Cornish adventuring…

 

Everyone loves a bank holiday weekend, right? And most of us love them even more if we can use the benefit of a free day off to create a nice holiday around it, using less actual holiday days from our jobs! This is precisely what MrEH and I have done - with an extra 3 days for me, and 5 for him tacked on to give us a full 10 days off, by the time weekends are accounted for. It’s sometimes possible to combine Easter and the early May bank holiday in this way too for. Really extended break - although not this year as they are too far apart. 

With a new tent to play with, we decided to start our time off by heading down to Cornwall - and the additional day off before the weekend meant that we decided to travel part way down on Thursday night to attempt to get ahead of the traffic. At exactly the right time an email arrived from a popular budget hotel chain offering free breakfast for a stay within dates that were just perfect, so we opted for the £53 spend there enabling us to head to Taunton for our first night, and breakfast well on Friday morning too. An early ish departure from there meant that there was very little traffic heading west for the last leg down to one of our favourite campsites near Camborne too, and all in all it was a very satisfactory way of doing things! 

We’ve stayed at Magor Farm Campsite a number of times - it’s pretty much our perfect site, quiet, slightly dated but decent (and spotlessly clean) wash blocks, a small room for washing up, drying wet clothes etc (and now - joy - with the addition of a freezer for ice packs too!). Aside from the freezer, it has a timeless feel as though little has changed since the 1950’s.  At the time of writing I think about 9 pitches are occupied - it was a little busier on Friday and Saturday nights - but still quiet enough that you never seem to have to wait for a toilet, or a shower cubicle. Children play quietly, with parents respecting the general laid back vibe of the place, and old-school fun like donning wellies and splashing in puddles is very much much favoured.

Friday was a lazy day - after the drive down we decided we’d take our time getting pitched, then just potter about in the afternoon, so we had a short wander at Portreath, followed by a drive round to Hayle, then back to the site for food and a couple of beers. Saturday however was well planned in advance- we’d decided to leave the cat at the campsite for the day and use public transport. Just under a two mile walk (almost entirely up hill!) to the bus stop and a short though meandering, round the houses bus ride to the station, where we purchased day ranger tickets - letting us travel wherever we wanted in the county. With our railcard these cost just £11.30 each, an absolute bargain!  We opted to start in Truro - the market there has a Cornish Sea Salt stall and I wanted to top up supplies of their fabulous flavoured salts, and a short walk away in a back street is MrEH’s favourite Tugboat Coffee - he only uses their beans these days, and usually orders online, but likes to pop into the shop if we’re down here. To my delight I also found a lovely independent sweet shop which sold salted liquorice! 

Back to the station then (uphill all the way - are we seeing a theme?!) and the short ride down to Penryn. A walk to the back of an industrial estate (I bet you can guess the nature of the in line to get there, yes?!) saw us first aiming for food - The Aussie Smoker who we first encountered a few years back when they worked out of a shack (their words) next door to Dynamite Valley Brewery. They’ e expanded since in a snazzy unit with an event space and undercover eating area,  and we thoroughly enjoyed the enormous portion of loaded fries we each had, prior to heading to the Verdant Brewery and taproom. I’ve long been a fan of Verdant’s beers, and it was a delight to spend several hours enjoying not only their delicious keg beers, but relatively unusually several in cask too. The original plan had been to head from there down into the town to Dynamite Valley’s micro pub, but a combination of heavy rain and so many beers to try actually kept us at Verdant for longer than planned. 

All in all an excellent day - and the train tickets were such great value (and made life so easy) that we pretty much decided there and then to do another day using them later in the week. It is a very odd feeling getting in a train knowing that you can literally just choose where to get off though! 

Robyn

April Reading...

Another month, and another crime thriller to start us off! David Baldacci this time - with Long Road to Mercy. I've read a number of his Amos Decker series, but this book introduces a new main character in the shape of Atlee Pine - an FBI agent with a unique history. A strong - if in this case very slightly implausible  - female lead in this sort of book is always a great thing. When I come to think about it, Pine has a little of the Jack Reacher about her, and implausibility has worked for that character! The book was enjoyed anyway, and will be headed to the shelf with the others from the same author. 

At some stage I will have a bit of a review of books I have opted to keep - and give some thought to whether I really am likely to read them again. If the view is that I will, they are well worth keeping - I can happily read a good book many times over, and if an author is particularly tricky to track down then they earn their shelf space for sure. Although we do have the shelf space in the house though, I’m still not in the market for simply keeping books “because” so an occasional review is a necessity. For so many years in the flat with no space we had to operate a “one in, one out” rule - so having the luxury to choose to keep a book without turfing another one out to make space is wonderful! 

Second book of the month was Susan Lewis' Silent Truths. I've read plenty of her books before but for some reason found this one quite hard going. A combination of factors I think - a lot of the storyline felt quite far-fetched; it dealt with the sort of lifestyles which I can't in any way shape or form identify with (not always a barrier to enjoying a book, but that relies on other factors being spot on I think) and one of the main characters being - to my mind at least - really quite unlikeable! The second half of the book gathered pace and was far more readable, but I think this one is heading back to the charity shop.

The monthly dose of Reacher followed - Lee Child - Blue Moon. I've read this one before - and not all that long ago either - but Child's books are always worth reading again, so no issues there. It follows his usual formula for the Reacher books - our hero encounters a situation where his help is needed, then encounters a load of bad guys. Blood is spilled and it all ends happily ever after! As usual this will be joining the others on the shelf because although I'd read it before, it was clearly at a point where we weren't keeping hold of them. 

A quieter month on the reading front - partly because that Susan Lewis one took me quite a while to plough through, but also because with increased daylight hours and warmer temperatures the garden is calling for our attention more and more. That said, as you can see from the photo, sometimes the two hobbies do collide and when it's warm enough I like little more than a sit in the garden with a cuppa and a good book! 

Robyn

April in the garden…

The month opened with the Easter long weekend. We always planned to make this a productive few days for the garden, and in fact had a list of jobs to focus on, with the two main ones being more painting of the garden office wall, and the relocation of the compost bin. This was placed where it was when we first moved in as it seemed practical, but we fairly soon realised that in fact it took up more space than needed there and used a valuable chunk of the bit of the garden that gets the most sun - so the very area that I want for tomatoes and peppers! Three sacks of immediately useable compost were dug out of the bottom before we got to the stuff that would be moved across and put back in - those sacks will be used to fill our tomato pots for this year. The bin is now in a less intrusive location as well as being slightly nearer to the house - it will work little slower because of getting slightly less sun, but that isn’t likely to be an issue for us. 

Last year’s Calendula planting is finally giving us some joy- for some reason these did absolutely nothing last summer, but we left the plants in place to see what would happen, half assuming that winter frosts would see them off. Instead they have thrived on the cooler temperatures and we now have beautiful orange flowers cheering things up! I’ve sown plenty of seed for this year already - Calendula/Marigolds are a valuable companion plant as they encourage lots of beneficial insects so I’m quite happy to have plenty of them. 

 Trust me, the size of the rhubarb in the top photo is NOTHING to how it looked by mid-month, and indeed by that stage we had already harvested a full kilo of the stuff! We're concentrating on trying to take quite a bit out on the side where it's desperately trying to smother the redcurrant bush in the hope of at least slightly weakening the growth on that side. We've also started coming up with ideas of uses for it, as there is only so  much gently stewed fruit one can eat - looking at the progress of the strawberry plants though it does seem that some rhubarb & strawberry jam might be one option. 

The mini greenhouse is now back in use too - it’s been housing seedlings for tomatoes, courgettes, sweetcorn, cucumbers and various other things. We've had to build the second mini greenhouse we had for this year - we bought two at a bargain price when the local Wilko store closed, and the first did two good years before the cover split on removal last autumn. the staging from it is still going strong though and starting to prove extremely useful as things no longer need protection from the elements while still benefiting from being raised off the floor. One of the issues through this month has been that we’ve still been getting fairly regular frosts - so the balance has needed to be struck between getting seedlings started and keeping them as sheltered as possible. 

Meanwhile in the front garden things are filling out quite beautifully and we’re really beginning to get the look we’re after - we’ve added some more bulbs too which should give some added colour in the late summer and autumn. We’ve added various new plants over the last few weeks - mostly “hospital ward” rescues from the clearance sections in various places (that’s where most of our plants come from!), plus our home grown sunflowers and sweet peas have been added into the mix. In the front right of the photo above is the rather lovely “Sweet Tea” Heuchera which spent the whole of last year after we put it in there looking deeply sulky, and we honestly thought the winter would finish it off. Instead it seems that the colder temperatures made it buck its ideas up!

Until next month then! 

Robyn

Looking back...

 

This is the interior of the Italian Chapel on the island of Lamb Holm in Orkney, taken when we visited in 2013. Built by Italian prisoners of war sent to the island to build the Churchill barriers during World War 2 - a system of barricades originally put in place to close off most of the entrances to Scapa Flow to protect the home fleet, and now forming causeways joining up Orkney Mainland, Lamb Holm, Glimps Holm, and Burray.

The chapel is quite literally two nissen huts joined together, then embellished and decorated with anything the prisoners could lay their hands on. The interior decoration was largely created with paint - what looks like panelling or tiling is pretty much entirely painted on. one of the prisoners was a blacksmith - he created the ironwork from metal rods donated by construction company Balfour Beatty. Another was a cement worker - he created what now appears to be stonework also from Balfour Beatty.

It's an astonishing place - created out of almost nothing purely to allow the men who had been sent to what must have seemed to them to be an unforgiving island to have somewhere to worship - in the end it provided far more than that as it gave them a focus, something to spend their spare time working at. 

If you want to know more of the history of the Italian Chapel, that can be found HERE

Robyn

New wheels!

 

Did I mention my new wheels?  I’ve been thinking about a new bike for a while - I’ve been cycling semi-regularly since our old Neighbours gave me a Dutch-style step through commuter bike a few years ago, but I’ve found myself wanting to do a bit more, and the old bike wasn’t quite ideal. 

One of our local bike shops has occasional “scratch & dent sales”  which ai suspect are  mostly about stock clearance when they get new ranges in, but still, some excellent discounts to be had, so when they launched the last one I decided to keep an eye to see what was available. I knew roughly what I wanted - a hybrid sports bike which would cope cheerfully enough with both road cycling and some light off road trails too.  I settled on the one above - at a very reasonable price and so far she and I are getting on a treat!

So what of the old bike, you may ask? Well, handily a lovely pal alerted me to the fact that another local bike shop works with a charity that provides bikes to those who need, but can’t afford them. My old bike is off for a full refurb and will then be finding its way to a new custodian - maybe helping them to and from a place of work or study. As I was given her for free in the first place, that seems fitting, don’t you think? 

Robyn 

 

A cheeky weekend in Lincolnshire...

 

Spitfire AB910

As we have both a new tent and an extended camping trip over the time we've done before coming up, we decided that a trial run was a good plan, so last weekend saw us heading up to Lincolnshire for the weekend. A campsite was found at East Kirkby - which just so happened to be attached to a pub. Pure coincidence of course...well, partly! (Namecheck for the Red Lion pub & Campsite - which is excellent and comes highly recommended).

A new tent inevitably takes a while to get used to - so pitching takes a little longer than it used to. It's also at least half as big again as the old one, and although mostly the same style, just the sheer additional size means that it's taking a bit of getting used to. Up it went though, and within around an hour of our arrival at the site we had a fully fitted out tent and were cheerfully sitting outside it in the sunshine eating our lunch. We've gained a few extra odds and ends which is making packing the car fun - the way up was distinctly shonky, the way home much better, and I fully suspect that the next trip will prove even better - and preferably without the risk of either of us being brained by a kettle in the event of a sudden stop as could quite easily have happened on the way up at least this time! 

The new tent! 

Lunch consumed, we headed off to an RSPB reserve that we had last visited a few years ago, and would have greatly enjoyed on that occasion had it not been for the torrential downpour that struck half way round, leaving us completely soaked through. Thankfully both a set of dry clothes and facilities to change in were available or the journey home on that occasion would have been very unpleasant. This time the weather stayed dry through our visit, and RSPB Frampton Marsh was confirmed as a really lovely place for a walk - even in the exceptionally blustery conditions of the day. I left my camera in the car and had no regrets about doing so as a result of that wind. As the light dropped, so did the temperature, and after eating dinner back at the tent the evening was spent in the pub drinking very nicely kept pints of Batemans XB.

Artwork at RSPB Frampton Marsh

Saturday morning dawned beautifully bright and sunny, and thankfully that nasty wind had dropped, so after a quick bacon butty breakfast we hopped in the car and drove the short distance to RAF Coningsby where my pal Andy was taking one of the BBMF Spitfires up for a practise display or two. AB910 was the aircraft in question - a MkV machine, and Andy's personal favourite from the fleet - recently returned to the flight after several seasons away undergoing deep maintenance. We stopped first at the BBMF hangar where Andy was just conducting his walkaround - hellos were exchanged and we agreed to catch up after his flight, and after watching him taxi out Mr EH and I drove round to one of my favourite spots to watch/photograph the practise. As a bonus Claire was also there, so a great chance for a quick catch up with her also! A lovely display, and a nice chat, and all in fantastic weather too! 

Andy taxies out in AB910

The Blue Bell pub - Tattershall Thorpe

MrEH and I then decided to have a quick wander to Coningsby village before driving across to nearby Boston for a walk there (and a visit to a lovely Good Beer Guide pub!) before heading back to the campsite via the Blue Bell pub at Tattershall Thorpe - a pub steeped in wartime history and FULL of memorabilia. The picture above shows pennies left by airmen from the nearby bases in readiness to pay for their beer on their next visit. For many of them though there was no next visit, and the pennies remain, wedged into the beams as a very special tribute.  Another evening meal was eaten in the tent, and just a quick beer in the pub this time as we were both quite tired and conscious of the need for a fairly early start to get packed up the next day. 

St Botolphs Church - Boston

As with getting pitched in the first place, a new tent makes everything slower on take-down as well. One big change is that our old (smaller, far lighter) tent used to travel on the back seat of the car - the new one is simply too heavy for this as it would turn into a missile in the event of that sudden stop, so it has to go into the boot. The complication here as you might imagine is that this in turn  means that the tent needs to go into the car ahead of rather a lot of the stuff from inside it, which creates some logistical headaches! We got there in the end, and by 11.30 we were away.

Tattershall Church

First stop this time was back to Coningsby for a walk we hadn't had time for the day before - out to Tattershall Castle and church across the fields, then back via the river and village. A quick stop to grab some lunch and we were back in the car for the hours drive across to RSPB Langford Lowfields - another reserve we'd visited previously although not had the time to really do it justice. This visit we had far longer, and walked did the circuit right the way round the main part of the reserve with bird sightings including this cute little Sedge Warbler...

Sedge Warbler - RSPB Langford Lowfields

All in all a really enjoyable weekend - there should have been more BBMF flying on Saturday, but as is the way of things sometimes that was cancelled. While it would have been nice to see more, the lack certainly didn't in any way spoil the trip and we found plenty else to do. A few days in the tent with an objective eye was a good way of reassuring any concerns ahead of the longer we stay we have planned for a few weeks time, and overall we're still delighted with it, having proper headroom in a tent makes such a difference to camping! A few additional/replacement items have been identified as needed also, so we'll be sorting those before heading off again. 

Robyn

Looking back...

 

This is Mussenden Temple - part of the Downhill Demesne in Northern Ireland. I first visited when I had some spare time on the evening ahead of the Portrush Airshow when I went across in 2014 I believe it was, and was so utterly charmed by it I have been back several times since, including on a trip with MrEH a few years later. 

From the Temple itself - perched on the edge of the cliff with stunning views in both directions, to the fascinating ruined 18thC mansion, it's a wonderful way to pass a few hours at relatively low cost - parking is now chargeable for non national Trust members, but at a very reasonable £10 per day, and there are no admission charges for the estate itself as far as I know. 

We've been discussing the possibility of another short trip to Northern Ireland at some point, and looking back at this picture and others makes me want to do that sooner rather than later! 

Robyn