Monday, September 26, 2005

weekend in Cornwall

Nick and I went for a romantic weekend to Cornwall, which was lovely except I felt really ill on the first evening, and then the car broke down on the way back, so we did the last 70 miles in a recovery truck! But lots of lovely people tried to help us restart the car; Joe at the Arthurian Centre gave us a jump-start, and the kind ladies at Knightshayes came out and pushed the car, as did some of the visitors in the car park. Knightshayes is a very interesting house; I love the Burges décor, especially the reconstructed room with the bird paintings, and the ornate cupboard in the Great Hall.

On the way down we also visited Killerton, which was great except for the costume exhibition which was difficult to follow because the exhibits were numbered instead of labelled, so each time you wanted to find out what something was, you had to refer to a separate list and by that time you had forgotten what number it was. This is especially bad for people who are both long- and short-sighted (another lady who was looking at the exhibition had this problem) and people with dyslexia. I find it tiring even though I don't have either of these issues.

But we went to Boscastle - the Witchcraft Museum was as splendid as before the flood and we saw Gerald Gardner's hat and sword. Also bought two books about the Cochrane tradition, very interesting. Ended up reading half of the first one while waiting for the recovery truck.

We did lots of walking by the sea and admiring the waves crashing, and ate very nice food in the Manor House in Boscastle and the Old Malthouse Inn in Tintagel. We stayed in the Riverside Hotel, which has a very high standard of rooms, and delicious and massive breakfasts. They also do carveries, but unfortunately I was still feeling a bit delicate when this was on offer.

On Saturday we did a big walk round Boscastle, up to the headland and Forrabury Stitches (a common with medieval strip-fields), then into Boscastle Church, across to Minster Wood, and back down to the car-park. In Minster Wood there was an island where people had built little stacks of stone. The devastation wreaked by the flood of 16th August 2004 was still apparent though, lots of debris up against the trees, and the banks ripped up. We also saw a lovely green man sculpture in the woods there. The village itself is pretty much back to normal and open for business - only the Youth Hostel, the Harbour Light shop, and Things have not yet re-opened (not that I was planning on going into Harbour Light anyway!)

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