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Autumn Sun
Our short sojourn between adventures has provided, as our times at home usually do, an opportunity to catch up with friends, family, football… and Cornwall. A changeable week in Cornwall weather wise brought a pattern of alternate sunny and wet days, though regardless of which it was, each day was pretty mild for the time of year. A few photos from the sunny days….
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Floods And Frosts In The English Winter
The new year period trudges by and the dawning of 2024 passes with no great celebration, Michaela’s cough has turned out to be a nasty little chest infection which has taken a proper grip. As we watch London’s new year fireworks on the TV, we muse on the fact that we saw in 2023 in Pedasi in Panama and the previous year in La Fortuna, Costa Rica, this time it’s a matter of grabbing a GP appointment and snaring a dose of antibiotics. With the cough still barking but the spirit enjoying a measure of medically induced uplift, we head to Northamptonshire for my granddaughter’s third birthday party where River…
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Invasive Species & Changing Scenery
In our post about Winston Churchill’s family home at Chartwell a couple of weeks ago, we mentioned that we felt a bit miffed at missing out on the good weather which was being enjoyed by the rest of England while those of us on the east coast were still in coats and jeans. Well, it only got marginally better. The recent so-called heatwave is mostly over, and somehow we managed to carry on with what seems to be a newly acquired knack of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. We left our home in Kent on the very day that the high temperatures finally hit these parts,…
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Ancient Homes And Shifting Sands
After the stillness of the last few days, today feels a bit more like old school February, the coastal wind bringing a chill factor which makes a nonsense of the official temperature figures, cutting in via the rib cage and exiting the body somewhere just south of the shoulder blades. In any lee-side location, the lukewarm sunshine teases with a kiss: turn a corner and your body braces involuntarily against the cold. The dark afternoon clouds bring tiny hailstones which dance across the ground like mini ping-pong balls, darting into corners where they threaten to drift but then melt away quickly without a trace. It was incredibly cold up by…
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These Cornish Things
In our last blog post we discussed how unseasonable the current weather is, feeling far too mild to be cusp November. After over four decades of visiting Cornwall I really should have known better, for my comeuppance arrives swiftly and with a vengeance, in the form of howling gales and unforgiving hailstorms. Walking from Rock to Polzeath is a doddle, the morning clouds banished by the strong winds which, coming from behind, propel us along the coast path at roughly twice our normal walking speed. The return walk couldn’t be more different. Just in time for reaching the part of the path furthest from shelter, those winds, now head on…
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Changing Times, Different Moods
It definitely didn’t used to be like this, not when we were kids. Growing up in the Midlands – Michaela in the West Midlands and me in Derbyshire – it was cold by now and it had been so for weeks. October got progressively colder, frosts a regular morning feature, whitened cobwebs draped like lace across rockery plants and garden shrubs, the walk to school taking place with the protection of coats, hats, scarves, gloves. Hallowe’en was a non-event, just another night in the build up to Guy Fawkes Night aka Bonfire Night, but by the time we were standing back and watching the pyrotechnics light up the night sky,…
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Farewell To Cornwall: Next Stop Cairo
As ever, we have loved this visit to Cornwall. Spring seems to have dawned before our eyes, colours have intensified, and Padstow, the estuary, the coast path…have all been as wonderful as ever. We always feel so at home here. We conclude our time here by climbing to the top of Brea Hill, the highest point in the area and consequently one of the best places from which to view the estuary. As we climb, we are again at low tide, vast reaches of golden sand either side of the river’s narrow channel where in just a few short hours water will stretch right across the divide. Windshields and windows…
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Famous Faces, Favourite Places
Darkness becomes morning light and the incessant rain of the last five days turns to dry roads as we head south west; the rising sun illuminates a cloudless sky across which the blue starts to deepen as we near the end of the 320 mile journey and approach Cornwall, our second home in more ways than the obvious. Without fail, arriving in Cornwall makes both of us, me in particular, feel like we’re home: today’s blue skies and early Spring sunshine just make those feelings even stronger than normal. But this time, as we leave the dark and the damp behind, our conversation is as much about yesterday as it…
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If It’s In Your Heart…
It seems just about impossible that my first trip to Padstow was over forty years ago, in 1979 in fact. Since then I have visited Cornwall, and Padstow, so many times that I couldn’t even hazard a guess, but I do know that it’s a very long time since the little harbour town, the surrounding Camel Estuary and the wonderful Atlantic coastline found its way into my soul. When a place gets you like that, it rarely leaves you. To this day, over 42 years later, I still give an excited shout as we cross the boundary into Cornwall, and get a sense of joy as we pass the signs…
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Cornwall: One Last Wild Walk
Although we are regular visitors to Cornwall, this has been a different kind of visit from normal, in several good ways. Our visits are by necessity normally fleeting and out of season, so to have spent 25 days here across two visits over the last few weeks has been a joy. Because our time here is normally brief, we ordinarily restrict ourselves to time around the Camel Estuary, so to have had the time and opportunity to rediscover more of Cornwall has been brilliant. Our last day here arrives accompanied by an amber weather warning for strong winds, and sure enough the cottage is being battered and is creaking like…
