Catching up in Cornwall

Despite my concerns my son and daughter are having a lovely time in Cornwall. On Saturday morning they enjoyed a long walk along the coast path around Trevose Head towards Harlyn. She took this photo of Mother Ivey's Bay looking towards Merope Rocks, that view holds so many happy memories for me, I wish I was there with them. 

Later in the day they went to Padstow and despite the choppy sea they braved a boat trip around the offshore islands to see the puffins and other sea birds. A boat trip on the Jubilee Queen while on holiday has become a bit of a family tradition, but personally I prefer to keep my feet firmly planted on dry land even on the calmest day! I braved the trip once and I was lucky enough to see puffins, but the braver members of the family have seen dolphins, seals, puffins and many other sea birds.

They spent Sunday visiting their grandparents and then their aunt, uncle and cousins. They even visited Windy Ridge, one of my favourite restaurants. Apparently it has been given a facelift since I last visited, they enjoyed their meal very much; another reason for me to visit Cornwall again very soon! 

Storms batter South West coast as 'monsoon' weather hits Britain - The Telegraph

My younger daughter had spent weeks planning a long weekend in Cornwall with her brother and a friend from university. She really isn't the camping type, but they had arranged to spend the first couple of nights 'under canvas' before moving to more civilised surroundings for the remainder of their stay. She is a confident driver and she has made the journey a couple of times before, but I'm her mum and I can't help worrying especially as she planned to make the journey during the night - and that was before I saw the weather forecast!

"Strong winds, possibly up to gale force, are expected from the afternoon onwards in south-west England particularly Devon and Cornwall," forecaster Mark Seltzer from the Met Office.

When I saw the warnings from the Met Office yesterday I was seriously worried, I wouldn't have enjoyed driving to Cornwall in those conditions and I really wanted her to postpone her journey until the morning.

"Winds will increase this afternoon in Devon and Cornwall and there could be gusts of 60 to 65mph, or even 70mph on exposed coasts and headlands......"

My daughter is as stubborn and determined as her mother and she wasn't going let a little matter of the weather spoil her plans. She is also half Cornish and the call of the sea is very strong - it took her dad years to adapt to living so far from the sea. So soon after midnight they set off on their journey - and I began to worry! I had made sure that they were as well prepared as possible, but I was still worried. It was a very long night but thankfully they got to Padstow in time for breakfast. My daughter said that the journey had been very wet and very windy, so it was a challenging driving experience.

I really wish that they could have had better weather, it sounds as if they had a nice day despite the rain and according to my daughter the sun came out later on. Padstow holds so many happy memories for our family and it is nice to be there whatever the weather. However camping is a different story, I doubt my daughter would have enjoyed it even in perfect summer weather. She wrote on facebook that "Camping is most certainly not for me" and she went on to inform the world that she will be sleeping in the car tonight! Perhaps she will appreciate the comforts of home after this. I hope they stay safe and have a lovely day tomorrow.

Strange Animal Spotted in Cornwall

Photo by nirutha 

There are many tales of strange animals being spotted around Cornwall, but as this story involves Robbie it is a little stranger than most. For 200 years there have been reports of sightings of a sea monster in Falmouth Bay, known as Morgawr it is said to be over 20 feet long with an 8ft tail, scaly legs and a horned head. There have been sightings of the Beast of Bodmin Moor, a panther like creature since 1971 but it (or more likely 'they') have never been caught. So when Robbie told me that he had spotted a very strange looking animal while watching a television program set in Cornwall I was prepared to believe him until we used the rewind facility, the strange animal proved to be a sheep!! I was incredulous, he may work in Birmingham, but he grew up in a rural area so he must have seen a sheep before. His excuse was that he didn't know that sheep could have different faces!  

Dolphins!

Friday 4th June

Another beach day, it was hot and absolutely perfect on the beach. The sea was calm and clear (but still chilly) and Sam broke the habit of a lifetime and allowed me to take a photo of him!

If only we could have another week like this but sadly we will be heading home tomorrow. Robbie was plastered in sun block, he was so white that he looked like ghost but he still managed to get his arms burned and he claims that his ears have caught the sun too!

At tea time we went for a walk towards Harlyn along the coast path. The skylarks were singing high above and as we sat there on the bench looking across at Harlyn so many happy memories came flooding back, we have had some very happy times here. Later in the evening some time after 9pm something very special happened, there were dolphins swimming in the bay, lots of them and we all saw them. I have never seen anything like that before, I don't know how many there were, there were lots, I could hardly believe my eyes.

I love Mother Ivey's Bay, it holds so many happy memories and it is a beautiful place to be, I will be sad to leave tomorrow but hopefully we will be back again next year.

Getting There

Saturday 29th May

It was a reasonably good journey. We stopped at the services on M4 and Robbie managed to sleepwalk to the Gents and back but within seconds he was comatose again and his latte travelled all the way to Taunton before being tipped away. This time he didn't stay awake long enough to go into the services, he was sound asleep again as we travelled into Cornwall. Sound was the operative word, the soundtrack was really irritating, I tried to throw a deaf ear and focus on Radio 4, but Sam who was sitting behind Robbie was almost overcome by the temptation to silence him.

We arrived in Padstow early enough to have our choice of parking spaces, just as well as the spaces are a bit tight and parking a seven seater can be challenging when it is busy. It was at this point that Robbie discovered that he had forgotten his rucksack containing his wallet, money, bank cards, passes, ipod and charger, phone charger and the countless other essentials that he drags around with him. Predictably he had a strop, he sat there arms folded and lip sticking out a mile, he even tried to blame me for making him forget it, but I have to admit that he got over his strop fairly quickly. We had a picnic breakfast, then we had a look at the shops and had a wander around Padstow before having lunch at our favourite cafe by the harbour.

We arrived at the Caravan at about 3pm, it is a new one this year and very nice. The view as ever is wonderful but by the time we had unloaded the car and unpacked I was too tired to take much notice of anything and I was fast asleep long before the Eurovision Song Contest came on television - I'm sure I didn't miss much!

Ready at Last

Friday was a bit of a blur, packing, getting the car ready and filling it with fuel as well as last minute shopping. By 7.30pm everything was packed, the house was a tidy as I could manage and I tucked myself into bed to get some sleep before the long drive to Cornwall. I planned to get up at 2am so I needed a very early night. I'd not heard from Robbie but Laura was on standby to pick him up if he managed to get home without incident.

The call of the bathroom woke me up at midnight and as I sleeply emerged from the bathroom Robbie came bounding up the stairs wearing some new PJ bottoms, they had Batfink on them and they were startling to say the least. I went back to bed and reluctantly got up again at 2am. Robbie was still up, he was too scared to go to be because he knew he wouldnt get up again. I had to hurry him along because he was still running on Irish time and at that speed the holiday would be over before we got there!

I packed the flasks and food for the journey, then I packed the final items into the car while Robbie downed tools and made himself a bacon sandwich (at 3am!). Finally Laura and Sam and I were ready in the car and after sitting in the car waiting for Robbie for what seemed like hours we drove off towards Cornwall. By the time we reached the end of our road everyone else was asleep and I was left with an increasingly stressy sat nav for company. I knew the best way to go and each time I ignored the sat nav I could hear the edge in her voice as she announced that she was "recalculating".

Not a Good Week

It is a week since we got home from holiday and there is only one thing that I didn't miss when we left Cornwall – the narrow roads! The Cornish roads around Padstow are not very wide and if you meet a vehicle coming the other way it can be a hair raising experience. The roads are beautiful with high hedges and wild flowers growing along the verge, they may look harmless but they demand respect. The hedges are built with earth and stone, they are made to last, so when you have to pull in to the edge of the road the innocent looking vegetation may conceal sharp edges ready to scratch your paintwork. It feels good to be driving on normal roads again!

It has been a horrible week. After a fortnight of Robbie 24 – 7, I was quite looking forward to sending him back to work, but I really missed him and I hardly saw anything of him during the week. I missed a school reunion when I was on holiday, I was glad of an excuse not to go. I am not a going out sort of person anyway, but after this long I convinced myself that my former classmates would be younger, thinner and smarter than me! Despite my misgivings I was keen to hear news of the reunion and I contacted one of the people who had organised the event. I was expecting the usual inconsequential stuff about people I knew a lifetime ago. Instead she told me that someone who was a close friend during my school days had killed herself. It came as such a shock, and I couldn't stop thinking about it. I have perhaps encountered more than my fair share of illness and loss, but I had never been confronted by suicide before, I can't imagine the despair and distress that would lead someone to take their own life. I wish life had been kinder to her.

Robbie also had bad news, he has been worried about his friend's health for months and last week his friend was finally diagnosed with a brain tumour. Robbie is a typical man, he is not good at feelings and all that stuff, and he found the news very difficult to accept. At first Robbie's anxiety and shock combined with an inner rage because he felt so powerless to help. I felt pretty useless too because there was nothing I could do or say to make him feel better. His friend has been foremost in his thoughts all week.

Back to Reality

Saturday dawned impossibly early, we were all up by 5.15am and by 7am we were on the road. It was the Royal Cornwall Show and I wanted to be well away from Wadebridge before the queues built up. It was an uneventful but exhausting journey and we made reasonably good time. Something about the M5 always brings the worst out of Robbie, he spotted a train at the point where the motorway passes close to the railway line and for the next ten minutes he 'entertained' us with a medley of train noises - I think he has been missing work! My nerves were still jangling when there was a thump against the window behind me, I thought some debris had broken the window but it was only Sam recreating the legendary moment when grandad had thumped his hand on the side of the window to express his feelings to a particularly inconsiderate driver. Needless to say both 'boys' were silenced by a few words from me!

When we got home there was a note and a key from our neighbour, she had just left for her holiday and she wanted Robbie to water the plants and feed the fish. He takes his responsibilities seriously and he popped round to check on the fish and see to the plants. He was gone for quite a long time, and when he returned he had a puzzled look on his face, he had been searching for the fish. Apparently he expected them to be in a tank somewhere in the house, but when he couldn't find them he went out to water the plants and found the fish - in the garden pond! The following day he wasn't quite as long, but he still took longer than expected, apparently he was trying to count the fish to make sure they were all still there, but they wouldn't stay still!

Time to Get Up!

As soon as I woke up I could tell it was a beautiful day, the sun was streaming through the bedroom window and when I wandered through to make contact with the kettle the view of the bay was incredible. I went back to bed, but 'Sleeping Beauty' just grunted and went back to sleep, I had no chance of dragging him down to the beach before noon so I left him to it.

I got up, showered, had breakfast, washed a couple of towels and some clothes and hung them out to dry, but still the men in my life were not sufficiently awake to form a coherent sentence. Robbie promised that he would follow me down to the beach in a little while, but he must have been working on Cornish time because it was almost two hours before he turned up. I enjoyed the peace and quiet, I wandered

down to the rock pools and took some photos, then I read my family history magazine while relaxing in the sunshine. I love this place, I can't think of anywhere I would rather be.

Robbie finally turned up to enjoy the beach, but I made the mistake of telling him that my family history magazine was focusing on railway history. He was especially interested in the article about 'Steaming Ahead' the recently opened museum and railway resource centre at Darlington. He said he would like to find out more about his grandfather's work as a signal man. He spent the next half hour working out train times and connections to Darlington. I finally managed to stop him talking about trains, but when I put my magazine down it vanished, I think Robbie must have added it to his collection.

The Seagull Has Landed

The caravan is very comfortable, in fact the bedroom is better designed than our bedroom at home. The bed is comfortable so in theory I should be able to sleep like a log. There is just one problem the local seagulls think our caravan roof is a runway! The roof is sloped and tiled so it is not quite as inviting as when they used to be flat but when a seagull lands it sounds as if there is a horse wearing clogs trotting over the roof. Oddly it doesn't seem to disturb Robbie at all. I mustn't grumble, my mum and step father have to put up with far worse at there house. A number of peacocks have set up home in their village, they land on the roof and clomp about as if they are doing military manouvers and they make the most ear piercing noise that goes on for hours.

Bird Song

It is Laura's last day with us today, she has to go home tomorrow ready for exams on Monday so she got to choose what we did today. She wanted to go to Newquay again, so we got up early and set off in time to get there just after 9am so that we could pack as much as possible into the day. I didn't want to look at the shops again, so after buying a jigsaw I wandered down to the harbour to take some photos. I love listening to the herring gulls, for me it isn't really the sound of the seaside without the cries of the gulls. I have forgiven them for the little misdemeanour on Wednesday when one scored a direct hit on me. Having seen how much mess it made I can now understand why ostriches don't fly! fortunately I was wearing a raincoat so it was fairly easy to remove the evidence! Listen to gulls here Herring Gull

It was a bit dismal early in the day but it brightened into a beautiful afternoon. By 1pm we were back at the caravan and it was so nice that we took a walk along the coast path towards Harlyn, there is a wild spot where there are lots of skylarks. I love just standing there listening to them singing, they soar so high in the sky that it is hard to see them but their song is beautiful. When we got back we sat outside at the table with a cup of tea enjoying the sunshine. There was a male blackbird sitting on the next caravan, he seemed to have a huge personality and he was singing with such vigour that I couldn't help wondering what he was saying. Skylark Blackbird

This evening we began Laura's 17th birthday celebrations, her birthday is on Monday really, but as she has exams on that day she is stretching the celebration over several days.

After the Rain

Monday was wet and miserable, it rained relentlessly all day and it was too heavy to venture far so we enjoyed a leisurely day in the caravan. It worked out quite well because I had some writing work to do and Laura had loads of revision to keep her occupied so that left the boys free to enjoy the television - such a hardship for them!

Today was a much better day, we went to Newquay in the morning to check out all Laura's favourite shops. Sam had his own ideas about shopping, but the things he wanted were either too rude, too expensive or downright dangerous, so I was not his favourite person. He has his heart set on a new hoody, but we haven't found the right one yet.

When we got back I went for a walk along the coast path, it was such a beautiful day and I never tire of the beautiful views around here. We enjoyed some time on the beach, it was low tide and I watched the children fishing in the rock pools. It seems such a short time ago that Emily and Laura spent hours at the rock pools with Grandad, they would come running up the beach with their bucket to show off their latest catch. Where has all the time gone?

There was an amazing sunset this evening. I hope you enjoy the photos.

Making Lists

This has been a week of frantic list making. We are going on holiday on Saturday and it feels as if there is absolutely no chance of getting everything done on time. The cats and the guinea pig will be looked after by grandma but Meg is going to the kennels. I need to make sure all your food and equipment is sorted out as well as getting everything washed ironed and packed ready to go. I keep remembering extra things that I need to do and my list now runs into several pages! Robbie hasn't switched into holiday planning mode yet, he woke me up before 6am to tell me about some problem or other with his HST's, I can't remember my exact response but I think it adequately conveyed my absolute refusal to discuss trains of any kind at that time of the morning!

An Explosive Problem 03.02.07

I was most reluctant to leave Cornwall and drag myself back to reality, but after a good night's sleep I have to admit there is nothing quite like your own bed. We had a new mattress recently and it is very comfortable, it is one of those that has extra support in all the right places, the only problem is Robbie put it on the wrong way round so the head end is where the feet should be and vise versa - typical!

Sam and I went to collect Meg from the Kennels this morning. She was pleased to see us, but not as excited as I expected until I reversed the car on to the drive, then she got really excited and she came bounding into the house to find Robbie. Sam was looking forward to getting his Guinea pig back from Grandma's, but knowing Grandma's passion for feeding everyone to capacity he was worried that Shadow would be anything but a shadow. As he put it, 'she could be the size of a Capybara by now' but his fears were groundless, she was fine and not super sized at all.

On the subject of super sized Robbie came to bed and woke me up at 3am to tell me that he thought his stomach was going to explode. I think he must have had a bad dream because he made a miraculous recovery. Just to be sure, he tested his stomach to the limit this afternoon when we went to tea at my mum's. He ate, and ate but even Robbie couldn't completely demolish that spread. He is such a creep, he told my mum she is the best mother in law in the world, hopefully that isn't just because she feeds him!
Robbie and I had a strong disagreement (not argument) about the most stupid thing this afternoon. It was all about how to solve the problem of bikes on trains, I ended up wanting to scream at him for being so negative! I think we will steer clear of the subject of bikes for a few days.

Happy Birthday Laura 02.06.07

An early start this morning! At 7am we were all enjoying bacon sandwiches and watching Laura open her birthday presents. After some hasty packing we hit the road at about 9.30am. I am always reluctant to leave Cornwall, but it is a little easier on a dismal morning such as this morning. It remained wet and miserable until we were past Exeter and then gradually a beautiful warm day emerged. It was a tedious journey as there were far too many people on the road but once the dreaded Bristol was behind us and we had joined the M4 the journey improved.

Robbie was delighted to see a FGW train heading towards London and a Virgin double set heading towards the south west. It is a very odd sensation to drive along the M5 with a train travelling alongside.

Along The Coast Path 28.05.07

It was a much better day today, still windy, but dry and pleasant so we were able to go down to the beach and then later on we went for a walk along the coast path to Harlyn. We know this part of Cornwall very well so we notice every little change; there is a field on the way to Harlyn that is the best place I know for hearing (and seeing) skylarks but this year it has been fenced off. It doesn’t spoil the walk as you can still walk along the coast path and you can still see and hear the skylarks, but it does spoil the look of the coastline.

BACK SOON 25.05.07

There will be no more blog entries until Sunday 3rd June. I will still write for the blog while I am away, but I will not be able to upload it until I get home. My mobile doesn't work in deepest Cornwall!

Feeling Blue

The run up to Christmas was totally exhausting for us and we have enjoyed the gentler pace of the last few days. Having caught up on our sleep, we have been able to cope with a few late nights. Robbie is working his way through some of the new train dvd's he had for Christmas, last night we stayed up until past 2am watching old railway films. This inevitably led to waking up late and a lazy morning watching more railway stuff. We watched a film about Cornish branch lines, it was made in 1991 and it was interesting to see how things have changed since, as well as learning loads about the history of the railway in Cornwall. It is the area of the country that I know best and I have travelled on most of the branches, so the film was extra special. Robbie had to spoil it by being an anorak, sitting on the bed wearing nothing but a quail map and arguing with the narrator about the exact length of the various viaducts. Eventually he worked out that I was getting seriously irritated and he decided to preserve his health by being quiet, just as well really as he was in danger of wearing the dvd - internally!

Robbie is very helpful around the house, but occasionally his enthusiasm exceeds his skill. He has been getting on with the washing over the last few days, bless him. I should be grateful, but I was tempted to do a great deal more than bless him when I realised that he had turned my best white bra grey in the wash. He tried to claim it was 'blue white' but I am not that easily conned!! He will be shopping for underwear next week, he is quite good at that, he seems to enjoy lingering in the lingerie department! We are an odd pair, I hate clothes shopping, but he absolutely loves it.

Robbie has had a number of little mishaps in the last few days. To spare his blushes I will not go into detail, but much as I love him and enjoy spending time, I could do with a day off!! As soon as we go back to work I will be wishing it was the holidays again, but I suppose life is always like that.