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Produce in plenty

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Despite the heatwaves, most things are still growing, I have removed some things that I have decided are not going to mature, like some of the cabbages that have had the hearts eaten away. I have removed another raised bed, TRHA had some tomato plants, I have put them in the ground and they are growing. The ones in the greenhouse at home, well you can hardly get into the greenhouse now. I am giving away produce that is surplus. It was time to practice my cakes for the Autumn show in two months time, the first a coffee cake, which I thought was quite good. Next time I will have enough buttercream to properly cover the sides of the cake. The other cake in the show is a lemon drizzle. Normally these are made in a loaf tin, I wanted to do a round one. It took longer to cook than the recipe suggested, next time I will cover the top to avoid it going brown as this one did. As a nod to a bit more indulgence I cut it in half and put in a layer of lemon curd between the two layer. This is going...
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Left Leg Blues

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Just over two years after breaking my left leg, another visit to casualty, this time in the UK. I was working in the TRHA garden, I was nearly done and a pair of secateurs in my pocket fell out and the sharp point bit landed on my foot making a neat incision. I did not realise it at the time, but when I looked down and saw my foot awash in blood, I knew something was up. I sat down and tried to staunch the blood flow. It’s wasn’t gushing out but it was making a mess. I rang someone and he and his wife came over quickly. The question was, Henley  or Reading for a minor injuries visit? Of course it’s Regatta week, but the Henley traffic did not look too bad. After sorting me out and putting g a bag over my foot, so as not to make a mess in their car, off we went, with my dog sit with us. The traffic was quite bad, but we got there in decent time and I was seen quickly. I was lucky, as it had not severed a tendon, and after a bit of a clean up, local anaesthetic, stitches, I was good ...
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Last Steps

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As I left Penzance, I walked along a path with the railway on my left, heading away from the edge of the town, where there were various big stores, supermarkets, a coffee drive thru and so on could be seen. The sea was retreating and Gulls could be seen in the beach, sipping water from streams fed from inland even in the summer. Some of the Gulls were juveniles, bring brown in colour. Later I also saw a guy with a bucket and trowel, I bet he was looking for Lugworms, he would be scanning the sand surface for piles of sand, indicating a Lugworm might be under there somewhere. These are used for fishing. There clouds were breaking  up and we started to see blue sky, I could see matchstick sized people walking along the revealed causeway to St Michael’s Mount. As I approached Marazion, where the causeway starts, there was a big group of children, playing in the sand, maybe an educational trip, they had left a neat line of shoes back by the edge of the beach. The Coast path ran out tem...
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St Just to Treen

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One of the problems I am having is marrying up the bus routes with walks along the coast. Today had me start the work at a town called St Just, when I got there I really liked it, there were lots of interesting shops, a real town. I had myself a Pasty, and a drink to top myself up for the walk. I have been using a reused plastic bottle to carry water on the walks.  I left the village, walked down a hill, and where there was a stream bubbling away like all the others, I turned into a narrow road. I met several people who were walking their dogs, one lady told me that she knows of someone who takes a bucket of water from the stream every day and drinks it. It looks clear enough, but I am not sure I would be so brave. One thing I noticed on my way here is the profusion or old Tin mining structures, usually a chimney and some remains of other buildings.  In amongst these buildings was one of those triangulation point concrete structures seen around the countryside. The coastline w...
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Lands end to Porthcurno

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I decided despite the slightly grey and drizzly weather to go to Lands end and walk along the coast to Nanjizal Bay. It would be a linear walk, after returning to Land End I thought I could walk the other direction on the coastal path. I caught the number one bus, as there is a fair in town we were diverted inland around it.  Later on as we neared our destination and the roads became ever narrower I wondered if in the summer the buses get horribly delayed? At one point our bus driver, driving a double decker had to reverse quite a distance into a passing place as heading towards us was a larger convoy. When we got to Lands End I noted it was only ten miles back, to Penzance, it was a one hour journey. We were dropped off in the car park and I wandered into the complex, a mish mash of all sorts of things, dare I say some a little bit tacky. I bought myself my usual Cornish pasty, unfortunately the filling was nice, not so the pastry. According to some information nearby the tin mine...
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Passing Places.

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So today it was time to get back on the train, to St Ives, changing to a branch line at St Erth. While waiting for the train at that station I met a couple with a Cocker and a King Charles Spaniel.The Cocker was all over me, I needed that Spaniel fix! I noticed that the signals at the station were very old school. Soon we were on our way, with some amazing coastal views, this time on the Northern Cornish coast. When the train stopped at St Ives, a fair old crowd of us disgorged from the train and walked  into the main town. Although I wanted to look at the town, I also wanted to walk some of the coastal path and get away from the crowds. Incidentally the towns name comes from the arrival of a legendary Irish Princess St Ia who is said to have arrived on a leaf. Pilchard fishing and Tin mining were the foundations of its prosperity, later followed by tourism with the arrival of the railway and then the artistic scene blossomed with names like Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson....
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Remembering two tragedies

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After breakfast in my room, I had a leisurely start and left Penzance by foot to Mousehole, not pronounced as it is spelt. I walked through the town, heading to nearby Newlyn, which is a proper fishing village. Along the route was a lovely wide promenade and a Lido, cleverly designed to withstand the force of the sea and heated from a geo thermal spring. It’s called Jubilee Pool because it was built to celebrate George V’s Jubilee in 1935. There was a nice old art deco pub opposite, sadly with the parked cars it was not easy to see its full design. Along the prom, lots of people were walking, and many of them had black Labradors, which was nice as it got me thinking about the one I know who now lives in Oxfordshire, they contacted me today, I might see them next weekend. I carried on into Newlyn, a smaller conurbation with several buildings with a fish themed rectangular mosaic on their front walls, a nod to its fishing heritage which is ongoing. There was a statue to honour all the fi...
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