This temporary ‘blog’ is in the way of a sort of sequel to the last one related to the holiday I took down to Kilkhampton back in May 2003 – the ‘Cornwall and Devon Odyssey – 2003’. Due to the circumstances of the time of year this was a somewhat curtailed holiday, amounting to a long week-end rather than the week-long holiday that I took last time. In view of that the day of the journey down – the journey back was such a rapid one that it seems hardly worthwhile counting that other than to give a brief overview of the route taken – will be counted as a day of the holiday.
As well as the aforementioned ‘housekeeping’, I think you will also need to know that there was yet another qualitative difference between the two holidays, which also had a concrete impact on proceedings. Alec and Christine were not actually there this time around. They had gone away to the Middle East, taking a trek on a camel through the Jordanian Desert (!) amongst other things and so to some extent we were ‘house-sitting’, rather than being guests.
An exciting addition to the ‘blog’ has come about by accident. In the rush to depart I omitted to take a note-book and pen with me, so as soon as I got to Kilkhampton I had to pop around the post office to buy an exercise book and pen. My eyes were drawn to a very snazzy looking multi-coloured pen, so the ‘blog’ entries are colour-coded by day, according to what I thought would be the most appropriate colour. There will be a short explanation at the beginning of each day.
The explanation for the green here is that, since this was the inauguration of the pen, these were its ‘salad days’ and salad tends mostly to be green.
It was an early departure, but not quite as early as we'd intended, to try and make it – at this time of year of all times! - before it got dark. However, progress was leisurely to say the least, through the Midlands, taking five hours to do what Mum reliably tells us normally takes three – going via the Fosse Way, rather than the motorways. We stopped off twice around that stretch, together with a slight break in Stow-on-the-Wold. The rest of the way was via Bath, Shepton Mallet, Exeter, Okehampton and Holsworthy.
There was a bit of a ‘hoo-ha’ on getting into the house. I trusted myself too much along the corridor to ‘my’ bedroom without the light on and tripped and very nearly badly cracked my head on the wall near the step – this was shortly after I had popped to the P.O. to buy the aforementioned exercise book and pen – very reasonable at 50p and 79p respectively. It was a Simply Pens pen – Re-Order Reference No. P1621-1, Price Code P2 – exclusively packed for this company. Dad popped to the local chippy, that was fortunately open and we had soup, fruit salad, bread – from Kilkhampton's Londis shop – and I had some of our home-pickled herring, brought from home.
I soon recovered from my incident thanks to a superb Dutch/Flemish Blues, Soul etc station on M.W. - P.S. I had been listening to Saga F.M. on the way down, giving away my demographic! - I also listened to the Heerenveen – Newcastle United match – which N.U.F.C. won 1-2 – and watched ‘The Trial Of The King Killers’ – from the series of documentaries on Channel 4 on the English Civil War.
I went to bed accompanied by the rather extra-terrestrial-looking Belling bed-warmer, quite early.
The mood on this day was red, since later that day we were booked into some seats for the Morwenstow Players' pantomime production of ‘Robinson Crusoe’ and I thought that I'd better use the hottest and most tropical of the colours in my pen – in the midst of that cold winter's day though it was. I got up first – or rather was the first to contend with the shower, which was a fairly hot starter for my tastes! Breakfast was toast and dripping and marmalade. We finally set off, since Dad was a little knackered after the long drive the day before at between five and ten past ten.
The intention was to seek out a route to Morwenstow. However, we ended up at Hartland Point, where there was a surprisingly large number of cars. This was because it was the day of the periodic helicopter flight to Lundy. I mentioned the word ‘intention’ above. I did that advisedly, since, as we were later to find out, Cornwall County Council must be on an economy drive and were expecting the relevant signpost to stay up with the aid of baling twine. This meant that we missed the turning off the main ‘Atlantic Highway’ and went on a round-the-lanes journey to Hartland Point. Attempting to seek out a route to Morwenstow afterwards we found out that the performance was – confusingly enough – actually taking place at the nearby village of Shop – in an impressive-looking hangar-like structure of a village hall.
At length we returned to Kilkhampton and Mum went off to the chippy for a surprise – we think – extra portion of fish which we took back to where we were staying for lunch. Since we were going out that evening I retired to ‘my’ room to write up my ‘blog’.
The evening itself was pretty impressive for the village panto, although, like in the morning, the journey there did seem rather longer than the four miles odd signposted. We all agreed that the stand-out performance was by Linda Hurles as ‘Mr. Mate’, although there were some good performances all round. What was particularly encouraging was that there were quite a few teenagers, both in the cast and the audience, which was a packed house in a venue that we calculated would hold circa 140. I was particularly taken by one of the instruments that the accompanying band used – a real Hammond Organ!
By the way, one incident that I think will be of note in respect of its later impacts that occurred this evening happened just as I was getting changed to go out. All of a sudden the lights went out and remained out for the rest of the holiday. However, anything that worked off a socket was still OK and we got by on bed-side lights from then on. The most fortunate aspect, though, was that the (electric) cooker still worked and also there was no impact on the heating.
I chose to make today a ‘black day’ since we were making perhaps – well, make that a ‘definitely’ – the journey of the heaviest significance historically – to the village of Boscastle, gaining unwanted fame in this last year as the place where a number of the village's most significant buildings were swept away by a flash-flooding of the River Valency, which runs through the village, in August 2004.
Before we get to the bit about Boscastle itself there was the matter of the circuitous route off the main Atlantic Highway, via a couple of fords that must have been ‘fun’ on that wet August day, to deal with. This, at length, led to a view of the village that was new even to Mum and Dad, which revealed the parish church – the source of the village's more wanted fame as the church featured in the TV series ‘A Seaside Parish’. After inching our way down a tight side-street, past the somewhat unlikely location for the village post office, we finally ended up in the village centre.
On parking up the car in the main car-park the building that was most conspicuous by its absence was the visitors' centre, of which there was no trace, save a few portakabin-type public conveniences. This was followed by a walk, bent into the blasting winter wind funnelling its way up the Valency valley, through the still half-devastated village. Mum had made a mental note of a special offer on hot cornish pasties, to which we were going to return at length after our walk. It was quite a curious impression that was left by a basket of a selection of novelty footballs that had clearly been dislocated from their appointed place – a holiday goods shop – to a rocky outcrop near to the Valency's outlet into the sea. Before indulging in our lunch-time treat, there was a stop-off at the antiques shop/gift emporium/booksellers, where Mum treated herself to some scented soap and I disappeared upstairs to the bookshop to find a copy of a biography of the former Belper M.P., Lord George Brown, who apparently also had Cornish connections – so that was a very fitting souvenir – and also a rather learned tome on phonetics, that caught my eye being a Geography/Linguistics graduate — respectively ‘Tired and Emotional: The Life of Lord George Brown’, by Peter Paterson, Chatto & Windus, (1993) and ‘A Course in Phonetics: Second Edition’, by Peter Ladefoged, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, (1982, 1975). When we eventually got round to the cornish pasty it was very recommendable indeed – hot and substantial and a very wise choice.
As is traditional when around that part of the world the next stop was Ports Gaverne and Isaac, where I braved the small beach to take photographs of the spectacularly crashing waves, hardly being able to stand up in the wind. Dad disappeared off to the higher ground to the right of the beach as one looks out to sea, later drawing our attention to a novelty statue, made of found objects, entitled ‘Massive Martha’. The journey back towards the main Atlantic Highway got rather ‘entertaining’ down a tightly-edged lane where we met another car coming the other way. We only just got past each other!
The last port of call of the day was at the Killock Farm Shop on the Atlantic Highway just outside Kilkhampton. Mum and Dad bought a selection of vegetables and some steak and kidney and I treated myself to a jar of piccalilli and pickled onions, both of which accompanied our evening meal of ham and potatoes and salad and some chocolate cake, also bought from that shop.
While we were having this meal a lady appeared at the window. It transpired that it was a friend of Alec's and Christine's called Doreen Jones and she was inviting us around to see a video of Piers' and Tamar's wedding on the afternoon of the following day.
The explanation for the use of the colour blue on this day is one on two levels. Firstly, the very prosaic one that it was the one colour I had not hitherto used. Second – on a perhaps subconscious level – that this, due to the gathering snows according to the weather forecasts coming in on the television and radio, could be the final day of this welcome break and the behind-the-scenes mood was ‘blue’.
This being the Sunday of our stay, as tends to be the case in our Kilkhampton holidays, it was a hanging-around-the-village sort of day. Mum cooked a meal of steak and kidney, brussels sprouts, carrots and potatoes and rice pudding with stewed apples. I spent quite a bit of time reading the book on phonetics and Dad went to the local church.
When I'd collected my thoughts I went off on a walk towards the village of Shop via some lanes, some of which were very closed in and one with a very precipitous drop with not much protection, so it was a good thing, on reflection, that Dad took us to the Morwenstow Pantomime via the main road! The day, however, was beautiful and sunny, though rather on the chilly side, so it was an ideal day for the walk.
After that excellent lunch we made our way to Doreen's place to watch the video – a short walk through the village. The lady who had given us the keys to the house, Grace, was also present and we were greeted with coffee and tea and Mr. Kipling French Fancies – very pleasant indeed! As we arrived Doreen and Grace were watching a recording of the first meeting of the hunt in the village after the bringing-in of the new act outlawing hunting for foxes with hounds that Doreen had made herself the previous day, which we had tried to avoid by leaving early for Boscastle, since we thought there may be trouble between supporters and anti-hunt campaigners. This turned out to be quite a bonus. We thought it perhaps controversial that the departing hunt was in receipt of a blessing from the deacon!
The wedding ceremony had taken place on a warm, summer's evening in the Jerusalem Botanical Gardens and was conducted in a modern rite , based on the American brand of Baptism, of which Tamar, despite being Jewish, is part. We also got to see some of the wedding breakfast, taking place at the restaurant of the Gardens, complete with humorous recollections from Piers' elder sister, Hannah. A particularly funny thing about Doreen's place was what appeared to be a real cat lying contentedly in a basket on the floor. I put my hand out to stroke it, as you do and it was quite hard and motionless. It was so realistic that I even sneezed when I took my seat nearby. I don't think I'm allergic to cats, though. Maybe that's only artificial cats!
Before settling down to the evening meal, in the rapidly-fading light, I set off quickly down the same lane I'd been down in the morning, turning the other way, towards Stibb, taking photographs of the trademark plant of this area, alexanders, on the way. Returning to Kilkhampton, via a different route, I discovered the Tank-Driving Centre. Could that have been a suitably nutty thing Piers would have got up to, I wonder!
It was green on this day, since we were full-circle on the way back home.
I got up fairly early and made myself a cup of tea and was sitting by the fire, continuing reading that book on phonetics when Mum came into the room to say that we were after all returning that day and that it was going to be fairly soon, so we departed, in the event, not much more than an hour after I'd been sitting there.
The route back – rather quicker than the route down! — was A39 to Barnstaple, A377 to Umberleigh, B3227 to South Molton, A361 to the M5, stopping off for coffee on the A361 and an instant soup at the car-park of the service station at Strensham – then onto the M/A42 to around Ashby-de-la-Zouch, then Melbourne and Derby and the ‘usual’, arriving home in the middle of the Monday afternoon, giving me time to walk down to Belper to do a bit of shopping. It felt very bustling and metropolitan — Belper !? — after a few days in Cornwall's village country. Returning to the subject of listening it was a bit of an exotic touch to listen to a bit of BBC Radio Wales – in Welsh! — as we went around the ‘corner’ of the Severn Estuary – dramatic views of the new Severn crossing around Bristol.