Friday 5th August 11, 7th Day

Our last full day in Mevagissey.

Another lazy day mostly. I didn't go to Heligan as the children didn't want to go, and although Gill wanted to go, she was very achy and anyway, what would we do with the children if we both went?

I had a potential friend to go with, a gardener friend I know off Facebook, but in the end she didn't come... it was a reasonably long way to drive from Totnes, so I understand why she didn't show up.  Things got a bit 'pressure cookery' in the house, as really the boys need structure and something to do, and it all went mental when I tried to do a little video of the house, to show friends what it looks like, and I eventually decided to clear off out for a few hours to let the teen moment pass.  I spent well over an hour in the Mevagissey Museum, on the harbour, and I really loved this.  I chatted to several people there and enjoyed looking at the big stone apple crusher and stone cider press.  It is a lovely museum, with lots of handwritten notes, many with personal anecdotes, something you don't see in big modern museums.  It was a joy to wander around.  But eventually I'd had my fill of nostalgia and thinking about a low carbon, post peak oil future where hand-powered things will re-emerge as the most appropriate way to do some tasks.  These type of museums, with gadgets, gizmos and tools, could be an inspiration to Transitioneers.  For instance, they had a good collection of irons, for pressing clothes, which were heated on the range, in exactly the same way as the flat irons I got for us to use on our stove, which Gill has occasionally used.

I then went to the little beach where I skimmed some stones and practiced some devilstick moves.  I rang Gill and found out that they'd all gone back to the model railway museum, and things had calmed down a bit.  I went back to the cottage and had some peace and quiet before they came back.  It was good to get an apology, I apologised too, and we had a subdued evening.

We got things together for going tomorrow, and later on in the evening, my 5 days of BT FON net access finished.  I've found it really useful to have.

Thursday 4th August 11, Day 6 of Cornish Holiday

A very quiet and fairly relaxing day with a whole lot of not very much happening.

Gill went to St Austell mid afternoon and I took the boys to the 'World of Model Railways' exhibition in the village.  After maybe 45 minutes here, we walked down to the little bay just on the North side of the harbour, and skimmed stones, and I had some devilsticking practice which attracted a bit of attention and I let several people have goes with the second devilstick and my diabolo.

Gill texted me to say she was on the bus so we walked back and whilst waiting for her to arrive, I got the boys an ice cream.  I carried the bags of shopping back to the cottage and Gill made a simple but effective meal of rice and veg.

An altogether relaxing day, marred only by news of Gill's sister Linda having to have her dog put down, as it has been suffering from Cushings disease.  Very sad.

Wednesday 3rd August 11, Fifth day of holiday, visiting The Eden Project

Woo, one of the main reasons to come to Mevagissey was its proximity to The Eden Project, and today we got a family day rover ticket with Western Greyhound and got the 09.45 bus to St Austell.  We met a lovely Norwegian family on the bus, and a woman called Pamela Caswell from Crewkerne, who was doing a mammoth walk all around the SW peninsular, raising money for the air ambulance services of Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and Dorset.  She had got a sunburnt nose yesterday and was going to St Austell to get suncream... and to the Air Ambulance shop to give in her latest charity tin, which included a huge haul of coppers and small change donated, she said, 'from someone's ash tray'!

We changed buses at St Austell, and got another Greyhound bus which took us to the top of the quarry that The Eden Project has transformed from an open wound in the Earth's surface, to a veritable oasis of vegetation and wonderment.  We walked down into what seemed like a valley with winding paths all going towards the entrance building.  We showed our rail and bus tickets and this got us a discount on the adult tickets (£18 each) and because of our use of public transport, the children went free.  We walked out to the other side of the first building, and there, in front of us and in the huge crater of the old quarry, were the enormous bubble-like domes which contain the two 'biomes', one humid tropical, the other a dry Mediterranean environment.

We walked down into the base, where there were several large structures, a big top, dwarfed by a much bigger white tent, where No Fit State Circus were due to perform Labyrinth.  When I found this on the website yesterday, I was very excited... but then reality kicked in... it cost an extra £30 per adult, and £17.50 per child (our family would be £90), and secondly, it was from 8pm to 10.30pm, and the last bus for Mevagissey leaves St Austell at 10.50pm.  Gill suggested that I should get a ticket for the show, and they'd go back to Mevagissey and I could stay on to see No Fit State.  However, I couldn't see how I or we could get from the bottom of Eden to St Austell in 20 minutes, and if I got a taxi all the way from Eden to Meva, that would add £15 or £20 to my £30 Labyrinth ticket, so I put the idea out of my mind and just enjoyed what I got for the entrance price.

I spoke to one of the people in the big top, about the times for the circus workshops, and was told they'd be on at intervals throughout the day.  Then we headed for the first set of giant greenhouse-bubbles, the hot and humid tropical biome.  This was wonderful, a real reminder of some of the tropical vegetation I've been lucky enough to experience in Montserrat, Trinidad and Tobago, and parts of Zimbabwe. It was a sunny day so the massive greenhouse-like structure got very hot, and it's kept humid with sprays and waterfalls.  I loved this, could easily have spent much longer here.  I decided not to queue for 45 minutes to get up to the viewing platform at the top of the dome, and went to the lunch area to eat our sandwiches which we'd brought with us... although the food looked enticing and was served on thick wooden platters. 

Then we explored the 'Warm Temperate Biome', or Mediterranean, which had plants from Southern Europe and North Africa, California, Australia and a few other mainly dry warm areas.  This area had some good foodcrops on show, including tomatoes and chillies, oranges and sorghum, olives and nectarines.

From here we went to the 'educational' building called The Core, which I was looking forward to a lot, as it has at it's centre a sculpture called Seed, by my favourite sculptor, Peter Randall-Page.  I went straight to see Seed and was well pleased.
(tbc)

Tuesday 2nd August 11, Day Four of Holiday

An excellent day... another late and lazy start... in fact the boys didn't have breakfast until after 11am (their choice!) and we eventually got going on a walk along the Coastal Path.

We got as far as the steps up the cliff to go to the sandy beach just South of Mevagissey, called Portmellon, but Gill didn't feel like climbing them and urged us to go on, leaving her to stay in Meva.  We reluctantly agreed.

We walked up the cliff via steps and then along a path which led to a viewing platform, and then along the road to Portmellon beach, about 15 minutes walk.

The tide was right out but the boys wanted to just sit and chat, in the shade of the sea wall.  I walked out in bare feet to the sea, and paddled, and then walked back up the beach in a stream, which I thought was ripe for damming.  I persuaded the boys to come and investigate the sea, and they loved it, we found some razor shells, and there was a good deal of splashing and horse play.  We then spent quite a bit of time damming the little stream coming across the beach, and made friends with an 11 year old boy from near Brighton, who helped.

We then went to sit down again and I got a text from Gill saying she'd accidentally forgotten to put the boys' lunch in the bag I was carrying... we'd got buckets and spades (which we didn't use) devilsticks and diabolos (didn't use these!) and juice and water, which we did have.  Gill said she was bringing the stuff to us, and we'd meet at the top of the cliff.  We walked back and met her there; she'd found a less steep way up, ans we sat for a while enjoying the view.

Bought pasties on the way back, had new potatoes and salad with the pastie. 

A real 'proper' seaside holiday day!

Monday 1st August 11, Holiday Day Three

A good day with not too late a start, Gill got up at 7am as she wanted to go to St Austell to do some shopping; stuff not easy to get in Mevagissey.  But she missed the 8.47 bus and got one an hour later.  I had a lazy morning, invited the boys to have breakfast but they didn't want any... weird, as breakfast is always really high on my agenda as soon as I wake up!

Anyway, they eventually had 'brunch' and then I got a call from Gill saying she'd be at the bus stop next to the ice cream shop at 11.43, so our eldest and I walked down to collect her... and the shopping.  We all stopped to get veggies in the only greengrocer in Mevagissey, and the woman in there is a composter, had quite a good little chat. I posted 5 of the postcards I'd written.

Then back up to Turnstone Cottage and before lunch, I went with our eldest down to the harbour where there's a nice little beach exposed at low tide, where we played diabolo and devilsticks for a while.  Then we had a few goes at skimming stones ('ducks and drakes') across the water's surface, and about 10 people then copied us.  We came back for a late lunch.  After this we all went down to the harbour, to show the other two the nice beach.  Towards the end of the day we had a look for the Fowey Ferry times, and decided to get the last one over there, and back... there's a deal on the last crossing of the day which means you can go over, and come back for the price of a single journey.

Gill didn't want to come so I made sandwiches for us to take on the boat, for if we were hungry, and we went down to the bottom of the harbour for the 17.40 sailing.  The three of us cost £15, which I thought was a good price for the three of us to have the experience of going across the bay.  The trip over there was nice but the trip back, heading into the wind and waves, was really exciting.  I've always loved bouncing about on boats; it brought back memories of one of the rare times I went on holiday to mainland Europe with my family... we went on a hovercraft, and the whole family were seasick apart from me who was just loving the way the vessel moved over the surface of the sea, in  a very responsive way to the rather large waves on that day.  Well the Fowey to Mevagissey leg wasn't exactly rough, but we powered ahead at 12 knots, using about 250 horsepower of the 500 hp engine.  An exciting thing for the boys was that as we left Fowey, but before we hit the open sea, the Captain allowed our youngest to pilot the boat, which was a huge treat, great fun.  We didn't see that much wildlife, although earlier in the day, on the 11am crossing, they'd seen some Basking Shark. 

We had a bit more to eat when we got in and had a peaceful evening. 

Sunday 31st July 11, Holiday day two

The sofabed was a bit hard but a reasonable night... woke after 10 and had a lovely lazy morning, watching Country Tracks on the telly and playing with the boys.

They all went out as Gill ran out of money on her mobile phone and needed to top up; I spent some time trying to work out how to use Shotwell to organise/manage my photos on my newish operating system, Ubuntu/Linux.  Shotwell is probably the only bit of Ububtu I don't like.

Later I went to the little shop in the centre square and got two tins of baked beans and a tin of sweetcorn, and half a dozen eggs (total cost £3)... so for tea, Gill made eggy bread with beans and sweetcorn for all of us. 

I also got 6 postcards and stamps, and spent a while writing them.

We didn't go out all together today... after tea I went for a walk with our eldest, headed North and looked at the lovely Valerian and the disgusting Hydrangeas, the plentiful snails and found just 7 blackberries.  We ended up back in the village, and got us both an ice cream.

So a lazy laid-back day really.  Nice to not have to DO anything!

I'd taken my laptop with me, primarily to delete emails from my inbox, but I found that I was in a BT FON 'Hot Spot' so I paid £15 for 5 days internet access, so I could get my emails into my Mozilla Thunderbird, send email replies via Tiscali webmail (Thunderbird never allows me to send emails when I'm away from my own WiFi connection) and go on facebook and other webpages. I was really glad of this, as I do like to stay in touch!

Saturday 30th July 11, Holiday day one!

Well a good but pretty manic pulling together of all the bits and bobs related to going on holiday.  The children were ready by just after 10am but Gill was still getting ready when the taxi came at 11am. 

I suppose it didn't help that I really wanted to make sure that when we got back, the walnuts were still on the tree and hadn't been removed by the squirrels.  We haven't seen any squirrels in the garden this year but they could come at any time and it wouldn't take them long to strip the tree.  So yesterday I purchased 30 pence worth of hot chili powder from Tullivers, and this morning mixed a teaspoon of this with a teaspoon of Vaseline.  I mixed this on a tin lid and then put a smudge on every walnut I could reach, about 200 of them.  There are others higher up the tree but they'll have to chance it.  Squirrels apparently don't like chili, and I spotted a chili spray in Barnitts yesterday which is supposed to repel them.  I hope my cheaper, home made version does the job.

Anyway, a taxi to the station and we got the 11.45 to St Austell.  We enjoyed the journey as we were all at a table and had quite a few laughs.  I chatted with a nice guy between Bristol and Exeter who was keen on composting and even keener on knowing about Promession, which really fired his imagination.  It was a pity he had to go so soon!

We then chatted with a local couple who live close to Mevagissey and admired the wonderful Cornwall countryside, particularly the places where the line goes right next to the sea, and over some wonderful bridges, including one by Brunel at Saltash.  But we were soon at St Austell, on time, and none the worse for the 6 3/4 hour journey.  Gill had ordered a 'Carls taxi' last night when in York, and the driver was there waiting for us.  We thought that a taxi would be best as we didn't know quite where the bus would drop us, and we did have quite a bit of luggage, which we wouldn't appreciate dragging around trying to find the house.

I'd memorised the Googlemap of the village so I was able to direct Carl, the driver, with 100% accuracy, to the cottage, which is on a very steep hill called Cliff Street.  We explained that we were going to go back to St Austell on Friday by bus, and then get the train to Truro and then the bus from there to St Just in Roseland, and he said, wow, that'll take ages and be quite expensive... why don't you take a taxi, it'll only take half an hour and cost £35.  Well this sounded like a much better option, despite our love of taking timetabled public transport.  So we booked him to come and take us to St Just in Roseland at 2pm on Friday.

Carl had to reverse back up the hill and he ran over a plastic clip on one of the rucksacks, which sent our youngest son into fits of laughter as it shattered into lots of pieces.  All in all this was a very good natured and jolly trip down, really easy, and cheap, costing £77.40 for the four of us to go from York to St Austell, plus £17 for the two taxis door to door.

After we'd explored the cottage a bit we all went on a walk down to the harbour, and popped in to the Aquarium which has some impressive fish and other marine life, and came back via a fish and chip emporium which we found fries in veg oil, so we had a tray of chips each. 

When back at the cottage we got our sleeping arrangements sorted, the boys in twin beds upstairs and us on the sofabed downstairs.  A fairly early night!