Living in the UK again

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...

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...

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...

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....

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...

My Penzance adventure started from our local train station, for a short hop to Reading to pick up one of the new Hitachi bi mode trains to Penzance. Bi mode, is a train that can get electric power from an overhead wire and where the track doesn’t have that, it turns on its diesel generator to power the train. This is of course the route of the Brunel line. I must admit as we got closer to Penzance our average speed appeared to drop, but I was in no rush. Five hours in a train is better than a lot more, as sole driver, in a very old car… As I got out there was a gaggle of ladies who were clearly having a holiday without their respective partners. One of them was trying to do a selfie of them all in front of the train, I offered to do it. I then told them, please don’t trash the town, they all laughed.  After checking in to my place to stay, I had a wander around and had a coffee and two scoops of Cornish vanilla ice cream. Which was divine. I walked down Chapel St which has some nic...

The recent heatwave has meant a lot more work to keep things going until cooler periods or even better rainfall appears. It got a little colder for a few days, we were promised thunderstorms, but they skipped us by.  I now have two dustbins, and two water butts up there now. I don’t normally use them, but as we only have one tap by the church tower, if I go up there to do watering and someone is already using the tap, I will use them then. So far I have crossed off Broccoli and Peas off my next years list. The Broccoli florets were very small, there weren’t that many Peas. The Raspberries are still coming, and the fruit trees are still swelling up their fruit, although the Pears haven’t done as much as the Apples. The good news is the weeds are not coming up as much as they did, including the Bindweed. The Cabbages are doing well, below is what is called a Pointy Cabbage, as can be seen. The other Cabbages are not far advanced. There is a lot of slug damage on some, I need to think...