CHUN QUOIT
St Just Town website
I can't believe that nearly a fortnight [not too often we use that word nowadays!] has passed since I promised to tell you about my trip West to Sunny Devon & Wet & Windy Cornwall. It was just a 5-night break visiting old and dear friends who I miss very much in my otherwise very good life with my family here in Brighton.
In that 2 weeks my memory has faded somewhat and many of the things I thought "Oh - I must blog about that," have slipped from my frontal lobes. Perhaps some of them will resurface as I start to get down those things which have remained thus far.
I must stress that I went with no real agenda other than to have a break and renew old aquaintances. I just decided to go with the flow of what mein hosts had to do or had planned and let someone else do all the thinking for a change. This is a strategy that seems to have worked well and I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to get away without having the bother of planning down to the last detail. It avoids being disappointed with one's itinerary when it doesn't quite work out.
The central 3 nights were spent at Skimmel Bridge near Penzance with the Pottses. These are folk we have known for 25 years since the early eighties through links in computer programming training and work [not mine, I hasten to add].
I arrived in the afternoon of Friday 19th August having driven the approximately 100 miles from the Torbay area. The journey had been a bit tiresome what with delays caused first byseveral cloudbursts in the Totnes area that reduced visibility to tens of feet and then the roadworks [near Indian Queens] which will eventually provide a much needed bypass for Bodmin Moor. Nevertheless the Cornish weather experienced in Devon had given way to a sunny afternoon by about 4pm so I arrived in good spirit.
Naturally enough, the evening was passed in conversation, supping wine and tea and eating an excellent meal.
I had a refeshingly restful night rising about 9.30 and around midday Francis drove me to visit St Just, the nearby town on the north coast by Cape Cornwall, where I had never been to before. I fell in love with it straight away. It was grey and quiet - industrial Cornish in style, being a tin-mining town in former days and somewhat unfashionable now.
I declared it was the town I thought I'd like to retire to, then promptly added the rider that would not actually happen until global warming had modified Cornwall's climate so that it no longer rained at 4pm every day.
Anyway the first port of call was The Cook Book & Bosorne Books in Cape Cornwall Road, a combined bookshop and restaurant. The food was brilliant - I think I had Roquefort fritters and salad - and the reading matter was well arranged and veryvaried. I was particulalry impressed by the number of shelves devoted to books on jazz - an odd quirk for such an out-of-the-way location. I cannot find this venue on the web so I hope the mention will attract a bit more custom to the shop. Having said that it was pretty busy and we had to wait to get seats although this allowed time to peruse the books and select stuff to ruminate over while we were eating. An added attraction is that some of the seating is at barstools arranged around a high table so one is able to meet other diners and exchange niceties while indulging in food and literature.
After lunch I gladly followed as Francis gave me the town tour. It was incredibly tranquil although I can appreciate that the atmosphere changes dramatically when heavy weather moves in from the Atlantic!
Close on the Market Square 'Pen an gw ary' is an ancient enclosed field where traditional 'plays' are staged telling local folklore. There are a number of essential suppliers and several art galleries which all seemed to be quaintly closed on a Saturday afternoon. Our walk took us in and out of a number of alleyways [twittens they'd be called in Sussex] where smart cottages with neat flowering gardens have managed for centuries without the luxury of being able to drive up to the door.
I was very taken with the number of Echium paninana plants which not only flowered in the gardens but also seemed to be forcing seedlings up as weeds in any available crack.
The complete town tour only takes about 1/2 an hour so we soon found ourselves back at the car. We hopped in and tootled off down to Cape Cornwall.
This is the last bit of terra firma this side of America. And very impressive it is too, with its bleak coastline and stannery chimney. Well worth the very easy climb to the summit.
We returned via the winding lanes visiting Pendeen lighthouse on the way. I was surprised by the amount of gorse in flowerat this time of year. Francis explained that in these parts Western Gorse, a dwarf species, is very common and this provides a continuity of flowering alongside the commoner type. He also pointed out an unusual wasps' nest he had found a couple of weeks previously. It was in a blackthorn hedge on the roadside and had the size somewhat larger than a baseball. The hedge looked ripe for flailing so I hope this has not happened and the insects have been allowed to carry on their wayside existence in peace.
We arrived back at Skimmel Bridge feeling that we'd had a good day out but knowing we still had to visit an art exhibition in Sancreed that evening so a couple of hours rest was in order to recoup strength ready for the next
episode.
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