Another day, another bus, time to go home, time to go away.

Yesterday when we hopped on the bus to Looe the driver advised us if we're going more than a couple of miles buying an all day rover ticket would be the cheaper option. It seemed we were eligible for a 50% discount or something, I suppose it's an age thing, we have finally got used to polite teenagers in Spain and Italy offering us their seats, but have not gone as far as applying of a pensioners bus pass. I think we are both in denial about getting old. Nevertheless, we were happy to benefit from the cheaper fare, £9.00 return for both to of us Polperro seemed like a good deal, especially as the tickets could have taken us anywhere in West Cornwall.

As for the village itself, the place is almost painfully cute; inevitablity its perfection could only be glimpsed  through a scrum of fellow tourists. That the place is full of trashy gift shop is an indication that the place gets over-run summer long. Of course I won't remember it this way as like everyone else I sought a brief gap in crowd to frame a few shots that gave the impression of quaintness, peace and tranquillity.

The east side of the harbour beyond the museum seemed less crowded. A narrow street wound upwards towards the coast path. 

From a distance Polperro achieved the stereotype promised on postcards. So what did we do? Snapped away on our phones to as if impelled to conform to some pre-ordained image. Such is the power of visual culture, why TikTok and Instagram prevail over Facebook, and why every Pope and despot sought the best artists to realise their propaganda.

It would have been interesting to walk further along the path. It is lovely, a riot of flowers framing the spectacular view of the wild coast.

 

The couple camping next to us had taken the bus here, then walked back to Looe, about five miles I think. At the moment even smallish hikes are out of the question as the knee sprain that Gill suffered in Sicily back in 2015 has flared-up again. She phoned recently for an appointment with a physiotherapist. There is a three week waiting list just to get one to contact you for a remote 'triage call'. What the pandemic has revealed is not a health system under strain but one that is semi-disfunctional caused by decades of ill-thought out reform and underfunding resulting from Osborne's austerity measures. It is inconvenient rather than life threatening, but that is not going to be the case for people in the queue for a scan or an appointment with an oncologist.

Next day we headed homeward  planning to break the journey with an overnight stop near Great Malvern. We made good progress to begin with until we joined a long queue at the Tamar Bridge toll booths. From then on, for the next 180 miles the traffic was gloopy as treakle or at a complete standstill. It was early evening before we reached the site in Worcestershire. The result, I slept badly with random thoughts and images tumbling through my mind.

I suppose most people are assailed by ear-worms, inexorable snippets of songs on endless repeat. Because of the amount of driving I've done over the last seven years I suffer from a visual equivalent, 'sight-worms' - brief, momentary flashbacks of random windscreen views. Top recurrent flashbacks of the moment all feature the slight judder and cutlery jangle you get as the van's rear wheels bump off a ferry's front ramp, the windscreen flicks from vehicle-deck gloom to blinding white light as you drive into the chaos of some ramshackle southern port - Bastia, Patras, Messina, Portoferraio, just running the names through my mind is pleasurable, a calming mantra, an addictive koan.

What this tells me is I feel trapped and oppressed right now, not inconvenienced or irritated by being unable to travel. It's not a hobby, more a psychological imperative, my happy place, everything else, just the boring bits in-between. 

Park the van, take the bus.

Yesterday we moved from Cornwall's north coast to the south. We are staying at a  Camc stalag near Looe, it seemed a good idea back in March when booking anywhere was difficult. 

I understand why there is a fair amount of antipathy towards motorhomes in the local press. Beyond the main trunk routes places are connected by what are best described as asphalted cart tracks, narrow, steep sided, and winding, very alarming when buses or HGVs head towards you. The thousands of motorhomes and caravans crowded into the county must make driving for local people stressful and frustrating. It's a tad embarrassing to be part of the problem.

One of the reasons why we chose the site is it is situated a  little over a mile from the centre of Looe, and a nearby lane runs down to the beach at Millendreath. We figured we could park the van and use the ebikes to explore the locality, which is what we tend to do on our longer trips. 

We did make it by bike down to the beach but it proved trickier than we had anticipated. The lane was very steep and single track. Going down triggered Gill's vertigo and riding back up tricky even on an Ebike, the challenge exacerbated by having to dismount and squeeze into the bank to let a constant stream of SUVs pass. Not relaxing at all.

Similarly the road into town looked hazardous for bikes. Instead we consulted the bus times outside the gate. There appeared to be an hourly service. We use buses all the time when traveling in Europe, I don't know why it seemed slightly odd to do so here. Anyway, next day the bus duly at arrived at 12 minutes past noon and along with a gaggle of fellow 'seniors' we shuffled on board.

Like Padstow, the centre of Looe was heaving with visitors. It takes a bit of effort to see past the crowds, the wall of tacky tourist shops and lame visitor attractions to appreciate that Looe is a picturesque town, mostly Victorian but with a much older settlement at its heart, forming a maze of narrow alleyways. Some of the stone mullioned cottages looked to be from the  sixteenth century..

What was also heartening is the place still has an extensive working fish quay, though how long that will remain viable post Brexit  remains to be seen.

After last month's inedible pasty in Woolacombe we were keen to experience a proper Cornish one. They were on offer in dozens of places, but Gill's careful research of on-line reviews yesterday evening paid dividends. We concur with  Nick's review...

How to find the place? The shop's website gives precise instructions -'Turn right at the Mountain Warehouse and follow the delicious smell...'

After a couple of hours simply mooching about we felt we had exhausted West Looe's delights. We wandered across the bridge and up the steep hill leading to Hanneford Point. 

 

You get a great view of the harbour and the rocky coastline from St George's Island then eastwards towards Ramehead.

 Marine drive is lined with hotels and guest houses jostling for the best sea view. The largest, 'Raffles' seemed to be aspiring to a lost imperial splendour., so right on the zeitgeist I guess.

However most of the guest houses seemed more John Cleese than Somerset Maugham. Very Fawlty Towers I suspect, but who I am I to judge? Apart from a couple of days in Travelodges in Bournemouth and  Torquay we have no experience whatsoever of the joys of British seaside lodgings. Maybe we've missed out!

Time to catch the bus back to the campsite. Very impressive -  the Cornish bus service. On time, the main bus stops boasting electronic displays showing arrivals and delays, the drivers  helpful and friendly; most impressively they manoeuvre the big double deckers on roads most people would balk at driving a milk float down. We've had fun, a grand day out as Wallace and Grommet might say.

Not very English

Generally speaking in our experience campsites in  Britain are of a poorer standard than those in Europe. Some are overmanaged, many overpriced and quite a few overdue refurbishment. So it was great to come across somewhere that bucked the trend. Little Bodieve holiday park on the outskirts of Wadebridge is excellent. A mix of statics, seasonal pitched caravans and tourers with the odd doughty family under canvas.

Over the weekend it has been busy, a happy mix of families and retirees, it has a laid back informal atmosphere, a bar for socialising and a swimming pool with a waterslide, some play equipment scattered about, by day it is lively without getting raucous but peaceful at night. 

A beautiful sunny weekend has helped too. Despite all the human activity, at twilight as things quietened the touring field filled with grazing rabbits,  at silflay as Richard Adams would have it. All a bit Watership Down.

After our experience in Padstow yesterday we wondered if the trail in the opposite direction towards Bodmin would be impossibly busy on a Sunday. In the event, although cycling through Wadebridge was a tad tricky, the trail was not crowded. I stopped to take a photo of the beautiful beech woods beside the river. 

Gill cycled on. I had the place to myself, time to reflect on the loveliness of sunlight through fresh beech leaves, how their dainty ovoid shape and the trees'  horizontally layered canopy creates stippled  rather than dappled shadow patterns. Birdsong and deep green reflections in the languid river - one of those exquisite moments of fleeting beauty, 'spots in time' as Wordsworth called them.

Further on we passed the back entrance to the Camel Valley Vineyard. Sadly it was closed on Sundays, it would have been interesting to sample one of their celebrated sparkling wines. 

A mile or so before Bodmin we happened upon a small café by the side of the trail advertising cream teas. Shady tables were scattered around the steep terraces of an apple orchard. 

Vineyard, orchard, beautiful woods, the river alternating between silvery rapids and mirror-like pools, it all felt more like the Perigord than England.

We opted to break with time honoured tradition and had coffee with our cream scones. To make amends for this transgression we were mindful to construct our scones using the Cornish method - jam first, cream on top. Admittedly this was hardly an imposition, it's what I'd do anyway. The opposite way around 'Devon style' seems impractical to me, cream is squishier than jam, so why put it on first? Anyway, these things matter apparently hereabouts.

As Gill returned from the kiosk with a seriously calorific tray she observed, "the man behind the counter was so friendly." We reflected that that had been our experience generally since we arrived. It is remarkable  given the influx of visitors and stories of rising Cornish property prices driven by wealthy incomers that it remains a very welcoming place. I think that is the main reason, beyond its geographical isolation, why Cornwall feels somewhat different to the rest of England. 

Offhand I can't think of a single English county that I have not visited at one time or another. One of the delights of the country is its variety of landscapes, vernacular architecture, local traditions, cultures and accents. However, as a visitor the one thing you can always anticipate is a guarded welcome. Reticence manifests itself differently from place to place, caricatured as regional stereotypes, the reserved southerner, the brusque Yorkshireman, the affable but sarcastic Geordie, and so on.  Maybe these are myths, but they do reflect a national propensity to be less than open with one another other, grudging in our approval, suspicious of strangers, lukewarm in our welcome. 

Of course in this we are not alone. Even the the most ardent Francophile will admit that  that the welcome for visitors to La Republique is often edged with a certain sang-froide. However not everywhere is like this, there are still places where being hospitable is a matter of national pride. In Iberia, Greece, Denmark and New Zealand we have always been welcomed wholeheartedly, at the very least people were open, friendly and happy to help. 

To our surprise we felt this too here in Cornwall. This seemed especially remarkable as the influx of visitors righ tnow  makes simply getting about  tricky for locals, but no-one grumped, people were helpful and friendly, in shops they had time for a quick chat about this and that. The place felt cheerful, which it has to be said is in short supply elsewhere in the country. So Cornwall, culturally speaking, feels closer to New Zealand than to Yorkshire. This came as a delightful surprise.

Not alone in not belonging

Like half the nation, binge-watching Rick Stein's sunny homage to Cornwall helped us through the darkest days of lockdown in January. 

Though more nuanced and thought provoking, Simon Reeves' two part documentary also explored the unique landscape and heritage of England's soulful far west. 

Given our media curated culture where what happens on screen has real world consequences, inevitably we found Cornwall crowded and traffic choked. Equally, it is crass to complain when you are part of the problem. 

Today's Guardian ran a piece reporting that the cost of a two week holiday in August for family of four in a static caravan near Newquay was over £3,600, far higher than a package holiday in the Mediterranean. Maybe prices are astronomical in August, but in fairness that was not our experience, the sites right now are busy and pre-booking mandatory, but at an average cost of £18.37 per night they were not expensive. I don't like crowded places and everywhere was, the motorway stop start for 250 miles, Wadebridge town centre traffic choked and hazardous for pedestrians and cyclists alike, queues for the bike hire shops along the Camel trail.  

Because we travel off-season,  mainly in the autumn, winter and early spring we are unused to mass tourism. I suppose the only times we encounter it is when our travels accidentally coincide with one of Spain's many local festivals or a regional wide "community day'. Even then we found  even in  'hotspots' quite often only a few hundred metres from the main attraction places can be almost empty. To some extent the same was true today on the Camel trail. Near Wadebridge and Padstow it was crowded, a tricky combination of family groups out walking mixed with gaggles of cyclists weaving in between buggies, toddlers and overexcited cockapoos . It was not relaxing. 

The middle section was quieter. Estuaries come into their own when unpeopled, a great place to find solitude, an ever changing vista; the turn of the tide or differing light conditions transforming them moment by moment.

They are one of my favourite landscapes. I find them pleasingly melancholic, there is solace to be found in emptiness.

The moment of tranquillity was short lived. Even from a distance you could tell Padstow was crowded, sunlight glinting off serried rows of windscreens in the harbourside car park. We locked the bikes to some railings at the end of the trail deciding it would be easier to walk into the centre.

The Wikipedia entry about Padstow refers to the fact It has been dubbed 'Padstein due to the number of Rick Stein branded businesses in the place. I took this to be simply a piece of tabloid nonsense until we chatted to local people. They all seemed to have some anti-Rick story to tell. Twice we were warned off eating at his fish and chip place. Overpriced and poor quality we were advised.. A fellow camper recounted another odd story. He lived in Plymouth and worked as a joiner for a shop fitting firm. After doing some work in the Tesco store in Padstow to extend the fresh fish counter he had to return soon afterwards to dismantle it. He was told that Rick Stein's company had lobbied the supermarket chain to remove it as it competed with their businesses in the town.

It all seemed a bit strange, was the mild mannered, avuncular TV cook really the Jeff Bezos of Cornwall's catering industry? I don't simply accept things at face value, this required further investigation...

So far as the fish and chips were concerned, it's true, they are more expensive than those on offer down by the old harbour. It is possible to find a portion of cod and chips for a little more than half the cost the same thing at Rick's place. The thing is, what is on offer is delicious, the fish flakey and perfectly cooked, the batter light, the chips  perfect, crispy on the outside squidgy in the middle.

A full portion is too much for us at lunchtime, especially when we are cycling, so we tend to share. The question comes down to personal preference, a half portion of something delicious or a full portion of boring beige food? It costs the same. 

As for the Tesco story, I Googled it. The closure of deli and fish counters in 2019 looks to have been part of a national cost cutting exercise affecting 97 of the company's large stores in across the UK and Ireland. It had nothing to do with the presence of Rick Stein in Padstow. In fact his presence is beneficial, at least the locals here still have a fishmongers, and one commited to selling local produce not trucking in fish from a warehouse in Grimsby.

However, just because something is factually incorrect does not stop being interesting. People's fairy stories tell of unspoken attitudes and desires. This is surely the case so far as localism is concerned. Even though Rick Stein has owned a restaurant in Padstow for half a century, his latest venture was discussed locally as if he was an upstart interloper on the make. 

Why this might be is not simple. Partly it's to do with our national ambivalence towards success. Achieving celebrity status does involve celebration and approval, but also vilification and a fair measure of schadenfreude. Being perceived as an incomer makes matters worse, think Megan Marckle! Also, it seems in all communities there is an unspoken divide between residents and locals. To achieve the latter status you need at least one grandparent living locally and preferably clutch of uncles aunts and cousins nearby, a recognisable local accent helps too. Even if you achieve all these things but have a less than pale complexion, or more latterly hale from Eastern Europe, then you will never be a proper local but pigeonholed as belonging to some semi-mythical 'BAME' community.

In short the status of being a local is not something you can choose for yourself, it is bestowed by how other people regard you. Even though we have lived in Buxton for 35 years and both worked nearby for all of them we are still regarded as incomers, likewise our kids even though they grew up in the town. Our daughter has been back  home since  November while she and her partner look for an apartment to buy in London. Once lockdown eased and they were able to get out and about, the locals they met on walks in the Peak District, or in pubs and cafés all assumed they were on holiday. Their accent and demeanour set  them apart. 

However perhaps your own outlook and attitude had some bearing on being. permanently consigned to 'resident status'.  In my case it may be a consequence of having little sense of belonging apart from to my immediate family; being associated with a particular locality, community or nation is largely unimportant to me. Not that I am disinterested in place, in fact I am fascinated by it. Perhaps it is that  contradiction - weak sense of belonging, strong sense of place - that turned me into an inveterate traveller.

We mulled over some of these issues while sitting on a low wall near Rick's posh chip shop as half the world wandered by. Our plan was to have a look at Padstow's old harbour then go for a walk towards the lighthouse on the cliffs at the river mouth. 

It was a struggle to walk through the town, it teemed with visitors, so much so that a short queue had formed in front of the steps that connected the harbour to the path that led to the cliff side walk. 

"It's as bad as the Cinque Terre," Gill observed. Though we have visited the famed villages on the Ligurian coast twice we have never managed to walk along the beautiful footpath between them due to queues of people waiting to take their turn. It was not a problem I had expected to find in Cornwall, but with all foreign travel banned I suppose it is not so surprising.

We decided to head back, taking a route through Padstow's backstreets spread across the steep hill behind the harbour. They were utterly deserted, in sharp contrast to the scrum nearby. It illustrated perfectly the effects of mass tourism on small communities, the centre overwhelmed by visitors but houses in the backstreets locked up, occasionally occupied as second homes, many of the larger ones divided into holiday apartments. It was a sad sight to behold, a beautiful mixture of vernacular housing, most  occupied only occasionally, very few of them indeed providing permanent homes for local families. 

On way here we noticed a pop-up coffee stall on the trail. We decided to stop off on the way back. We know exactly what we like, a single espresso with a small jug of steamed milk on the side. 

The problem is every country has a different name for it, in Italy, a macchiato, France, une noisette, Spain, cortado, Portugal, um pingo. On the whole the UK has adopted the Italian term, but you don't always get the same thing, sometimes it resembles a flat white in a small cup or an underachieving cappuccino. A cortado means something else altogether here. Gill is uncompromising about this. If the shot hits the spot she is delighted, however, to quote the mighty Ru Paul, when the barista 'fucks it up' she becomes disconsolate. In order to minimise disappointment rather than order coffee by type we now try to describe what we want - single espresso with steamed milk in the side, it's still a bit of a lottery, but it does result in Gill having fewer disconsolate moments. The guy running the pop-up advised us that what we were actually asking for was 'a piccolo'. We had not come across that term before, so of course we had to Google it. So, what IS the difference between a piccolo and a macchiato? A Melbourne on-line lifestyle magasine came to the rescue:

Macchiato

Often called an espresso macchiato, a macchiato is an espresso shot is served in a glass with a small amount of milk added. The milk is usually foamed and spoon-dropped on top of the coffee by the barista. It has less water than a long black and you can order a is a ‘short’ (one shot) or ‘long’ (two shots).

Piccolo

Somewhere between a café latte, macchiato and cortado, a piccolo is a single espresso shot topped up with milk in a 90ml glass. Essentially, more coffee, less milk. A perfect chaser if you started your breakfast with a latte and need another quick kick to get moving.

By this definition though the Camel Estuary barista thought he had supplied us with a piccolo, it looked and tasted like a classic  Italian macchiato. Accidently we  got what we wanted. This is a really great coffee, we agreed. Gill then reeled off other memorable coffee moments - great coffees in beautiful settings: After breakfast overlooking Lake, Taupo, by the taxi rank in Taomina, accompanied by freshly made cannoli, Fidel's Cafe on Cuba St. in Wellington, that bakery next to Teatro Pirandello in Agrigento, or the one at the small gelateria down the street from  Palazzo Landolina in Noto.... Yes, I agreed all great caffine shots in memorable places, though it did strike me almost every single place was associated with vulcanism, I detected geological bias here. This requires further research, in Naples, Stomboli, or a long haul trip to Chile to find the ultimate macchiato with a volcano view. By these criteria Cornwall cannot compete, nevertheless the view from Atlantic Express coffee stand was lovely.

All in all it's been an interesting day. Even in England we can find places that meet our 'mission statement' about exploring new places. We don't know Cornwall at all, it's a foreign country at home, admittedly a long way from home. Le Touquet is closer. 

Camel rides in Cornwall.

Ok, my attempt at crafting an eye-catching title maybe somewhat lame. Even so, 'Camel', lame or otherwise, seems a very odd name for a river in Cornwall, like discovering a small tributary in the Nile delta called the Pasty. In fact Camel is an anglicised adaptation of the Cornish word for 'winding' - Kammel. It does lead you to wonder if other places names in England such as Cambridge or Cambourne  also have Celtic roots. 

However, it is true - the reason why we are heading towards a campsite near Wadebridge does have to do with the rides on offer hereabouts. The Camel Trail is a disused railway which follows the eponymous river for 16 miles or so, from the former china clay village of Wenford Bridge to Padstow, a small fishing port situated near the mouth of the estuary. Having recently declared the Mawdach Trail in Gwynedd the best short cycle trail in the world it will be interesting to see how its Cornish cousin compares. 

That's our plan for tomorrow, what I need to do is to have another glass of the luscious pinot gris from Alsace that Gill found earlier on deal in Bodmin Morrison's. I feel frazzled, the journey here was not traumatic, more attritional, a quiet accumulation of slightly stressful moments. There were traffic jams in Stoke-on-Trent, queues at the the M6/M5 junction, and the motorways were busy all the way from Staffordshire to Somerset. It took almost twice as long to reach our overnight stop near Burnham-on-Sea than Google maps estimated.  

Given our chosen resting place was a  Caravan and Motorhome Club site my expectations were modest,  I just knew the place would annoy me. I was not disappointed. I appreciate that Weston-super-Mare is a complete dump, after all in 2015 Banksy chose an abandoned amusement park in the town as the location for 'Dismaland'. 

What I had failed to fully appreciated is the extent of the 'hi-di-hi sprawl' that stretches south of the town towards Burnham-on-Sea. Mid-way between the two is Brean Pontins surrounded by equally ghastly static caravan parks and faded visitor attractions. The entire area is a monument to our national pride in the overtly naff. A nearby petting zoo calls itself Animal Farm, its blurb asserting, seemingly oblivious to the irony, that it had been operating since 1984.

Sequestered within the Kingdom of Candy Floss is a small enclave of bourgeois sensibility,  Hurn Lane Caravan Club site is predictably bungaloid, frequented mainly by caravanners with spotless SUVs sporting small St. George badges on their ample rear ends. A.F.T. I decided, the first letter signifying 'all' and the final one 'Tories'. I leave the middle consonant to your imagination; a hint, it does not denote 'friendly'. Inevitably the place was comically overmanaged  by some ex-scout leader who I suspect in his spare time carefully curates a Facebook group called the Captain Mainwaring Appreciation Society.

All went well until we came to leave next morning. Given its dismal location the place was surprisingly busy. We had opted for a particularly undesirable pitch, opposite the sanitary block and about 30 yards from the entrance. We figured it would allow us to make a swift exit next morning. Sadly, I had not studied the site plan thoughtfully provided when we booked in, so I inadvertently ignored the strict one way system and headed straight towards the nearby exit barrier. This prompted the camp gruppenführer to leap from his sentry box as if about to announce the imminent arrival of a tsunami in the Bristol Channel. "Turn around! Turn around!" he exclaimed, making a peculiar whirligig gesture with his left arm with his right pointing straight forward, palm outwards like Mr. Plod directing traffic. It became obvious straightaway that performing a three point turn was in fact far more hazardous than simply letting me through. It must have grieved him immensely to allow my transgression, though he did make a noble attempt to re-assert his authority by snatching the barrier card from Gill as she stood by the gate, "We don't want any accidents now do we?" he observed in a tone usually reserved for a feral seven year old  caught surreptitiously experimenting with matches. Brave guy I thought to myself, Gill is not someone who suffers fools gladly.

As we headed south down the M5 towards Taunton  small gaggles of climate activists had gathered on the bridges. 'Fossil Fuels Drive Climate Change' read one of the small signs dangling over the motorway. It  seemed like a very polite, unobtrusive kind of protest. 

Though I was pleased not to be delayed, really for their message to cut through small demonstrations are never going to work. Only outrageous stunts and big disruptions ever hit the headlines. Extinction Rebellion were gathered here because the leaders of the 'free world's biggest economies were heading to a hotel near St. Ives for the G7 summit. When we planned our trip we were completely oblivious to the fact that it coincided with the event. 

As it happened we were largely unaffected by it, only the area around Newquay and St. Ives suffered major disruption; where we were due to stay near Wadebridge was more than 25 miles from the conference and it's attendant media scrum. Still, we were buzzed on the A30 by a convoy of black windowed Land Rovers surrounded by police motorcyclists, two squad cars, and an equally blacked-out Mercedes mini-bus, carrying the security services presumably. As they swept past in the fast lane one of the police cars cut in front of us to protect the occupants of the black landrovers from the risk of a terrorist attack from radicalised grey haired motorhomers. We decided the convoy probably contained royals as Charles, Camilla, William and Kate were all due to meet various members of the G7. So far as the leaders were concerned, Johnson and Biden had already arrived and the others were not due until tomorrow.

Aside from our phones being assailed by ludicrous publicity shots of Boris and Carrie looking awkward with the Bidens, and the world leaders socially distancing on a beach, our only other brush with the momentous events unfolding nearby occurred in the checkout queue of Bodmin Morrisons. The woman in front of us explained that her grandson had been photographed with Boris Johnson when he visited Wadebridge School yesterday. She added that she couldn't stand the man, the checkout operator agreed, adding that what the PM really needed was a decent haircut. It struck us on our arrival at the campsite that had we arrived a day earlier we too might have had an uncomfortably close shave with the PM. The site was less than half a mile from Wadebridge school, down the same narrow lane. I presume Prime Ministerial visits results local gridlock. 

As it was, our arrival would have been perfectly easy had I not sailed past the campsite entrance. The lanes of Cornwall are notoriously narrow, it was two miles further on before I found somewhere to run around, even then it involved reversing into an unmetalled track while Gill watched for traffic. As I said, getting here - no big dramas but a 'a quiet accretion of slightly stressful moments'. 

Still, the site is nice, friendly and relaxed, the forecast for the next few days fabulously warm and sunny and we have a Camel ride to look forward to tomorrow.  All is good, ish.