are obviously only suitable for thin people with flat-pack furniture. This doorway is regular-sized, but the doors most definitely aren't!
Boscastle is still having reconstruction work done after the flood of 2004 but it's very much a thriving village again, which is good to see. We first went there in 2003 and I fell in love with this 14th-century building
which was totally washed away in the disaster. In the picture you can see the end of the building behind. The owner managed to salvage much of the stone when they cleared the harbour of cars, trees and assorted rubble and has rebuilt it. Sadly it's lost a lot of its charm.
A short drive down the narrowest lanes imaginable, where the car was scraping the undergrowth on both sides at once, and the grass growing in the middle of the road needed mowing, got us another couple of caches. Then the weather closed in.

And stayed closed in. The gales blew, the rain lashed down across, the tent rocked madly in the powerful gusts. And the forecast was for more to come. After a wakeful night waiting for the sound of ripping fabric as the tent was buffetted from side to side and groaned like a ship foundering on the rocks we decided discretion was the better part of valour and disappointedly packed up and came home. It was a shame because we'd been so looking forward to the break but we'd have been too afraid to leave the tent to visit anywhere in case the tent left as well!

Maybe we'll go back to finish the holiday in September - hopefully not coinciding with the equinoctial gales!

PS. It appears from the TV news that Boscastle has today been hit by a similar, though thankfully smaller, inundation. Perhaps we'd better not go back there ever ever again.

Everything all right

When we were in Cornwall we looked around loads of galleries, mostly of the shop variety, but also the Newlyn Gallery. We both know of the Newlyn school and were interested to see some of their stuff ‘in the real’ rather than as prints. Normally I’m happy to spend several hours in an art gallery, but this one was small so I didn’t think the visit would take all morning. In fact I think it took two minutes. What a load of tosh! There was none of the Newlyn School stuff there at all (we learned later they’re in another building in Penzance), just recent crap. There were some Christmas-tree-shaped prints in various colours, each of which can’t have taken more than a minute to produce (I did similar stuff at art college and used it as wrapping paper). There was a pen-and-ink drawing, about 6 inches by 4, with a flat black blob and some scribbled lines, a bit like this \/


How much? 

Do you know how much that was on sale for? £325. I couldn’t believe it. So what with seeing that lot (the ‘works’ upstairs make Rothko look talented) and the variable quality of the wares in all the other galleries has inspired me to take up my brushes again. I’m not brilliant by any means, but I know I can do better than a lot of them! So for my birthday Ned’s got me some more oils (my old ones – including the ones I’ve inherited from various dead relatives - are still soft in the tubes, but the tops won’t come off, and they need to be attacked from below) and an easel, and I’ve already started blocking in a Cornish view.


Towards Sennen 

It’s donkey’s years since I last wielded a brush in anger, but it’s slowly coming back. Here’s one I prepared earlier (1990, I think):


Making waves 

It was quite entertaining when we went to buy the stuff, because one of the women in the shop had just realised she’s been drinking decaf all day and was needing her fix, and the other one couldn’t get her head around the fact that we were doing secret shopping that was to be a surprise present for me. The twitchy one put the paints into a bag and sang out “Surprise!” as she handed it over, and then gave a spiral of what she described as ‘special blutak’. I do hope she got her caffeine soon afterwards.

After we went shopping in Banbury this morning the Boy treated me to a pint and a plate of chips in the pub. As we were sat there he muttered “I hope they realise you’re my mum, and I’m not a toyboy!” Well, what could I do? I replied “Get your coat, you’re pulled” and then started calling him ‘darling’, became very tactile and made suggestions about renting a room whenever anyone was within earshot. He blushed. Hahaha!

My biggest brother asked me if there was room on my cake for yet another candle. Tchoh! Silly boy! Doesn’t he realise you just get a bigger cake?

*goes to look for some jelly and ice cream.

Our house?

From the (rented) cottage garden 

We saw this house name when we were in Cornwall - Ned felt almost at home!


Nearly home? 

By the way, does anyone know why Blogger has suddenly rearranged itself and is having the socking great gap at the top? I haven't altered the template at all.
Hurrah! Enmendificated! Or nearly, anyway. The text now runs beneath the sidebar instead of cunningly shortening itself to fit ... hmmm ... back to Blogger help ...

Wherever I wander

Honey, we’re home! And we had a pretty fabbo time, all in all. Cornwall’s always lovely (though I think I prefer the north coast to the south), and we had the most brilliant weather – maybe a tad too hot for the long walks we were doing! The seven miles from Cape Cornwall, through Lands End to the village where we’d parked the second car was long, hot and tiring. But we nabbed several caches on the way, so that was good. We saw dolphins and seals, and had cream teas, and beer. Sharps’ Doom Bar and Special were great – the Godolphin in Marazion (they don’t like it if you call their village Marzipan by mistake) keeps their beer very well. The Logan Rock Inn does good Tinners, and the Old Success in Sennen is a lifesaver.

Unfortunately Cornwall also goes in for danger – I made the mistake of picking up a damp towel, and my back went ‘poing!’ so I spent most of the week taking ibuprofen washed down with beer. It worked, and I managed several cliff scrambles.

We had a minor panic when we couldn’t contact the Boy for 15 hours, even when he was meant to be at home, and it was only by phoning one of our neighbours who went and reminded him that ringing phones usually need answering that we were weren’t belting back home on Wednesday morning. We were packed …

On the way back a piratical raid was launched on the Cad Hutters, who in a fiendishly devious move shattered Ned’s shiny cutlass, much to the amusement of all the other people in the pub who were “Yarring” in the proper manner as we sneaked through the bar, bandanas, eye-patches and weaponry drawn to avoid ambush.

We got home to discover that the joint account has been overdrawn since Tuesday and they’re charging us £8 a day for the privilege (they have a shock coming tomorrow); the woman driving ‘the other car’ involved in the Boy’s prang is being a Cow and saying she’s injured, he hit her head on (yeah right, we have photos of the damage) etc, and her insurance company is writing threatening letters to Boy, which I’m sure is, if not actually illegal, is certainly unethical; and the Boy has dreadlocks.


Noooooooooooooooooooooooo! 

And now Blogger's being an arse, and getting stuff all in the wrong places.