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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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Questions About Travel
Travelling the way we do, in regular lengthy stretches, is not something everyone is fortunate enough, well enough or even inclined to do. Whatever your chosen style of travel, there are some questions which all of us who do so are asked on a regular basis. Like… What do you miss about home? Answer: very little. My stock answer is “proper English ale” which is true, I do find myself craving a good pint sometimes. Michaela meanwhile goes straight for the roast lamb and mint sauce. With both of our families being scattered around the country, we always make a round of visits on our return and probably don’t see…
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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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Cape Cornwall
Monday March 14th, and suddenly it’s Spring. As we descend the stony path alongside the cascading brook, warm sunshine kisses our faces and the air hangs heavy with the pungent scent of wild garlic. The blooms of gorse, celandine and wild daffodils paint yellow splashes amongst the green foliage as flocks of goldfinches scatter across the clifftop, maybe just arriving for the summer. Rabbits scurry beneath hedgerows and, across the field, a pheasant squawks and races away like a sprinter with his hands in his pockets. Majestic cliffs tower over the deep blue Atlantic, birds carry twigs towards nesting sites, the colours are impossibly sumptuous and if it is remotely…
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Cornwall Revisited
Currently enjoying another spell in Cornwall, we are at the same time counting the days to our next overseas adventure, now only just over a week away. Here and now, on the cusp of the seasons, the Cornish Winter clings on while Spring struggles to make its entry. When we first made the arrangements for Michaela’s Mum to join us in Padstow for a few days, we really wanted to be able to show Norma all of the different reasons we love this place, show this place in all its guises, all of its different moods. In true Cornwall style, the first thing to play ball is the weather, and…
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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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Hungry for more……
It’s nearly three weeks now since we returned from our Costa Rica and California trip, three weeks in which we’ve visited family, spent time with Michaela’s Mum, hugged granddaughters and taken in a couple of football matches. In other words, three weeks in which we’ve covered most of our reasons to be in England and so now we’ve started to once again get itchy about travel. It goes without saying, now anyway, that the two years since we retired to travel the world haven’t quite gone according to plan, but we think we can look back and say we’ve been pretty resourceful and, in fact, the travels we have managed…
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California Dreamin’
All the leaves are brown, and the sky is grey I’ve been for a walk on a winter’s day I’d be safe and warm if I was in LA California dreamin’, on such a winter’s day. Four years ago, in October 2017, my sons and I waved a tearful farewell to my daughter Lindsay as she disappeared through the barrier at Heathrow and set off to begin a new life in Los Angeles. At that point, as she gave one last look over her shoulder and headed off to a brave new world, I never thought for one moment that it would be more than four years till I saw…
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Padstow And The Rick Stein Phenomenon
Having been a regular visitor to Padstow over so many years, it’s been interesting to watch the influence of internationally famous chef Rick Stein develop and evolve over the years. Its most obvious effect has been to create a micro economy in a county which generally offers low employment prospects. Rick Stein was actually born in Oxfordshire, but relocated to Padstow at the age of 24, having fallen in love with the area on family stays at their nearby holiday home, even though one such visit ended in tragedy by way of his father’s suicide. Mobile discotheques and night clubs were among Stein’s early failed businesses before the first restaurant…
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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…
