After the excitement of the balloon fiesta I drove the 200 miles from Bristol down to Cornwall to join (most of) my family in a somewhat isolated farmhouse near St Just in Penwith. My parents are slowly working their way round the South West Coast Path and were taking the opportunity to do a bit more.
Still being hampered by the rubbishness of the borrowed camera I didn't take that many photos, but I managed a few!
On the nicest day we went to the beach at Porthgworra. It's in a little cove and the beach is split in two by a sort of outcrop which has tunnels through it. One side is made of lumpy rocks and the other is a steep slope down which boats would be launched (if there were any). It's a decently pretty place and wasn't horrendously busy, although there was a fair queue to get pasties when they arrived at the tiny shop.
My sister and I tried swimming but we got in up to our middles and decided that it was far too cold; it also smelled disgusting, probably because of a sewage outlet pipe, and it got worse as the tide went out. Oh well.
Mum, Dad and I scrambled over rocks along the beach a bit and got to the end of the cove before being forced to stop by an impassable sort of gulley in the rocks. We did spot some cormorants though!
Not the beach but never mind.
On Grandma's birthday we went to Falmouth as it was raining lots where we were. We had lunch in a sort of church tea room and had a look at some art and some charity shops (one of which had a massive collection of 35mm compact film cameras).
Before heading home we went out near the castle and had a look at the view. I spotted St Anthony Head, which Niall and I visited when we were in Cornwall (blog post
here)
It was strange seeing it from the other side, and with my family.
There were *loads* of boats.
That evening we took Grandma to The Gurnard's Head which is a pub in the middle of nowhere. It's only really a pub in that it looks like one from the outside and has a bar. Otherwise it's a really really good restaurant. I didn't take any photos of the food as that would've felt a bit rude but it was *so* good. There was wonderful warm homemade soda bread and butter to start with, then I had:
- pea & goats cheese risotto with crispy pancetta, toasted almond flakes and pea shoots
- Plaice with homemade gnocci, cherry tomatoes and samphire
- Some kind of chocolate pudding I can't remember the name of
One day I shall try and recreate that risotto. I'm not a huge fan of almonds but it really worked; there was just the right amount of cheese in the risotto, enough to be tasty but not so much that it was overpowering; the pea shoots were lovely and delicate but had a surprising amount of flavour. Mmmmmmmmmmmm.
Anyway! The rest of the week was largely rainy and Mum & Dad went walking a bit while I revised for my retake, K researched tigers for her fancy project qualification thing, and Grandma snoozed in an armchair.
On the Friday we set out for home, theoretically around a three hour journey by car. Mum & K were going via Rosemoor to see the William Morris exhibition we'd missed previously, and I was going with Dad & Grandma. I was intending to go straight on up to Bristol for sometime after 4pm so I was happy when we left without mishap at 10.45. Then it all went wrong.
The traffic was absolutely horrendous. After maybe an hour Mum & K broke down and we had to go back to help them (the car was overheating from sitting in traffic jams). Luckily they'd broken down at a former Little Chef which was now a Starbucks so there were at least toilets and coffee. There wasn't much wrong with the car so we gave it a drink adn a chance to cool down and went on our way. However the roads were still completely jammed up and we didn't reach Bodmin until around 2pm.
After getting badly lost in Bodmin and an unsatisfactory lunch of pie crust and chips we pushed on to Exeter, where I decided to take a train, arriving at St Davids Station around half past three. I must have just missed a train to Bristol as there wasn't another going for around an hour. I had a fairly open ticket so I jumped on the first one to Taunton for the sake of keeping moving, and after changing at Taunton, I arrived at Bristol around half past five. So that wasn't a fun day of travelling.
Anyway, well done if you've read all of that. The point of me going to Bristol was so that Niall could take the two of us to
Orford Ness the next day. We had dinner at his house before driving to his parents in Bedfordshire to stay overnight. We got up at 6am and completed the journey, arriving at Orford just in time to be miscounted out of the first ferry of the day.
Once we got across we spent a lovely day exploring the island, much of which is still off-limits due to unexploded ordnance. It's a really fascinating place and well worth a visit. I've got plenty of film photos coming and Niall
wrote about it rather nicely on his Tumblr, but until then this is the sum of my digital photographic efforts there:
Impressive, eh? Think of it as a teaser.
Having walked many kilometres and caught the sun, we went up the coast to Southwold where we had supper at The Red Lion. Then Niall went off homewards and I stayed the week with my Granny, being joined by (3/5 of) my family the next day. Again, not many photos were taken, and those that were were mostly family.
After Southwold I returned to Bristol to go into revision exile for the week and a bit before my exam. I left the house infrequently, and mostly to go to Sainsbury's.
Spotting some inventive parking on the way.
I also made it to a Photosoc pub meet, which was a very pleasant relief from the Mathses.
Enough! Next up: Double Exposures, finally!
