A Cornish Reminiscence

On Monday we head off to pick my Dad up and then head off to Cornwall via Devon. 

It’s all quite a nostalgia tour. Of mine and L’s first trip together in 96 and later trips with the kids, my trips with my Mum and Dad in the late 70s\early 80s while my Dad is also harking back further to a motorbike tour with my Mum in the 50s.

The first stop once we get off the M5 is an old haunt of mine and L’s in Watchet. Then we stay overnight in a really nice pub called the White Horse Inn at Washford. Day 2 takes us through Ifracombe and Woolacombe with L indulging in a run during a thunderstorm, she has impeccable timing, while the Lad gets beach at Saunton Sands.

Our overnight stay at the West Country Inn just outside Clovelley doesn’t happen as they have lost our booking. This at least saves us from a night on the Doom Bar as this is all they appear to have. Forced to somehow honour our booking they send us to the New Inn actually in Clovelley itself. On one level this is great because Clovelley is somewhere we have always wanted to stay but having seen where the hotel is situated, down the near cliff face that is the cobbled trackdown the village, I’m not sure how we’re going to get my Dad there.

The owner of the hotel has a plan. He conscripts four strong lads who happen to be working there to carry my Dad down in a sedan chair, they just happen to have. So all sorted and I real thrill for my Dad. I’m not sure what my Mum have thought. Well I know what she would have thought and she wouldn’t have been amused. We manage to walk him back up the hill the next day.

The next day we have coffee in Tintagel, ice cream in Padstow and overnight accommodation in Newquay at the Beresford Hotel overlooking Tolcarne beach. Newquay was a childhood haunt of mine and while parts of it have changed a lot, much hasn't changed at all. Sadly the legendary Macari’s Ice Cream Parlour is no longer there and now appears to be well known pub chain. Despite sporadic and heavy rain, we take the ‘land train’ through the town and tour the sights. Then we get the Lad on the beach in Perranporth.

A ferry is required to get to St Mawes for our fourth stop, it’s a ferry called Harry. Our hotel, the Ship & Castle, doesn’t have much in the way of beer but the Victory Inn across the road does in the shape of a nice pint of Sharps 5% Sea Fury. I mean, who’d bother with their Doom Bar when you can have that instead. We raise a glass to the Queen who died today at Balmoral. 

On Friday morning L swims in sea at St Mawes and then we have the first Cornish Pasty of the trip at Charlestown near St Austell. Later that day we arrive at our cottage in Lelant near St Ives, where we will stay for the rest of the holiday, to find we have no hot water but the owner advises it will be fixed in the morning and it is. In the evening we order our usual Friday curry, just from St. Ives rather than the Savera.

We have a pub, the Badger that serves St Austell beers, just across the road that we visit multiple times throughout our week.

Saturday is of course Parkrun which L does at Redruth Heartlands, a former tin mine, and then the Lad gets on the beach at Portreath. On Sunday we visit Lamorna Cove for coffee and apple pie, having to find a real live coin for parking, before finally ending up a Lands End after trying to catch what may have been a lost dog.

 

On Monday we drive into St Ives but struggle to park and also fail to find anywhere to recycle which seems a county wide issue. After a circuit of the coast we end up back near the cottage at Carbis Bay where L gets another swim and the Lad gets on the beach after waiting for the daily dog ban to expire 6pm when suddenly all the local dogs appear from nowhere.

The next day we’re in Helston followed by more coffee and cake at Lizard Point where the Lad ends up sat in the car on his own for the only time in the whole holiday and even then he didn’t have to. Everywhere has been so dog friendly.

In the evenings as well as eating a few times at the Badger, we also eat at the Watermill Restaurant and the Old Forge Bistro, all are dog friendly.

There’s a match on Tuesday evening which I manage to stream on to the TV in the cottage which we accompany with another take away curry.

On Wednesday L goes for a morning run along the coastal path to Carbis Bay then all of us go in the sea up to our knees even my Dad at Gwithian Towan Beach. It is possibly my most terrifying experience encounter with the sea since the Llandudno Tri.

Our final day is spent in Falmouth, which is really really nice, before a long and painful traffic laden drive back home the next day.

(Friday 16^th September)