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 ...