The Hill towns

Triora

This region of Italy is particularly rich in geographical and historic beauty. Geographically it consists of steep hills, mountains and river valleys heading up from the coast to the borders of France. Wherever the hills aren’t terraced for olives they are heavily wooded. Further north there are national parks and hiking trails. 

Historically it consists of numerous medieval villages, mostly built on steep hillsides in seemingly inaccessible places. Most date from around the 12^th C at a time when this part of Italy was suffering attacks from the sea by Saracens or Barbary pirates, i.e. Muslims from North Africa. So it is all about defence: the remote locations away from the coast and the structure of the towns themselves, few entrance gates and tall stone buildings (typically 4-storey), narrow awkward alleys winding through the town with steep steps. Add a few big walls, towers and occasional fort and they must have been hard work for invaders. Not to mention those who lived there! So if you want to visit them and see as much as possible then you need to be reasonably fit – or you soon will be!

One of the many hamlets in the area

A few days ago we went on a trip to take in both aspects. For only Euro 1.50 we took the local bus up the Argentina valley from Taggia to Triora. The trip takes 50 minutes even in the hands of Ayton Senna’s younger brother, on a road so narrow much of the oncoming traffic had to reverse out of our way. The valley contains a beautiful river that tumbles over big boulders, ones that probably rolled down the steep valley sides long ago (hopefully)  – there was a lot of wire netting and concrete works holding the hillside at bay above the road. As the road climbs the bus has to squeeze through the street of villages, almost collecting the houses along the way, and there are numerous hairpins to negotiate. All in all the cheapest and most scenic bus trip I’ve been on.

The last witches in Triora ...

Triora sits high up in the mountains in alpine scenery with half a dozen other hamlets dotted around on surrounding hillsides. Its main claim to fame is it was the last place to burn witches during the Renaissance. Consequently there are a few tourist shops – the only ones we’ve seen in Italy to date – selling witch dolls.  Apparently the town was badly bombed during the war as a reprisal, but you wouldn’t know it as it must have been all repaired in keeping – a mix of run down and possibly abandoned buildings and some nicely refurbished stone houses. We had a nice lunch (pizza and a panino) outside in a piazza containing two churches, one dating from 1594, the other 100 years younger. Like most churches here they are locked so you can’t explore inside. A very photogenic place – check out the Triora section of the photo gallery on this blog – made more spectacular by the approaching storm: heavy black clouds coming in from the mountain tops, thunder and lightning.

Our day out almost finished on a bad note. There are only a handful of buses going there each day and, as we couldn’t find a timetable in Triora, we judged departure times based on when we knew they arrived back in Taggia. Big mistake! After waiting around until 4pm for our anticipated 3:30pm bus, we discovered there was only one more bus and that wasn’t until 8pm. Faced with a four hour wait as big drops of rain started appearing, we were starting to get a little concerned. Then to our aid arrived two Albanian brothers who, as climbers, work repairing the tops of buildings and fixing concrete and wire netting to the cliff faces above the roads. Though they had just knocked off and were heading home (a hotel somewhere in the region) they decided on the spur of the moment that the work’s van needed a quick sprint to Taggia. So, in possibly record time we sped back down the mountain engaging in a surprisingly successful conversation in bits of Italian and English. Apart from feeling somewhat car-sick, it was a brilliant trip. And it has changed my preconception of all Albanians being thieves and mobsters. These couldn’t have been more friendly and wouldn’t even take some “beer money” for their trouble.

The last trial of the day (excluding the 50 minute slog back up the hill home) was waiting for the 4:15pm reopening of the supermarket. Around 5pm we found out that it is closed on Wednesday afternoons. Why???

Critters, great and small

Scary ones first …. Yes, there are scorpions and snakes here …. No, we haven’t seen any, yet.  Apparently, the scorpions are small and live in the stone walls that create the terraces.  We keep them and the snakes in mind when moving rocks and the like around the property, and if we leave our boots outside we give them a shake before putting them on or bringing them inside.  I was going to say we’re cautious of snakes in the grass and bushes when we’re out on the trails, but we’re not really.  I mean, what are we going to do?  Carry a stick and beat the grass both sides of the track before we take each step?  No … we charge on regardless.  So far, so good.

A couple of caterpillars, next to a power socket.

Pesky things next.  Mosquitoes.  Enough said, probably.  We get bites, they eventually go away and meanwhile we get new bites.  Oh well.  Caterpillars.  Now, here’s an interesting one.  We have them inside the house, on the walls, floors and ceilings.  Not the cute, furry type – these are more like worms, but with little legs to keep them stuck to the surfaces.  We have to watch where we walk – not that we always do.  At times I’ve gone around our bedroom and bathroom – the rooms that seem to be of most interest to them (unfortunately) – and picked a dozen off the walls and chucked them outside, but there are always more to replace them.  Most unfortunately, it appears they do not like rainy days, of which today is our first since arriving here.  Sitting in the kitchen/dining room, where there are usually none, I can glance at one wall, from the bench level up, and see twenty of the little pests.  It’s similar upstairs in the bedroom.  The only thing that makes me not freak out over the whole creepy-crawly situation is that the garden is full of beautiful butterflies, and they have to come from somewhere!  So, rightly or wrongly, I keep thinking about all the beautiful butterflies growing in our bedroom.  The rain’s stopped – I hope they all go back where they came from – wherever that is!

Out in the garden there are, as I said, lots of beautiful butterflies.  Fifty-five different types have been recorded here.  And there are electric blue and yellow dragonflies that hover over the pool; spiders galore, but no more and nothing scarier than we see in New Zealand; bumble bees, honey bees, wasps of various kinds, hornets, and a particularly large and beautiful blue-black bee; lots of ants too, from tiny ones to those a centimetre long; and house flies and large flies with iridescent green eyes and tiny flies. And small skinks and maybe geckos – it was too quick for me to be sure.  In the sky we have eagles that call like the phoenix in the Harry Potter movie, big black crows, swallows, and another bird, similar to a magpie.

At night we go to sleep with the sound of chirruping frogs!  It sounds like we’re surrounded!  I was attacked by one in the garden one day.  Well, maybe ‘attacked’ is a little strong.  I was pulling a weed out of a clay pot with a flowering geranium in it when a frog jumped out and crash-landed into my leg and bounced off into another plant.  I was probably more surprised than the frog, but I suspect it was more upset.

I should mention dogs.  We don’t have one here, but Sue’s neighbour does and he (Lucky) visits every morning and leaves a deposit on the driveway somewhere.  As we’ve walked around the hills we’ve found that many of our neighbours have dogs, either locked behind gates or on chains – they’re very effective door bells!

On our first self-powered visit to Taggia we left the village early in the afternoon to ‘wander’ home.  We knew it was not a great time of day to be trudging up a hill because of the heat (30-something degrees), but the traditional siesta had surprised us – almost everything closes down from just after 12pm to about 4pm.  Luckily the gelato shop remained open, so we sneaked in one of those (one scoop each of chocolate and liquorice for me – yum!! – and coffee and biscotti for Nigel), but the supermarket doors were closed (a main reason for our trip).  Just as well.  The trip home was ‘unpleasant’, and that was without the weight of groceries.  We missed the turn-off to the track – it gets little use so is a bit overgrown – and with our heads hanging down and tucked under the umbrellas, which were giving us some relief from the sun, we missed the signpost.  The track had been recommended to us as quicker than taking the road, but that was the last time we used it – it took us over an hour to get home from the village, but our next trip, along the vehicle track and in similar heat, was only 40 minutes.  It was about 3pm when we were on the track above ‘home’ – I glanced up to see the pool, on the other side of the small valley, looking back at us so invitingly, and saw a hind (probably a fallow deer) wandering along the terrace below the pool.  Later that afternoon, Nigel saw three deer on the other side of the same valley, and we saw one again yesterday.  We don’t know if they’re protected or not, but they seem pretty comfortable about wandering around in the open in daylight, so my guess is they’re not hunted.

The pigs were back here last night.  We knew there were wild pigs here because Sue pointed out their excavations around the trees, and she told us about her broken solar panels.  Then a week ago ‘something’ rotary-hoed one of the raised vege gardens – I had wondered if it might have been the deer, but I’d thought they were more ‘nibblers’ than diggers.  But the digging had seemed quite neat, not very deep – not comparable to the holes dug around the trees.  And the garden is raised by 70cm or so – I didn’t think pigs would climb that.  The pigs have proved I don’t know all there is to know about pigs!  The pigs were definitely here last night.  Before I go further I should explain that the house’s back wall is three-quarters buried in the land behind it, which means our upstairs bedroom is half buried, and the small back window is not far above ground level.  That’s where the pigs started their garden jaunt last night.  There was lots of sneezing and snuffling as they poked their snouts through the straw (left behind by a previous Helpx-er’s strimming), chomping sounds and squeals.  Perhaps we should have given them a fright and sent them off – we’ll certainly give that a try next time we hear them – but when the noise subsided we slept.  Meanwhile, they must have made their way to the end of the terrace and onto the other terraces to decimate the vege gardens.  Ratbags!

I’m ‘with’ Gareth Morgan on cats in New Zealand, particularly on Stewart Island.  Having said that, I do enjoy stroking and cuddling cats – a purring cat just gives me a warm fuzzy feeling.  We had a Siamese cat when I was a kid, and as a young adult I had my own Burmese kitten.  But I know they are all little tigers.  Killers.  They don’t care if their prey is an imported pest or a baby kiwi, or some other endangered native.  They kill and torture for fun if they’re not hungry.

Helga

 

Demetrius

 

Anyway, back to Italy, where there are plenty of cats.  Sue encourages the feral cats because they keep the rat population under control.  The cats are fed a little about every second day to keep them around, and they are named, and a couple of them are not too different from a domesticated cat.  Helga, the only female in the troop, became very attractive to the boys a week ago, and it’s been all go for that week.  The poor wee thing has been mounted several times a day, night and day – and a very vocal activity it is too!  Once we noticed one of the boys try to mount her while she was mounted by another.  The newcomer seemed to appreciate the difficulty of his position so moved off and sat watching and waited his turn.

Florien

 

Sue had warned us to watch the cats if we had meat out.  We learnt the hard way what she meant.  I had a pack of rabbit legs defrosting on the bench and left the kitchen for a few minutes to go upstairs.  On my return I opened the door and Florien (the top Tom) escaped past me with one of the legs in his mouth!  I let him keep it – there was no way we were going to eat it – and the other leg was still safely inside the other half of the plastic wrap.  Florien had pushed in through the insecure insect netting on the window to steal his prize!  Another morning I came down to find Demetrius sitting atop the pantry units – he’s worked out how to open the retracting insect netting in the lounge window – human hands have to push on the two little levers to push the netting frame down into the window frame then push away to get it to ‘un-click’ before it retracts.  How Demetrius achieves the same result we do not know, but he’s done it twice.  We now always [try to] remember to close the glass windows before leaving the kitchen/living area.

Well, we can’t think of any other critters we have met, so that’s all for now, folks.  The sun is shining again.  It’s still paradise. :-)

Paradise found?

After nearly a week in Italy it is time for some initial impressions. After showing us the ropes, Sue, the owner of the property we are staying at, has departed with her friends on a road trip back to England, leaving us in charge for three weeks. 

We’ll start with a brief description of where we are.

Sue’s property is at the end of the road, about 250m above sea level in the Canelli valley. There are other houses dotted around the hillsides and these are mostly accessed by other roads running along the ridge line. As it is so steep the place is heavily terraced with large stone walls holding the levels up. Mostly growing olive trees, there are several vegetable patches and various citrus, stone fruit, and apple trees, along with a few figs, a kiwi vine, and tamarillos. Needless to say one of our main tasks while here is to water everything except the olives – they only get watered later in the year nearer harvesting.

While the house and outbuildings look ancient, the old stones cover a modern interior and a very big kitchen – Sue is a foodie and her shelves of recipe books and the stock in her cupboards attest to this. There is a large solar array at the rear for hot water, though I haven’t seen any signs of solar installations anywhere else yet.

Given the temperatures we’ve had so far (high 20s, low 30s every day) we’ve eaten almost every meal outside and our favourite spots other than the pool are: sitting outside the kitchen at the big table in the shade under the kiwi vine, enjoying dinner at the other table on the patio with the outside ovens overlooking the valley, or at “my office” – a chair under an olive tree where internet reception is at its best!

Now if you thought this was perfect, the other major task we have is to look after the pool. A beautiful 9m pool perched on a terrace overlooking the valley. “Pool Boy” duties include scooping insects and leaves out, cleaning the filters, topping up the, and an occasional scrub to keep the algae at bay. Oh, and the best bit, switching Fatos the robotic pool cleaner on, then watching him wander seemingly randomly along the pool bottom scrubbing away. A stressful day’s work indeed!

Whilst Sue was here she took us on two outings: the first was up the neighbouring valley to an ancient hill town. We explored the back alleys and it would have been a photographer’s dream – but we didn’t have a camera with us! We’ll have to find a bus to take us back. Our second big trip was to Sanremo, the largest town in the vicinity and a very wealthy one too judging from the size of the boats in the harbour. Apparently its casino is second only to Monte Carlo.  A very smart place indeed and another bus trip beckons.

We did manage a walk along a hill track yesterday morning but we didn’t leave early enough and the heat made us turn back after an hour. Long enough to peek over into an adjacent valley and spot another hill town to be explored. I can see our biggest issue here is a lack of transport. Tomorrow we’ll have to walk down to Taggia to get a few more supplies and then stagger back up the hill. Hiring a vehicle would be an option for getting occasional supplies and seeing the local sights, but the road is really too rough. Maybe a scooter is the answer, as long as it is powerful enough to get up this track!

Anyway, pool duty calls ...

Arrival in Italia

One of the biggest advantages of being in Europe is, well, that it is so close to the rest of Europe! Just a couple of hours after take off from a cool Gatwick we disembarked in a hot Nice on the sunny Med coast. We met up with Richard and Jane, NZ friends of our new host Sue. Coincidentally they were travelling on the same flight as us to meet up with Sue before going on a European road-trip with her (while we mind the shop). As we hadn’t met before we were lucky they spotted the “Kathmandu” labels on our luggage and recognized fellow kiwis abroad.

Travelling by train along the coast of France is very interesting. The trains are mainly double-decker ones, but as we had big bags to lug around, we stayed below. Relatively cheap (compare to England!) and very smooth, they would have been an ideal way to travel along this coast if it weren’t for the fact much of the trip was through tunnels! The coast is so mountainous that one moment you’re beside the sea in a town looking at the expensive contents of the local marina, and looking ahead at the wonderful buildings coming up and then you’ve passed it all in darkness. Monaco? Well, that was an uninteresting underground station! San Remo – ditto.

After the grey north everything changes down here. The buildings are now red and yellow with the big clay tiles. Colourful flowers and trees everywhere. Lots of graffiti around Nice. Small cars only, interestingly mainly French and Japanese, even in Italy.

We were met at Taggia-Arma station by Sue who first transported Richard and Jane up to her house in her little red Micra, then us. To describe where we’ve found ourselves would be first to say that Taggia-Arma
is a relatively modern beach-resort town. Behind it are steep hills with the old part of town (Taggia) up the valley. The hills are heavily wooded with lots of terraces growing olives, flowers, and fruit and veges. Sue’s place is several kilometres up a goat track. I’d like to call it a road and it does start out as a windy, sealed single-track, but deteriorates to gravel and rock, a ford, and is so narrow the Micra touches bushes on both sides at once. And that is when it isn’t a sheer drop off one side! At one point a bend requires a three-point turn to negotiate, followed by backing back into the corner to get a run up and flooring it as it is so steep. There are so many twists and turns and other tracks heading off we have no idea how we will find our way home once we have to start walking it alone. I’m hoping to get a GPS reading on my phone so we can navigate via Google Maps.

Sue’s place is at the end of the track, though there are several other properties nearby. Only a few are lived in, for most the owners just come up during the day to farm. Sue’s property is a series of terraces help up by large stone walls. It contains numerous olive trees and other fruiting trees along with a good garden. The buildings are all stone, built in 1878 but refurbished on 2005 and modern inside. And there is a lovely modern swimming pool too.

Farewell England

I am writing this as we fly over France on the way to our second phase  - “The Italian Job” – and it is time for a reflection on our last month in England. It has been a big success for us both and this is largely due to our family and friends who looked after us so well and showed us around their local areas. After all, this is what this trip is about, an in-depth look at a few areas with locals rather than flitting around as many tourist attractions as possible. So, in chronological order here is the roll of thank yous to date:

•  Gail and Janos for collecting us from Heathrow, showing us around Berkshire and then around Cornwall. And helping us stay in two very grand houses.
• Charissa, for allowing us to take over your flat for our various trips to London.
• Ron and Seb and Emma for taking us out and giving us the low-down on expat life in the South.
• Tim and Linda (and Reggie) for looking after us so well and showing us Hampshire and the wonderful English Public Footpaths.
• Fiona and Andy for being so interesting and entertaining us.
• And to Lynn who made a huge effort to meet up and remind us how a good friendship lasts, even after a 17-year gap!

For all that we packed into our month here, there is a huge amount left to see and do. But I don’t feel at all disappointed as, at this stage, we really expect to be back in the new year to continue our English explorations. Until then here are a few last thoughts:

Trees and countryside: though England (at least the South) is full, there is still a lot of countryside. Trees and hedges and fields everywhere. Admittedly everything is incredibly green at this time of year, but there is a real contrast to New Zealand where a lot of the countryside is just rough open pasture with wire fences and little public access. And the only large swathes of trees are planted forests of ugly pines. You have to get away from the farmland to the more inaccessible areas to see the real beauty of the country in the National Parks. A bit harsh perhaps, but it was a pleasant surprise to see so much green here.

Noise: no surprises here! Mainly around London where the sheer volume of people and traffic is a shock when you first arrive. Even walking around the beautiful gardens of Wisley deep in the Surrey countryside there was a constant loud roar from the nearby A3. Scenic but not serene.

Shopping: though we exercised unheard-of restraint (as our bags are at their limit: if we buy something we have to throw something else out!), it isn’t surprising that the choice is generally so much greater and the prices so much lower than New Zealand.

Our last night in England was somehow very appropriate. Andy and Fiona took us down to a local pub in Kingston-upon-Thames, the Grey Horse, for a pint of Naked Lady and to listen to Jon Bird’s Big Band – a 17-piece jazz band, mainly made up of horns/trombones/saxs of musicians out of orchestras having some fun. The band and the audience of about 20 filled the room. And to cap the night off Vicki saw her first fox as we walked home!

Palms, Pasties and Philip

I’m writing this as we rocket along on the train from Cornwall to Reading.  On the straight stretches it gets up to 100mph.  I only know this because on the way to Cornwall we happened to sit in the ‘entertainment’ carriage where they had screens on the back of the seats – you could listen to music, audio books, track progress, and monitor the train’s speed.  So I’m assuming where travelling at a similar speed now, since this trip is going to take about the same amount of time.  I’m sure you’ll be impressed by my powers of deduction!  ;-)

However, I’m also trying to glance up occasionally to enjoy the view.  Nigel elbows me occasionally when he spots something interesting, but he’s reading a book – trying to finish it before we leave Reading tomorrow so he doesn’t have to cart it to Italy – so we’re not doing a very good job of enjoying the sights.  To be fair, we have seen most of it once before, on the way to Cornwall.  As I write this we’ve just left Taunton.  That’s the last stop before we hop off in Reading in about 70 minutes.

Ten minutes up the track the train came to a halt briefly and we were advised that the train coming in the opposite direction had hit a cow so we would be travelling a little more slowly for a time. I suggested to Nigel that it was “burgered”.  He just said “oh dear” and rolled his eyes! J

I’ve quite a few things to tell you about our time in Cornwall, some will be a bit of an overlap with Nigel’s post, but this is from a slightly different angle – mine! J  I’ll start with the highlights.  We’ve enjoyed several seaside fishing villages, but Polperro is probably top of the list, closely followed by St Ives, which we visited yesterday, and Fowey (pronounced something like “Foy”).  Janos and Gail were very generous tour guides, taking us out most evenings during the week, after dinner, and for two ‘day’ trips at the weekends.

Fowey was our first fishing village.  I could have spent a day there with my camera, and I might have done so had time allowed.  Curving narrow lanes encouraged our exploration with different views of quaint buildings at each turn, a peaceful view across the harbour, and peacefulness – a bit of drizzle probably helped with the latter. 

Polperro surprised us.  Like all these villages, parking is outside of town - there is simply no space for parking and the roads are tiny, often barely wide enough for a small car.  Parking usually costs a few pounds, a fee I don’t think anyone would begrudge.  Without the income from parking these small communities would not be able to support the costs involved in keeping these lovely villages pretty for the tourists.  But I digress.  From the car park we wandered down an attractive but not-particularly-special street at the bottom of the valley for about ten minutes.  It was no comparison to the steep and winding paths we’d immediately encountered in Fowey the previous evening.  But then we entered the village proper and it was a ‘WOW’ moment, with ancient stone buildings all piled up next to and seemingly on top of each other, lining the sides of wriggly streets and a tiny stream that lead down to the port.  There was also a music festival on and we enjoyed a band of youngsters (our age!) hammering out some of our favourites from the 60s and 70s, with an audience of probably only 60 people, in a small village square.  We topped off a lovely evening of exploring and photography with hot chips and drinks (including hot chocolates ‘to die for’!).  From the proprietor at the café/bar we learnt that in the 70s Polperro would get 30,000 visitors a day!!  He called it a license to print money.  Over the decades that number reduced until it now receives around 3000 on busy weekends over the summer holidays.  There were probably less than 300 in town the day we were there.  It was perfect. Cut price airlines have lead to UK residents taking their holidays abroad.  Even the 20 year old hairdresser I spent half an hour with last week said she tries to get away every year.  This year she’s off to Tunisia.

It’s a few days later – the train is long gone.  It’s the middle of the afternoon and while our hosts are enjoying a siesta Nigel and I are sitting at a large timber outdoor dining table, in the shade of a kiwifruit vine, with an [obscured from this position] view of the Mediterranean, and a perfect cooling breeze.  But I digress, again – you’ll have to return for a later instalment to hear about this stage of our adventure.

St Ives was quite a bit busier, no doubt because we were there during the day.  We enjoyed a short walk to a bit of a headland and the small church on top.   We thought we might take a look at the Tate gallery, but entry was not inexpensive and we only had half an hour, so instead we walked back towards the train station, via the old cemetery, which was gorgeous – so many interesting headstones.  And we found more narrow, winding shopping streets to entertain us.

I’ve been researching my family tree for the past year and a half.  When I started I knew my grandparents’ names and that was it for my ancestors.  For most branches I can now trace my ancestry back over several generations and one of those, on my mother’s paternal grandmother’s side, came from Cornwall.  My great-great-grandmother was born in St Agnes (near Truro), her father was born at Merther, which is also where his parents were married.  We headed to Truro one day and took a short diversion, along the narrowest and remotest roads we’d yet experienced, and found the Merther church and graveyard.  Unfortunately it had been left to go to ruin – the church roof had collapsed a very long time ago and plants were well established within its walls, but the bell tower was still standing, as were the entrance archways.  We found many standing gravestones amongst the chest-high grasses, and some surprises with the well hidden ground-level stones, but were unable to find the gravestones for my g-g-g-g-grandparents, who died in Merther - perhaps they were too poor have marked graves.  Anyway, for me, this little side trip was a highlight of our time in Cornwall, and even Gail, Janos and Nigel seemed to appreciate seeing a little corner of the county they would otherwise have missed.

And then there are the castles.  Restormel Castle is near Lostwithiel, but a little far for us to walk, so Gail drove us up there late one afternoon.  It was another WOW moment for me.  The exterior is largely intact and the interior, with the assistance of explanatory signs, was intact enough for it all to make sense.  Situated at the top of a hill with views in all directions from its circular wall, which visitors could easily access and traverse, it was a marvellous relic.

A night later I was ‘wowing’ again at Roche Rock, where a stone building had been built on top of a large rock outcrop.  Simple metal ladders have been set into the rock to allow visitors to climb to the top floor for the view.  It’s purpose is not known nor who built it.

  

Truro Cathedral is only a century or so old, but is a stunning building.  It is large with many interesting and beautiful features including stained glass windows, high and intricate ceilings and detailed paintings and sculptures.  But the highlight for me was the choir of young men and boys who were practicing.  I’m not a church goer and do not recall having heard a choir like this before.  Their beautiful voices filled the church to its high ceilings and added immeasurably to my experience.

If you read my early post about my favourite things, you may recall that cabbage trees featured on the list.  In the UK they have plants called “Cornish Palms” which look remarkably familiar, and while in Cornwall we were able to check their Latin name.  Sure enough, they’re our beautiful cabbage trees!  They’re everywhere and they’re in full bloom.  Early English explorers always took back samples of the plants they discovered, so many of our plants can be found here, but the cabbage tree is so distinctive that it’s easy to spot, and it’s obviously popular.

The butcher in Lostwithiel makes pasties, so we thought we’d better give them a go.  They were very yummy, and very filling!  Nigel and Janos were always on the lookout for Cornish Pasties, but didn’t find any as good as those from the butcher.

At Pelyn House there were several pheasants hanging around the house gardens.  I even witnessed two cocks fighting one afternoon.  One spent a lot of time under a HUGE oak and we often saw him as we arrived and departed the house.  We started referring to him as Phillip.  He didn’t actually look like any Philips we know, but Philip Pheasant sounded better than Harry Pheasant, or Jack Pheasant.  The owners of Pelyn House sell or rent the rights to manage and hunt the pheasants on the property.  Young pheasants are kept in a fenced off area, which is further protected by a low electric fence, to protect them from foxes.

There was one fairly large ‘downlight’ during our time in Cornwall, which I’ve now discovered I cannot blame on Cornwall.  I suffered fairly badly from hayfever.  At home I’ll sometimes have a few sneezes over spring and summer, and once a couple of years ago I had to get some antihistamines when I was quite bad with it while on holiday in Nelson.  We put it down to all the grasses and different pollens – I was quite run-down at times and didn’t have much of a spring in my step.  My eyes were itchy, my nose was runny, my breathing was raspy.  I was already using a natural cream that you rub under your nostrils, without much benefit, so asked Mr Google and found a few recommendations for using apple cider vinegar, so I settled on consuming two tablespoons of it, mixed in 250mls of water (with a teaspoon of honey to make it a little more palatable), three times a day.  I thought at first it had worked, but the hayfever was back the next day, so I took some more, and then gave up.  I’ll have to try something else.  I even tried antihistamines today (I hate taking drugs!) but the one a day tablets didn’t seem to have much affect.  If you have a suggestion please comment here or use the ‘contact’ tab to let me know – I’d love to find something that will help.

PS. Sorry there are no photos on this and the next few posts - we are on a borrowed dongle to connect to the internet and the speed is rather sloooow ...