Cornish memories

When you return from a summer break, you think that the sunkissed windblown feeling will last for months; that you'll be recounting all the fun and relaxation for ages...

So I'd better start with a few random recollections.

On the campsite we had been observing the swallows and swifts flying around, they seemed so content as they went about their existence - so whilst Mum was getting the dinner ready I had the pleasure of helping Miranda build a nest for them. It was all her idea, and frankly I thought she was bonkers (I thought I was bonkers too if truth be told - drink beer or make mud pies???) although now I look at the picture it's one of those things about her that I really like. Slightly batty determination...

 And next up is one of Miranda's photos. The clan (all except Lewis who has stormed ahead up the coast path) as we climbed up from St Agnes towards Perran Porth. We had started near Wheal Coates near Chapel Cove. It's a spectacular walk taking in sights of dozens of old engine houses and stamps, enormous vistas over the sea towards Wales, endless breakers hammering onto the shore. The thought of those poor buggers who toiled under the sea to extract a thin strip of rock, in horrid hot conditions, with little more than a cornish pasty to sustain them for 14 hours at a time, doesn't bear thinking about....

 

Our walk took us to a very nice ice cream parlour in Perran Porth, where the grown ups had cream teas and the others a little of what they like best....

 

I could quite easily plot our holiday using photographs of us eating, and it might be a good way of remembering the trip, but I think it would probably give you indigestion... It's amazing that even after a cooked breakfast every morning, a packed lunch or a healthy cream tea we were ready for a dinner on the campsite by six.

This year we met up with my old college chum Nick Sinclair and his wife Helen who stayed on the campsite and together we chartered a Cornish Shrimper for a sail around the Falmouth area. We managed to cruise around to St Mawes and St Just, and also watched the 29ers National Championship out on the water. Lewis unfortunately missed out on this as he was still at Fowey racing with the Terry and Kyle. But we had a great time with Greg taking the helm for much of the time, and me learning how to raise and lower the gaff rigged sails.