Penzance sans pirates.

Mon 20th June

The dream of Vera-on a Penzance beach.

        This was our first exploration day with the first stop being Argoos in Penzance followed by a little peruse round the town.We were disappointed on both counts as the Argoos store informed us that they didn't have the camera in store even although its website had said it did the day before.So it was a hunt for a cafe with wifi which appeared by the name of Rosie's Tearoom.Over a coffee and a couple of Bakewell tarts a new one was ordered from Argoos in Bodmin which was about forty miles away so Lady Watson's reunitement with a camera had to be delayed by another day.

       She took her mind of her cold turkey by perusing the shops mainly the ones of the charity type and lo and behold found some bargains to cheer herself up.Apart from that Penzance doesn't offer much just the same named stores you find throughout Britain.

       Shopping was all done by lunchtime so we headed towards St Ives just as the sun came out meaning it was going to be busy and I wasn't disappointed.

      St Ives is  a town size version of Mousehole with its abundance of narrow streets so much so that you park your car on the outskirts and have the choice between walking into town or jumping on a minibus.We walked into town but decided that we were going to bus it back.

The tide comes in pretty quick

The long and winding road.

       We toddled off down the hill into town to be greeted by hundreds of daytrippers out to enjoy the sunshine.

Seagull chick with it's own paddling pool.

Typical English seaside town complete with wall to wall chip shops.

Pick a boat any boat.

Boat trips,fishing trips,surfing lessons and many such pastimes were being advertised very vocally.There were plenty of eateries and pubs on offer to wet our whistle but when I turned round to ask what her poison would be Lady Watson had vanished to which I thought-maybe she's been collared by the press gang-nah they wouldn't be that stupid.Also knowing that nobody would be brave enough to mug her I decided to head for the Sloop Inn which is featured in the Raise the Titanic film for a pint of foaming ale to wait her appearance.

Time for a top up.

                                 

Just how I like my pubs.

  The Sloop Inn looks the typical English seaside pub from the outside with satellite football and cheap lager being advertised but inside it still looks like it did for hundreds of years.A pint of Dartmoor jail ale was requested and I sat waiting for some word from Lady Watson.Another good thing about very old pubs is that they never usually have a phone signal and this one didn't let me down.The good times came to an end when she finally tracked me down.She must have got in touch with the local coven.She had been sidetracked by an antique and memorabilia sale in the local guildhall.She had acquired some trinkets and said there was nothing that would take my fancy.Funny thing is that she had her fingers crossed when she told me that.

This is were Lady Watson disappeared albeit not for long.

                           We headed for the local bus-stop to be packed in like sardines for the journey back up to the car park.Home was headed for as the remainder of the salad had to be consumed this time supplemented by chips from Mousehole's local chippy

The Camera bounces high.

Sun 19th June

All roads lead to.

        First morning and the weather forecast was spot on in fact it was just like home albeit with the locals walking about without the humongous chip on their shoulder.It was designated a chill day with an afternoon daunder round the village.Papers and board games were perused after breakfast and  before cabin fever set in  we decide to look around the village before heading for a welcoming hostelery.

No it's not a batchelor pad.

Well I don't know

            We visited both sides of harbour before heading along a coastal path towards Penzance until it came to sudden stop so therefore we retraced our steps and headed back along the path into Mousehole just in time for the fun to begin.

        After taking a few photographs on her camera,the camera decided inexplicably to fly out of Lady Watson's hand,bouncing  off the path higher than my son's basketball  and ending up in a rock pool totally submerged.We rescued it in a flash(daddy joke for my daughter) but the damage had been done.We immediately took out the battery and the memory chip and after drying out both of them they both proceeded to work but the actual camera was a lost cause.

The last pic before the camera took a nose dive.

        After a few expletives the shoulders were shrugged and we headed off to a local hostelery to drown our sorrows and use their wifi to hunt down another camera for Lady Watson.We found one courtesy of Argoos and ordered it so we could pick it up the following day from downtown Penzance.We decided to have a couple of foaming ales  to commiserate the demise of the camera and also celebrate the ordering of a new one all in the space of an hour.

Local gift shop-definitely not tacky!

          I realised that this drinking den was actually the local British Legion.Looking around the walls I found a memorial plaque to the Penlee lifeboat disaster of December 1981.

           On the 19th of December 1981 the Solomon Browne lifeboat was launched from Penlee lifeboat station just north of Mousehole in order to go to the aid of the Union Castle which was only 5 days into her maiden voyage. The vessel started  drifting and what happened after that remains a mystery but all souls were lost from both vessels.As you could imagine it wasn't the best Christmas in Mousehole that year but fair play to the people of Mousehole 8 volunteers stepped forward within a few days to replace the lost crew.More pics about this disaster to come later on in the week.

And they would do it again!

       After the consumption of a few ales we headed back to the Netloft for dinner consisting of cold chicken and baked potato supplemented by an awful lot of salad.The good thing was that it was washed down by a couple of bottles of Proper Black which is the local form of Nigerian lager and a viewing of Pirates of the Carabbean setting us up for the rest of the week.

        See you when I see you.

Cornwall's Bodega Bay

18th June

         Heading for sunny Cornwall today(eternal optimist).Instead of a two day car trip or 12 hours cooped up like sardines in a tin can on wheels which is a Voyager train we decided to fly from Edinburgh to Newquay which meant a humongous one hour and twenty minutes flight to Cornwall-brilliant.We spent about as much time waiting for our hire car as the flight  with the standard twenty questions as the flight took.

                After we picked up our gigantic car-Renault Twingo-and joined the race to the west on the A30 which if there was ever an advert for the need for a dual carriageway this was it.The only good thing about it was their was wall to wall VW campers on the roads.After stopping off to stock up on rations we drove through the streets of Penzance which seems like the average British town-ie needs a coat of paint-heading for sleepy Mousehole the destination for our trip.

Invitation to a dance-50 years to late.

      Apart from the day trippers and the cousins of our friends from Inchcolm it looked absolutely sublime.The living quarters were quickly sought out and rations and kit were suitably squared away so that we could check out the important things,the local hostelries,which didn't disappoint.

The Netloft

Part two

The Ship Inn offering very nice ales and plenty fresh fish dishes on the menu.

             

No,they are not both for me.

  Let me expand on Mousehole especially from a car point of view.For the lucky people of my age , I possess some hair but I assure you it has got greyer as the week has gone on as you have to cross yourself every time you crawl round a corner in a car hoping that nothing is coming in the opposite direction as reversing is at a premium. I think the locals know this as there is nothing more frightening than the sight of a pickup truck coming hurtling towards you at a rapid rate of knots.

Local welcoming committee.

       Mousehole has the same streets now as it has had for hundreds of years.It was a smugglers haven with more nooks and crannies than any coastal village that I have seen.Oh and parking is a barrel of laughs as well.There is one official carpark and one small carpark.If you miss out on one of them you have two choices-parking about a mile out of town or parking on the harbour wall.I chose the latter which was okay as long as you are prepared to put up with the giant cobbles which put Edinburgh's Royal Mile to shame.Another thing about Mousehole especially in June is that it is the nesting ground for seagulls and they are on a 24hour babysitting cycle.Not realising this I had found a copy of Daphne de Maurier's short story The Birds and if you havn't read it its the original story which takes place in England and it is very thought provoking as it relates the story from a farm hands point of view and his attempts to protect his family from the massed bird attacks and the destruction of society throughout the country.Once I'd finished it I went round the house making sure all the windows were shut and bolted.

The pier on the right was my carpark.

How I'm going to get through the week without denting the car is in the hands of the supreme being.
     Speak to you soon.

             

Kidnapped by Seagulls.

Sat 11th June

Alan Breck's fav hangout

    Thinking of somewhere to visit  I overheard some ladies chit chatting about cruising round the river Forth whilst I was travelling to work when I remembered a couple of games we had done last year involving Inchcolm island and decided that was the weekend trip taken care off.I booked us a couple of tickets on The Maid of the Forth sailing from South Queensferry and we headed out to the pier hoping for a nice day.

It was,apart from the weather which was a bit dreich,which is a Scottish word for heavily overcast but at least the rain kept away.

Definitely wind swept and interesting.

The Maid of the Forth is a nice little boat which does tours round the river and also rents itself out for functions and also occasional evening jazz cruises which will be one date for the future.

                                                   We set off on our cruise first under the Forth Bridge and it was good to see under the bridge for a change as I'm usually travelling over the top of it workwise.There was a taped orated guide with the dulcet tones of singer and narrator Bill Torrance who's voice we hear on our local radio at the moment advertising funeral packages.

I hope it's not an omen.

Queen Elizabeth II just being touched up!

On passing under the bridge we passed the first of the four 'Inches'-Inchgarvie,a very small island which has been used for various purposes including a prison,a quarantine hospital for plague victims before being used as gun batteries in both World Wars.Its purpose now as well as being a support for the bridge is a home for hundreds of seabirds.

                               

  We carried on past Hound Point which is the largest oil export terminal in Scotland where large oil tankers which have been patiently waiting outside the entrance to the Forth(See 'Ennui and Guano' for more  info and pictures)come to be filled up.It takes approx 24 hours to fill one of these babies.

                                 

Fill her up and check the tyres.

Obviously in respect of the chief engineer who'll be born not too far from here in about 200 years time.

  We carried on past Dalgety Bay which has the ignominious title of Edinburgh's hostel,before heading in past Braefoot terminal, which loads liquid gas on to tankers from the Mossmorran gas plant outside sunny Cowdenbeath towards the pier on Inchcolm Island to be met by a smiling Historic Scotland representative and a s**tload of evil looking nesting seagulls.

First impressions.

Now I know how Rod Taylor and Tippi Hedren felt like in 'The Birds'.

                                   

 This was a small islet populated by gnomes.From where they came nobody knows.

 Inchcolm is an island which again has had a varied history with firstly  the building of an abbey after King Alexander I spent three nights marooned on the island cared for b

y a local hermit.That's what I call board and lodgings.

From then the abbey was repeatedly attacked by English raiders but continued on to The Reformation where its use as a religious institution diminished rapidly.Once again the island was used as a quarantine point for plague stricken ships entering the Forth and also a hospital for the Russian fleet in the 1790's.I bet Putin would like that one.

From then it has been used as suitable location for gun batteries from Napoleonic days through to both World Wars as it's in a very suitable site to cover all approaches to Rosyth naval base.

     

 The one thing I can say about Inchcolm is that it has its own self defence system which consists of hundreds of seagulls most of them are black backed gulls which are mean f*****s who spend a lot of their time stealing other birds chicks and eggs usually devouring them whole and usually during flight.They stand on paths daring you to come nearer and when you do their henchmen appear on the scene and being a fan of the film "The Birds" I decided that backing off was the best option.

'Go ahead make my day'

     

Taking kids to the park.

Lovely camouflage'

 Inchcolm is a very nice and I would thoroughly recommend it for a day visit but I would visit it in about September as by that time the birds have flown to their winter pastures leaving the island to the sparrows.

Somebody is a wee bit overdressed.

                    Speak to you soon hopefully from a bit sunnier Cornwall.