I like to consider myself an adventurer. I often find myself prone to bouts of wanderlust, dreaming of visiting other cities & learning more of foreign languages, cultures & (likely most of all) foods. I am also, however, something of a homebody, by my own admission, & it just so happens that Cornwall met me in the middle of the two with lots of sea air & long, coastal walks, plenty of cups of tea & nights in watching episodes of 'Fawlty Towers' on, err, VHS if you would believe those still exist, which I can confirm they do.
-The view over to Polruan from Fowey-
Sofia & I got the train down to Par on the Friday which, aside from missing our intended departure time & having to make doe eyes at the ticket office, was a pleasure. I wish I'd lived during the golden age of rail travel when it was a wonder but I try not to stray my eyes too far from the window for the glorious journey alongside the sea, stopping at previously unknown stations, their signs coming into view once I'd gotten my head out of my book. Sofia & I ate bread rolls & fruit by way of the packed lunch that we'd packed for the journey & the time flew by, the two of us brushing the crumbs off of our laps as we readied our suitcases to get off of the train & onto the bus to Fowey. With the rest of our family (namely the usual crowd: dad, stepmum, little brother) arriving that evening, we had our inaugural meal, catching last orders at the local pub, me enjoying a surprisingly flavoursome veggie chilli made with Quorn(!) & started making plans for the week.
-On one of my evening walks-
What followed was seven days of adventuring: walking the weaving coastal path from Fowey to Menabilly & back using the lighthouse as our guide, clambering along the Hall Walk around the bay from Fowey to Polruan, drinking many pints of local Cornish Rattler in the pubs en route, hiring a boat for the afternoon to speed up & down the river estuary, sitting for many hours at a time with the paper on our balcony getting sunburnt knees, cycling the camel trail from Wadebridge up to Padstow for Rick Stein's lunch & a snoop around the town, making our way to St. Michael's Mount to see the castle, sitting for many hours on the edge of cliffs with my book & to watch the rising tides & eating plenty of cones of salted almond ice cream.
-Alas, not my impressive handiwork on Readymoney Beach-
I've written about in previous posts just how intense family holidays can be but we were very lucky with the weather - radiant sunshine most days with the occasional summer shower - which meant that we weren't resigned to a week of sitting inside playing board games & arguing. Since I've not lived with aforementioned family members for many years, there was also a good amount of domesticity that we all enjoyed - the ritualistic making of tea, settling down to ancient BBC comedy series & my vain attempt to convert my Dad to vegetarianism by making my red lentil & spinach dhal, ho hum. I've also found myself to be belatedly besotted with the seaside. Although I grew up in Sussex, not too far from Brighton's coast, it was only the occasional trip to Devon or Norfolk that my bucket & spade really got an airing but the few trips I've made to Fowey in the last few years have seen it really capturing my heart. I spent a couple of evenings wrapped up in my denim jacket in the sea breeze, enjoying being alone with my own thoughts & watching the waves as they washed to shore.
-A toast to Readymoney Cove, Cornish honeycomb ice cream & freckles forever-
The food was particularly good this time around, not only in terms of that ol' salted almond ice cream (best ever) but also in the form of the new potatoes, peppers & halloumi I had in a tomato sauce at Bill's in Menabilly, the risotto verde at The Bistro in Fowey, the scrambled eggs on granary toast at Brown Sugar also in Fowey &, of course, the deep-fried halloumi & chips I had at Rick Stein's. Gosh. I managed to read roughly one & a half books while I was away - Javier Marias' 'The Infatuations' which I enjoyed immensely, being beautifully written in parts & with a captivating plot despite perhaps being a little too long, & Jess Walter's 'Beautiful Ruins' that is a lot more intelligent than I had previously given it credit for & which paints a vivid picture of 1960s Italy. There was even the chance for some covert charity shopping resulting in a very useful £1.50 paisley scarf, a copy of Jeanette Walls' 'The Glass Castle' for a pound &, although bought new, the very first of my Falcon collection, a beautiful enamel teapot that has already had it's inaugural brew. So just about all of my favourite things in a week, then - no wonder I'm particularly resentful of my first six day week back at work...!
Still there's plenty to look forward to with rather a lot more leaving the house than I'm used to the next few weeks, including both book events & gigs alike. Oh & I'm also hoping to get out on my bike more, I'm aching after yesterday's commute but I figure that's because I only do it once a fortnight, oops.
Have you been adventuring lately?
Speak soon - O.
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