CORNISH CAMPING AT NOONGALLAS
Hi everybody
I'm back working today, after what feels like a long time away. I can think of a million things to write about as usual, but today I will stick to a little holiday update. What with Merlin still being very young, we just had a few days camping down in Cornwall. It was a site we hadn't been to, but I loved it, despite the basic facilities. We were able to light campfires, and they had music nights in the barn too. I refrained from taking my guitar - I'm still too self-conscious for public performances - but I reckon I could have just about held my own there, so maybe next year...
Here's Merlin helping with the cooking on the fire...
...you'll also note the beer close by too - an essential for all open fire events.
We went swimming at Bessie's Cove, one of my favourite places. The beach is shingle, and quite hard on the feet, and there are lots of rocks too. But it catches the sun, the waves are lively, and it's a wonderful place to jump and dive off the rocks. My daughter loved it here...
Merlin has taken to camping in a big way. His crate fits in the front of the tent, and he snores happily all night, before being taken to chase rabbits in the morning. I also think being out in the fresh air, and by the sea especially, keeps him cleaner. He certainly smells a lot fresher...
You can see he is sporting his new lead, woven by one of the Newlyn trawlermen. I think my social conscience even dictates what I buy on holidays! My present to myself was a pair of cufflinks made out of Cornish tin, with an outline of an old tin mine on them. The tin was taken from the last lode mined in Cornwall in the nineties and put aside for making jewellery, before the only remaining mine was closed. I bought them in Mousehole, an incredibly lovely fishing village, where the streets are so narrow, cars cannot get down some of them. The Carnival was on, and everyone was dressed up as pirates.
It's here that the old Penlee lifeboat, the Solomon Browne, was stationed, now a memorial for the volunteer lifeboatmen who died going to aid the stricken coaster Union Star in 1981; both vessels going down with all hands, and the loss of 16 lives, in the face of 80mph winds. How can you not admire these men? They're not paid to do this, and yet 12 volunteered that day, but only one from each family were chosen to go out because of the appalling conditions. The son of the mechanic, turned away that day, still serves on the Penlee crew.
One of my favourite places in western Cornwall is the north coast, where the evidence of the tin mining industry is most obvious...
Once this area employed tens of thousands of miners, working in incredibly hazardous conditions, deep below the sea bed. Now, as the poet WS Graham said, just "the chuck of daws" echoes around the place. This is a beautiful, and incredibly poignant landscape...
It's incredibly old too. The landscape is littered not just with industrial relics, but with the tombs of Bronze Age people; all across the high heaths are chambered cairns and stone circles, dating back thousands of years. Even the field patterns date back over 2000 years.
But what is unique, in many ways, about Cornwall, is that it is a land of fishermen, and of poets, of miners, and of painters. And that they have all co-existed with a mutual respect rare between such diverse occupations. And they, somehow, reflect each other, so that the work of one would be diminished by the loss of another. As we find, as the mining has gone, and the fishing declines. But I've seen the minarets of Istanbul, the Umbrian hills, and the Swiss mountains, and I still think Cornwall is the most beautiful place on this earth.
Our daughter enjoyed it so much, and made such good friends there, she cried for two hours on the way home. This was the view across the fields from our campsite on our last night, with another lonely mine on the horizon...
All this, and crab sandwiches, cream teas, Cornish pasties and beer. What more could you ask for? Mind you, with the recession, it sounds like the Cornish might be returning to traditional forms of financial gain. As one car sticker said 'Mining scat. Fishing scat. Farming scat. It's back to wrecking, me 'andsomes!'
Hi everybody
I'm back working today, after what feels like a long time away. I can think of a million things to write about as usual, but today I will stick to a little holiday update. What with Merlin still being very young, we just had a few days camping down in Cornwall. It was a site we hadn't been to, but I loved it, despite the basic facilities. We were able to light campfires, and they had music nights in the barn too. I refrained from taking my guitar - I'm still too self-conscious for public performances - but I reckon I could have just about held my own there, so maybe next year...
Here's Merlin helping with the cooking on the fire...
...you'll also note the beer close by too - an essential for all open fire events.
We went swimming at Bessie's Cove, one of my favourite places. The beach is shingle, and quite hard on the feet, and there are lots of rocks too. But it catches the sun, the waves are lively, and it's a wonderful place to jump and dive off the rocks. My daughter loved it here...
Merlin has taken to camping in a big way. His crate fits in the front of the tent, and he snores happily all night, before being taken to chase rabbits in the morning. I also think being out in the fresh air, and by the sea especially, keeps him cleaner. He certainly smells a lot fresher...
You can see he is sporting his new lead, woven by one of the Newlyn trawlermen. I think my social conscience even dictates what I buy on holidays! My present to myself was a pair of cufflinks made out of Cornish tin, with an outline of an old tin mine on them. The tin was taken from the last lode mined in Cornwall in the nineties and put aside for making jewellery, before the only remaining mine was closed. I bought them in Mousehole, an incredibly lovely fishing village, where the streets are so narrow, cars cannot get down some of them. The Carnival was on, and everyone was dressed up as pirates.
It's here that the old Penlee lifeboat, the Solomon Browne, was stationed, now a memorial for the volunteer lifeboatmen who died going to aid the stricken coaster Union Star in 1981; both vessels going down with all hands, and the loss of 16 lives, in the face of 80mph winds. How can you not admire these men? They're not paid to do this, and yet 12 volunteered that day, but only one from each family were chosen to go out because of the appalling conditions. The son of the mechanic, turned away that day, still serves on the Penlee crew.
One of my favourite places in western Cornwall is the north coast, where the evidence of the tin mining industry is most obvious...
Once this area employed tens of thousands of miners, working in incredibly hazardous conditions, deep below the sea bed. Now, as the poet WS Graham said, just "the chuck of daws" echoes around the place. This is a beautiful, and incredibly poignant landscape...
It's incredibly old too. The landscape is littered not just with industrial relics, but with the tombs of Bronze Age people; all across the high heaths are chambered cairns and stone circles, dating back thousands of years. Even the field patterns date back over 2000 years.
But what is unique, in many ways, about Cornwall, is that it is a land of fishermen, and of poets, of miners, and of painters. And that they have all co-existed with a mutual respect rare between such diverse occupations. And they, somehow, reflect each other, so that the work of one would be diminished by the loss of another. As we find, as the mining has gone, and the fishing declines. But I've seen the minarets of Istanbul, the Umbrian hills, and the Swiss mountains, and I still think Cornwall is the most beautiful place on this earth.
Our daughter enjoyed it so much, and made such good friends there, she cried for two hours on the way home. This was the view across the fields from our campsite on our last night, with another lonely mine on the horizon...
All this, and crab sandwiches, cream teas, Cornish pasties and beer. What more could you ask for? Mind you, with the recession, it sounds like the Cornish might be returning to traditional forms of financial gain. As one car sticker said 'Mining scat. Fishing scat. Farming scat. It's back to wrecking, me 'andsomes!'
VIEW 9 of 9 COMMENTS
secretary:
Well, thanks for the cheering comment. Relationships are funny things, but my friend has a real way of picking them. How's life in Liathach land? x
kmk:
beautiful. i would never be able to set down my camera. kisses, always. kmk.