Kings may come and kings may go, but the sea goes on forever - July 25th/26th 2013

Is there something about Ginsters Pasties we ought to know? We are heading East, following a huge tanker full of them.

Note the pasty-sized opening at the back

A delightful conception. No we don't want corrections, explanations, nor balloon-popping ideas on a postcard, thanks. Some things are best left to the true scientists among us. There's a chemical process involved see? You pour liquids in the top and pump pasties out the bottom. Perfect.

We still haven't cracked the white camper conundrum. A Google search is out of reach whilst travelling, but we suspect filthy lucre is at the bottom of the white van plot.
The Duchess falls somewhere between vintage and old. (We have so many things in common.) Her value is therefore purely sentimental, so we could contemplate violating the white coda, painting her some other shade of pale. It is harder than you think to buck the norm. Blue? Yellow? Orange? (Don't get me started...)
What if no one wants to buy her when she's painted ?
We aren't selling are we?
Just asking...
Are we enjoying our trip? we ask each other this, just to check.
Yes we are. Very much.
Well that's your answer then.
Mmm. Lilac?
Maybe a few swirls, not just plain. Swirls are in fashion. New carpets, curtains, paint the cupboards, give the old girl a revamp.
When this will happen is not specified. It would take me a good month,
And which good month would that be?
The spare one between August and September, slightly left of summer - that one.
Oh well, that's all right then.

We have no idea where we are going today - apart from Devon by teatime. A quick stop at St Michael's Mount for a unisex wee - the tide is in, so we can't cross the causeway. The carpark features a bizarre outbuilding hosting three toilet cubicles, outside of which two coachloads of cross-legged OAPs are queuing. Faint yells for help are heard from inside, and two husky surfers appear from the nearby cafe. they obviously know the drill and wrench at the door until it bursts open. A very relieved  old lady exits, complaining about the state of the lock, sees who has rescued her and flutters her eyelashes. The queue shuffles over to mingle with the other two ever-increasing lines. We praise the Lord for delivering us a campervan with indoor amenities, and after taking a few pics set off once more.

 Soon the road signs tell us we are approaching Perranporth.  The Duchess must have had memories of holidays here with previous owners because we hadn't planned this visit. She takes us to a car park and we climb out to give her time to catch her breath. It is possibly Cornish Mablethorpe. A man and his ten year old son stride by with brand-new full-sized galvanised buckets and garden spades. I like an obsessive father, and try to get a photo, but they are gone too fast; sand waits for no man. The town is overrun with parents and sprogs in various states of stickiness, all heading for the beach - safe for sandcastles - careful of the sea though. Two flags stuck in the sand allow you fifty yards of water to swim in out of a calm blue mile. There's even a little rocky island for the kids to climb up and fall off. The very stuff of family fun, but even more essential is the multiplication (no, not a multiplicity) of shops. The original shop was cloned and now has at least twenty offspring. They all sell a rich pick and mix of all things sweet, pencils, beach gear, plasters, nougat and clotted cream, No one knows why this happened, The Roslin Institute refuses to take responsibility, but all of them have made a life for themselves on the hospitable shores of North Cornwall.
Unlike Carne Bay, Perranporth is heaving with bodies and windbreakers, all on the right side of it for some reason. Is the left side pre-booked  by a coach-load from Scunthorpe? Or is something more sinister afoot? We hope the local dragon will enter stage left and whip off the nearest uninformed maiden as she bends over her sandcastle in a floaty white chemise. We like a drama - and are disappointed. Here might be no dragons but there's certainly something very Looking Glass going on. Things are backwards that should be forwards. We are standing in front of the hotel on the cliff overlooking the sunbathers.
'Why's everyone staring at us?' BB asks, embarrassed.

'What do you mean?' I'd been looking at the sea, that's what you do at a beach.  You don't come to ogle the other punters revealing huge white baps and rolls of the non-wheaty variety, which they butter in plain view. That sort of staring would normally be rude.
 Apparently not in Perranporth. For some reason the buttered bathers are gazing up at us with uniform adoration. They should be gazing, as we are, out to sea so what is going on? 

We notice something else.
 Almost without exception the family windbreakers are set up to obscure their view of the sea.

'Now I know why I prefer the South coast,' mutters BB, no sunbather he, but smart as a whippydoodle. 'Sun's in the wrong place on this coast.'
He is right, but I'd never thought about the two coasts in those terms before. Everyone knows the North coast has bigger surf - like the spectacular six inch breakers today. The south, notoriously lacks waves of any kind, but at least you can see the sea whilst you roast and baste.
I'd never thought of us as sunflowers before, turning our faces, windbreakers  and pop-up tents as the sun wheels through the sky. If I was Van Gogh I'd whip out my paintbrush and do justice to this bizarre sight. But I'm not, so you'll have to make do with a photo.

We are standing here, on the cliff

Personally I can think of better things to do than roast my body under a big orange microwave. I'm with Canute on that one, the sea is for remonstrating with, head-on challenges, not hiding behind canvas barricades and blushing pink.
I seem to remember him roaring, 'Oh sea, North Sea, just listen to me!' Immortal words learned at Primary School, so they must be true.
Afraid I've had to add a line or two to patch the holes in my memory, but at least I've made it scan. The bits where it doesn't are original, although by whom, no one seems to know. Here goes....

One sunny day in early May one thousand and thirty three
King Canute took his bathing suit, and came down to the sea.
The sea was cold - the King was old, and he very soon changed his mind 
He sat down there in an old deck chair and his courtiers stood behind.

"Although I am King, not a single thing is ever done to please me
My bath was not what I'd call hot, and now you try to freeze me?"
"It is not we, your Majesty the fault it is the sea's
We told it precisely to heat itself nicely to sixty-five degrees!"

"If it declines, though the sun still shines, the remedy, Sire, is yours.
Speak to it strongly for acting so wrongly, and banish it from your shores."
"Thank you my man, an excellent plan - I'll show it I'm not afraid
A king should swim when it pleases him and never be disobeyed!"

"Oh Sea, North Sea just listen to me, My orders are clear and plain!
You will leave this beach at the end of my speech and never come here again!"
From far and wide they watched the tide to see the retreat begin
And got ready to shout as the sea moved out - but still the sea moved in

"Oh sire we beseech, repeat your speech, the sea could not have heard."
But King Canute stood firm and mute, refusing to say a word
The sea crept on till the beach was gone, advancing upon his toes
But still he remained in obstinate vein as the water relentlessly rose.

When his Majesty felt it reach up to his belt he shouted out firm and clear
In spite of the cold and the fact he was old there wasn't a sign of his fear.
"Oh Sea, North Sea! Just listen to me, my orders are firm and plain
Come right in shore as you did before, and then go out again!"

The folk on the pier raised cheer upon cheer, It was marvellous to behold them,
As the waves rolled in, and in, and in, Exactly as he had told them.

On this one occasion corrections will be happily accepted on a postcard, and if anyone wants to add the final couplet, be my guest. Rumour has it that the original included
'Kings may come and kings may go, but  the sea goes on forever'
When I was six I personally thought this rather ruined his magnificent stand, but it turns out this was the only line that came near to the truth. Canute only wanted stop his courtiers brown-nosing and prove the Almighty was, well, almightier than he. This poem was the standard teaching of History back in the day. No doubt our current esteemed educational Fuhrer, Michael Gove would reinstate it into our modern curricula along with Our Island Story given the chance. If you don't remember that version of Our Glorious Past, and maps of the world being Predominantly Pink, just be grateful.

There is a limit to how much fun you can have with no galvanized bucket and spade in Perranporth. So we buy the clotted cream, sit at the hotel picnic table to write postcards. We ask the Duchess if she'd enjoyed her trip down memory lane. She's a bit overwhelmed. Last time she'd been it was a small fishing village. She mutteres something about a pier, a deck chair, and a shouty man, but she does get her beaches confused.

Where next? Whilst the Duchess grumbles, Molly, our intrepid Navigator advises us to get a move on and chooses Trago Mills as the next Station Stop. (Why did British Rail cease using that term? Mocked it then; miss it now.)

I malign Molly, in fact 'twas I that chose Trago. Thought I too would relive some fond memories - maybe find a birdbath for our plant-sitter. Found neither memories fond, nor birdbath in any form. The place is stuck in the 80's, the chips reconstituted sticks of potato flour; statues once politically topical, now say more about their creator. Feels like BNP country. Was it always so and we just didn't notice because the goods were so cheap?
The duchess snorts. We suspect that is our answer.

Moving swiftly on past the one modern statue we could relate to, we enter England over the Tamar bridge, a sense of loss always accompanying this transition. Loss of something timeless, not because Cornwall is beyond time, because our time now has boundaries. Being on the road, driving the Duchess without plan or purpose, is an adventure. Now we see dust kicking up as the Devon farmers gallop towards us across the wide open range, fences in hand. I begin to understand Oklahoma. (Keep up: The musical, not the State.) The farmer and the cowman can't be friends. Ever. Don't even sing about it.


 We suppress our sadness and drive into England, home of small fields, high hedges and and even higher house prices.
A feast awaits in Ivybridge with Old Best Friends. We catch one of them trying to escape as we approach, cheered on by one of those Cornish piskies.
'None of that Dipsy!' we cry, hauling her back just in time. 'We haven't had tea yet!' She is a famous cook, so no wonder those damned piskies wanted to lead her into the bushes.

We discuss youth, an eternal source of amusement to all born during the Pink Map years.
'Back in the day, when my lad left school I made him get up at 7, dig my garden. Then dig his Gran's, then his auntie's, then the neighbours'. Proper 8 hour shift he did till he got a job. Soon sorted him out.' Buggerlugs gives an evil chuckle.
Ah, those were the days to be back in. Imagine trying that now....
They'll have you up for child abuse if you don't pay pocket money at the going rate.  Kids no longer do chores as part of being a family, they get paid per chore for their pocket money. Official Radio 4 stats, honest. By the way....If you aren't one of those kids, it might be worth trying the European Courts of Human Rights.
If that fails, remember, Things Move On, by the time you are a parent, you will not only still be paying off your student loans, your mortgage, your parents care bills, you will also be legally required to pay pocket money to your sprogs at the going Minimum Wage rate.
We set off to find our last wild campsite, up towards the moors, through Cornwood. There is an open space overlooking Plymouth and we park up, batten down, and later regret our choice. Too many night time callers pull in for ten minutes, leave their engine running, and then shoot off again.
 'What are they doing?' I whisper, twitching the curtains to no avail.
 I have it on authority from He who shall be Nameless, May He Live Forever,  that nookie requires killing the engine.
'Perhaps things have speeded up,' I say, 'This is the age of Speed Dating, fast Broadband, all that. Maybe it isn't just mobile Libraries that park up and leave their motor running.'
He frowns.
'Don't ever recall having sex in one of those.'
'You weren't ever a Librarian.'
Innocence is a wonderful thing. I doubt he'll look at those mobile vans in quite the same way again, all those dear old ladies queuing up with Great Expectations not only in their hands but in their eyes.

 Next time we'll choose a space for one vehicle, not five fast bonks.
 However, waiting out the early morning rush hour was worth it. The view across the Vale of Plymouth is lovely, complete with one wild pony. (No I know it's not called the Vale of Plymouth, but it should be, from where we are viewing.)
'Unusual to see one pony on its own, wonder if it needs a vet.' Apparently not. The reeds shake and a foal stands up. Mother and daughter approach for apples -  a bit of Dartmoor magic before we drive back into town to pick up the Diddly - ready for the journey home.

Anne Boleyn and the German Hand Cream July 24th 2013

We sleep, decide to walk to the Minack Theatre. We are assured it is only about 15 minutes across the cliffs. There was a clue I probably should have heeded in that description:
 Cliffs.
'Could we bike over?' I ask the OAP taking our money.
'Well, I suppose you could, yes. Might be a little steep in places.'
She obviously hasn't walked that route since The Ark Ages. She might have given Noah good advice on boat building, but there is something about her 1950's perm that makes us opt for Shanks's pony. A Shetland would have been better, but in the absence of that my pannier is loaded up instead: picnic, two sticks, a brolly and waterproofs. BB has his camera. It weighs a lot. Rain is forecast for exactly when the performance of  Anne Boleyn starts.
Never mind, we're British.

Over the numerous stone styles made from giant boulders, topped with signalling arms Dr Beeching donated in the 60's. We lift and lower - just the job for electric bikes weighing as much as a pair of pensioners. A twisty-turny path with little coloured arrows lies ahead, no signs to indicate that we might (or might not) be going in the right direction. They point us both ways along the cliff, and in the absence of either a map or compass, we head down to what should be the beach. Still no signs, but there are some foreign people to ask,
'Is this the way to the theatre, please?
'Yes, it is, but I'm afraid you're too late!' The accent is guttural.
'Oh no!'
'Yes! It is now shut!' They smile, pleased to be so helpful.
Our faces fall, we wonder if a tornado is forecast. The theatre only cancels in the event of an act of war, God, or both.
'They haff shut it for the performance this afternoon! We tried to buy tickets! There were none left!'
You will notice there are a lot of exclamation marks in this exchange. What you might miss is the slight intimation that we have only got what we deserved for being late risers. Obviously only the early bird catches worms in their country. But we are in ours.

The view from BB's Rabbit Run

 'Good job we've got some tickets then,' says BB waving the distinctive Minack envelope. Seems we are better organised than they are after all - a bit of a cultural shock to all parties. They nod their heads with a new-found respect. We smile, and feeling ever-so slightly smug move along the increasingly busy path towards the sea, giant cliff looming. There is a faint scent of hubris in the air, but we are too near to our goal to heed it.
Still no signs for the theatre. BB thinks it might be up a random hill path, a 1 in 3 rabbit run.



He nips up, I stand with sticks, cluttering the narrow path but unable to take a single leap up this vertical bank. Attempting it will tip me backwards into the forest of Gunneras behind, and there is already a dead elephant ear on the path showing what a foible that would be.

I note that a toddler perished at this spot too, its dummy adorns a thistle. Very poignant. I need to proceed with caution.


BB appears at length, miles above me, and we agree I will follow the more orthodox route along the lower path. Relieved that I am not required to be a rabbit, I round the corner to discover four legs, a bleat and a pair of horns might help more than two legs and a pair of sticks. My squawk is more hen than goat.
Think 200 foot cliff, gibbon country, steps for giants, no handrails and the need for spring-loaded knees. I look at this amazing staircase rising up above my head, can't even see where it ends. The words, rock, hard place, and idiot spring to mind. The walk back to the car park and road is now too far behind me, there is nothing for it - up I go. At the first step I abandon my sticks and revert to being a toddler. Should've nicked that dummy when I had the chance. Hands still work, knees could do better. Young people skip past me, chattering, happy, some stop to ask if I am all right. Of course I am. I wave them on, resting on a step the height of a kitchen stool. This one I can't even rock myself up; I have to ask the Chinese girl behind me if she could give me a push.
'Every little helps!' I say merrily, slapping my bottom. She is flustered, turns out she doesn't understand a word of English, least of all a puffing old toddler enacting TV adverts. Suddenly I get a good old heave from behind, her mother has taken over bum duty. I thank them, recognizing there is only so much of this one can expect, or want, from a visitor to our shores. Pausing to catch my breath  I wonder what has happened to BB. I peer up, and peer down. I am equally stranded twixt top and bottom, unless a handy helicopter flies by. (Oh me, oh my!) I know it will, should I fall the hundred feet to the beach below, but then I'd miss the play. Perhaps I had the look of a jumper, because with more and more people streaming past, two young men ask if they can carry something. I want to reply, 'Yes, me!' but hand over my rucksack and the sticks with relief. Now I won't get tipped backwards by the weight on my back which is marginally heavier than the weight on my front. Must remember that for future mountaineering- a lighter pony pack. The lads kindly see me to the top as BB saunters down the path wondering where I had got to.
'Just be grateful you weren't there to see me crawl up this cliff,' I say. And looking at my red face, he is very grateful indeed.
 Sorry no pics of this episode. For some reason I forgot to ask those nice Chinese ladies if they could snap my arse before heaving it.

Having climbed 90 steps up, there is now a steep descent down to our seats in the stone amphitheatre, but a handrail is a wonderful thing. I mutter a prayer of thanks to their  patron saint. We are seated only a few rows from the stage, on hired cushions with backrests - £1 each, great value. The tickets were only £9, so apart from the marathon getting here, this is proving to be a great day out. The sea is churning not waving, the sky lowering not raining.  And we can eat our picnic overlooking the stage whilst waiting for the performance to begin. It is a spectacular venue, well worth getting scraped knees and soaked for.
The row in front of us is empty, but fifteen minutes before the show starts a coach load of young German students piles in to block our view. We are now sitting behind three tall jokers. A beautiful black boy, Chriss, who looks like he might advertise aftershave, or Calvin Klein knickers; a fair-haired crew-cut lad; and a standard spotty one. Chriss gets out his phone, puts it on video to film himself, checks and adjusts his already perfect hair. We watch this act of super-vanity with disbelieving delight. The wind is quite brisk, it undoes his manoeuvre with a nonchalant toss of the quiff, but fortunately Chriss is distracted by a strange demand.
'Chriss! Hand cream!' comes the shout, in English. We soon learn this is not because they speak perfect English, there is apparently no German word for this essential item.. 'Hand Cream!' the shout echoes amongst the boys in the group.
Are your mates taking the piss, Chriss? Apparently not: Chriss obligingly opens his little manicure bag, out comes a tube of hand cream and it is dispatched along the row of boys. Please note, this tube is not suncream, which might be sensible given that we are facing due south and should the sun come out we will all bake into a rows of crispy fried noodles faster than you can say Peking Duck.
Four times the cry goes up for hand cream. Chriss supplies four different varieties. What a star. These German lads must have the softest hands that do dishes in the whole theatre - while the rest of us have torn nails and grubby fingers from scaling those damned cliffs. I consider asking for a squirt myself, but Chriss and his admiring lads don't really do English, they giggle through the first half of the play, not at the words or actions, at their own  extraordinary wit. I keep thinking I will ask them to pipe down soon, but they are now effectively part of the show. Wouldn't want to miss any of it. We suspect they are here for reasons other than Thespian, and sure enough they don't reappear after the interval. Possibly the wind chapped their hands. The German girls, looking windswept and ordinary follow the whole play, laugh and clap in all the right places, no doubt with under-nourished hands, and are models of stoicism. What, we ask ourselves has happened to the German Male?

Dancing Queens

The play itself is very well acted by a theatre group from Stamford in Lincolnshire, and inspires us to actually read Wolf Hall on our iPads instead of keeping it for a rainy day.

One short shower of rain threatens our fun, but like good little campers we do not erect our brollies, oh no, but huddle under £1 macs from Poundsaver and a £1 tarpaulin. There is something oddly bracing about watching a play in the rain. If the actors can do it, so can we. Makes you proud.

Now it's time to ascend those very steep steps up the theatre and walk back to the campsite. Clouds are banking up, the sun a thing of distant memory. We take the main road down to the beach as the heavens open. By the time we reach the cliff tops on the far side, via numerous wrong turnings since those pesky piskies have stolen all the signs, we are leaking wet. But we don't care. We have waterproof skin under our macs, and the performance wasn't cancelled. We suspect the evening one will be declared null and void, an act of not just one God, but the whole damned raft of them.. It lashed down on the Duchess all night, but by this time we were in a paid-for electric hook-up site feeling we deserved that bottle of red and a fry up.

Carne, Candyfloss and Piskies- July 22nd - 23rd 2013

Carne, Candyfloss and Piskies- July 22nd - 23rd 2013

Onto our bikes, and into Truro to behave like grockles: shop, eat ice-cream, and stand around gawping at the town's touristy splendour in such a way as to block pavements, roads and generally get in everyone's way.



Our first task is to photograph the Cathedral. We are forced to do this from the outside. For some reason Exeter University is holding its graduation ceremony in Truro's Cathedral. Why can't it use it's own?  We never find out. It is hot, we are photographically thwarted and find a delicious-looking baker's shop to compensate.
'We'd like one of those wriggly loaves in the window please,' I say, feeling slightly cheered at the thought of this treat for our hosts. The man looks nonplussed.
'It looks like worms,' I add helpfully, realising a bit too late that my description isn't flattering. He extricates himself from his counter, goes to the window and looks at the mouth-watering display. Evidently my description has him very puzzled. He peers into the window as if this was some other fella's display
'Oh, a German pull-apart! Sorry, none of those left.'
What a liar. We can see it. Perhaps he doesn't like tourists. He points to the shelves behind the counter. There is a single plain loaf displayed.
'All we've got left.'
'Why display such tempting loaves if you don't sell them?' I ask, feeling doubly thwarted now.
'We've all sold out - those at the front aren't for sale, they're fake.'
I forbear to ask why, at midday, he has only got a fake bread and only a single real loaf left. Does no one in Truro buy bread in the afternoon? Perhaps this is a form of Cornish Logik. We are mere visitors and feel slightly wrong-footed by unfamiliar local custom. We wander off in search of something more emmet-friendly.
Ah, just the thing: buskers, they like anyone with cash. As we get closer it seems not only Green Flag men are still in short pants, so are buskers.

Their mum probably wants them out the house,
'Go fleece a few emmets!' she cries. Never mind her little darlings are so shy we can barely hear them sing or play, but they do get E for Effort and some pennies in the hat.



We buy a cupboard shelf for the Duchess, wonderful idea, utterly useless, find a tiny gypsy van that makes us actually feel tall - a strange experience. No doubt this diddy home is ideal for a Cornish Piskie. Perhaps it belongs to our under-age buskers. Either way, it's for sale. Would the Duchess like a sprog of her own, or is she post menopause? We could tow it behind her, use it for stray cats, seagulls, orphans...

We cycle back along the river, but the sun has a pressing date elsewhere. BB gets some nice shots across the river to that elusive Cathedral in the fading sun, I fall onto my bum, and  we return to our hosts for a perfectly, but unintentionally barbecued fish supper.

Monday 22nd July
We set off for Veryan, reputedly a very pretty beach. The road is Duchess-width; she gets her ribs tickled by hedgerows that should know better, vanquishes lesser beasts on every bend, but faced with a giant pantechnicon we finally surrender the idea of our chosen destination and divert the Old Girl to Carne Bay instead.

Here is a big unmonitored car park, (£2 donation in a granite tombstone), access to a wide sandy beach with ramp and handrail, no shops, some shallow rock pools, hardly any humans - probably because of a lack of retail therapy, and a few strikingly purple jellyfish.

Idyllic. Sun shines, all is happiness, and there are woolly rocks as well. Must be sundried candyfloss.
We find a whole bunch of those pesky piskies mocking us on the sand. We never see more than their feet of course, and their shadows. They are the reverse of Vampires, much kinder on the throat.

It is time to move on, leave our lovely hosts, and make our way down to Land's End. We try Sennen cove, but the car park there says no overnight parking. Why are they missing such a wonderful opportunity for a bit more easy revenue? Perhaps unspeakable things happen on the Cornish coast at night. With a history of smugglers, wreckers and the like, a few tourist sacrifices would surely be the stuff of future legends... But no, they don't want either our money or the Duchess anywhere near this bleak promontory, so we drive on towards Porth Curno and the Minack Theatre. We are surprised just how many possible laybys there are on the way. Cornwall is turning out to be an good place to wild camp, but we are becoming fussy. This is Corrnwall for God's sake, we want a sea view. On to Treen where there is not only a grassy car park that welcomes overnight Motorhomes for £3.50, but has a distant view of the sea as well. Perfect - until another camper parks right alongside us.
Why? A whole field the size of two football grounds, accommodating only four motorhomes (all regulation white), and you snuggle up to us, you silver-blue newbie. I will say that white campervan owners have better manners. Their prides-and-joy might be lacking in colour, but they wave at you on the road, speak to you off it, and leave you as much space as possible when parked up. We suspect it is the herding instinct that makes this shiny surfing van creep so close, safety in numbers in a soporific Cornish village obviously crawling with lethal piskies. The moon wishes us goodnight, and we curl up, looking forwards to the day ahead.

Truro Beckons, Sunday July 21st

We are due in Truro for a birthday lunch. That is one of the wonderful things about Cornwall, everywhere is so close together on this little peninsula. Two tin cans and a bit of string are all you need for communicating from South to North, East to West.
As we enter Truro we are delighted to see there is 'A New Hydrotherapy Suit' at the local vets. Surely this augurs well. Is it a one-size-fits-all suit? Come Cornish creatures great and small - gerbils, giraffes, guinea pigs, Great Danes. What wonderful new material shrinks and stretches like this? Perhaps the magic suit came out of the same stable as the robotic milker, another amazing new invention.
Listen to this, and I swear it's true, I heard it on Radio 4, and if that isn't Gospel these days, what is? No longer does the dairy farmer have to be up at the crack of dawn for his cows. They now have their very own milking parlour on tap 24 hours a day. Whenever they feel the urge to be milked, they wander into the robotic milking parlour, check in at the desk, and get milked by robots who never sleep - or smell of tobacco. The milk is pumped straight into containers, all without a human hand in sight. This means they often get milked thrice a day, and the net result, as any lactating mother knows, is an increase in milk production. How about that for a spot of genius? There has to be a dark side to this little ray of freedom for cows, but I have yet to discover what it is. Will they wear out quicker? Answers on a postcard.

We are received with joy at the birthday lunch, feasted, entertained, and then given a challenge working on the knotty problem of cats and seagulls. What problem and whats is the link between fur and and feathers - other than the usual sneak and squawk afflicting this charming town? It all comes down to the bins. Well, to be precise, the lack of them. Truro does not provide these handy items for its residents. Want a bin? Buy it yourself. No doubt the well-healed think nothing of buying a few bins, but for the rest of the town it is a weekly fight to keep black bin bags from the claws and beaks of night time marauders. An old curtain is recommended as a deterrent, but who has an old curtain? Not many it seems. To add insult to injury the Esteemed Council not only refuses to en-bin its residents, it also prosecutes them if their bags are ripped. There is something reminiscent of Pol Pot in this thinking, which is further seen in evidence at the local Tesco's - what is it about this otherwise delightful town?
To wit: would-be shoppers are instructed in large print that genuine Tesco customers can park for the first two hours for free. Regulation Superstore practice, so far so good. But this is stretching the truth from here to John O Groats: the small print below advises the shopper that free parking is only available for those who pay £3 shopping in-store.
'What!' we cry. 'What's free about that?'
Nothing, it turns out. The small print further reveals that your number plate is automatically recorded, so should you fail to spend £3 in Tesco and receive a parking ticket from the checkout, then feed this into a machine before you leave, they will fine you £40 rising to £70.

Now on this in auspicious day I was introducing BB to the delights of shopping with a scanner, something he has never had the good fortune to experience. As a result we are not issued with the requisite parking ticket at all: you have to go to Customer Service and request one. We rage helplessly. It is only by the merest good fortune that BB's suspicious ferrets insisted he investigate further. He got out the binoculars to read the smallest print before we left the car park and spotted the trap. Those less wary are tracked down via a Satanic pact with the DVLA. All very sinister. BB trots off, cursing, into Tesco again, has to find a man to issue a ticket, feed the parking meter and finally, out we go, never to return. From now on it's Sainsbury's, Aldi, anywhere - except Big Bully.
Don't get me wrong, Truro is a delightful town to visit, just steer clear of this car park. Sainsbury's on the other hand has genuinely free parking for 2.5 hours, no catches. They even let us park the Duchess sideways across three bays to avoid her delicate proboscis sticking out and blocking the lane - what more can you ask?
Right, back to the seagulls...
The task is to design a poster for local residents to encourage them to cover their bin bags. We need a simple catch phrase. BB says, why fix what ain't broke?
'Cats and Seagulls spread diseases, Cover up your bin bags please!'
I wanted to write Pleases, to rhyme, but was outvoted.
So that's the words, now the pictures.

This is the result: one happy host, two chuffed guests and a partridge in a bin bag.

Sunset calls along the river below the house, and photos are taken...

The Doc and His Number 1 Fan July 11th 3013

A quiet night in our Brit Stop, up early to photograph the exquisite river Exe and the other pub on its banks (drink there, eat here we were advised by someone at the Trout last night).
The Fisherman's Cott, has to be one of the prettiest pubs in England. We suspect its flood damage was even worse than at the Trout's. The thatched roof is certainly less golden, but with a huge willow tree,

and purple hanging baskets suspended above a lawn clippered within an inch of its life, this is Henley-eat-your-heart-out country.



Under the picture-book bridge are Ophelia-like swathes of green hair tugging to get free. This movement in the river, reflections, shallows breaking over rocks, set against the intermittent but careful cultivation along the banks is truly exquisite.

We move on towards Cornwall, BB at the wheel - this is serious knee-jerking territory.
'Look, small horses!' he exclaims.
I look.
'Aren't small horses called ponies?'
'They're Shetland horses.'
'And there was I thinking they were called Shetland ponies...'
Silence from the driver, then a giggle. BB has rebooted his positive hard drive. Hurray!
We pass through Half Moon, yes it is the name of a village, and it has a giant lay-by and a bacon sarnie cafe. Must remember that for another time, but for now we have a date with Cornwall, need to move on down the A30. After ten minutes there is a sign,'Long Delays!'  No doubt Kuala Lumpur Man at it again, but we'd better check as the sign didn't happen to mention which part of the A30 was blocked. With about a hundred miles of it ahead, we are spoilt for choice.
'Use your new App,' I suggest. I made BB buy it when we got marooned on the M5 yesterday, It is the sort of App you need to buy before you hit a Lumpur, not once you are stuck in its jam like a wasp.
We check. The entire A30 is red from a couple of miles ahead all the way through Bodmin and out the other side. So much for the A30 then. We exit and escape, make for Port Isaac, not Lanhydrock. (No, it doesn't have two lls, this isn't Wales. Keep up.)
PORT ISAAC:
We find a rare Cornish layby about two miles outside Port Isaac, stop off, unload the bikes and pedal off. It is a lovely day, sea regulation blue, cliffs rocky, cliff tops green - the sort of coast we only dream of up north.

Chaining the bikes at the top of the steep descent into Port Isaac we wander off down the hill.
'Does this path take us down to the village?' I ask a seafaring chap with a white beard and a salty look.
'No idea,' he replies, his accent is not Cornish - got that one wrong.
I ask the next couple.
'We only went a little way.' They are equally unhelpful, slightly apologetic for their lack of knowledge, but at least I have now located the source of their uselessness. They are Scottish.
'The coach leaves in five minutes,' they remind me kindly. I thank them, wondering what BB would make of it if I transferred to another tour, but I doubt I'd enjoy one of those where you get just enough time to pee, never enough to see.
Slightly anxious that what goes down, has to come up again and in such fierce sun, we  descend the steep path into Port Isaac.

Sea a deep green, a tiny little place, quaint, full of shops to buy ice cream, fish, souvenirs, pottery - all on the expensive side. A small loaf of pretty standard bread is £1.75, probably justified by the historic logic that if you make it into Port Isaac at all, you will feel pretty much marooned, and therefore willing to pay helpful natives far over the odds for your survival.

There is a lifeboat, and the cottage where Doc Martin lives. We know this because over a pint of cider we got chatting to a man from Lowton/Louton/ Loughton (take your pick on spelling we are not on Google today) no, not Luton - I made that mistake too. For this cheerful fella, think Piltdown Man and fast forward 15,000 years. Looking the authentic old grizzled sea captain, it turns out he's a computer man from Essex. Well, that's about right for a modern Piltdown person. He spends all his holidays in Port Isaac waiting to find the courage to boot out his adult kids so he can sell up and buy a place down here. He is at a loss how to do this and feels his life is draining away.
'Charge them rent,' I suggest, ' And write out a list of terms and conditions they have to abide by, or lose their roof.'
He looks at me as if I'd just invented alchemy. I do believe he actually had no strategy of his own until that point. There is an expression of relief, even revelation. Let us hope epiphany.
'I like a woman who comes straight to the point,' he says. 'Most women are a mystery to me, they always seem to want you to know what's going on in their heads. Leaves me in the dark.' He sounds puzzled, wounded.
'No chance of being left in the dark here mate,' BB chips in with possibly a little too much feeling. But he is right, there isn't a chance. After how many aeons of women waiting for men to decide every detail of their lives - still so popular today in parts of the world today - it's now or never girls. It isn't Alchemy or even a mystery why we are a mystery, it's the unhappy result of being forced to play a complicated game of social chess resulting in expedient dissembling and reticence. If this survival tool got us a name for being mysterious, aka devious, manipulative, hard to read -. just playing by your rules, mate. So don't give me the old, 'Can never work them out routine.'

Seagull extra, fine profile. 

Of course I don't dump this lot on Loughton Man, it's not exactly his personal fault that the entire mind of Woman has got a bad name. He looks quite sorry for himself, feels a victim of some female plot. It would take too long to explain that his ancestral heritage backfired.
''I could do with a woman like you,' he says with feeling.
'Nice of you to ask, afraid I'm taken.'
'No, I didn't mean....' He looks anxiously at BB, things like this can get you into a lot of trouble in Loughton. BB is grinning.
'Good sandwich?' he asks.
Loughton Man is eating a delicious-looking crab sarnie, but leaving the soft crusts in neat stripes across his platter. His mum probably taught him to do that in 1952. Why break an old habit if it works I say. BB finds it quite astonishing behaviour in a grown man, but unlike me, finds himself able to keep his thoughts from popping out of his mouth in anything above a mutter. He goes to order a sandwich, comes back from the bar, eyes popping.
'At £9.50 this had better be brilliant.'
Fortunately it is, and the salad is actually dressed, but Loughtom Man is a hunter not a gatherer. He eats the bits of raw onion, leaves the rest. Must be a Loughton thing, no crusts and raw onion. Effectively he paid £9.50 for four tiny triangles of bread. The streets of Loughton we begin to suspect, must be paved with gold. Wrong. We learn all is not an idyll, his life will only be complete when he lives in this particular Cornish retreat.
'Oh, so you have friends here?'
'No, not really.'
'What will you do here when you move then - will you get a boat?'
He looks a trifle surprised by the question, it appears he hasn't thought further than moving house from the Big Bustle to this tiny salted tourist-trap-on-sea. He shakes his head, looks alarmed.
'Oh no, no boat! The tides are too dangerous round here.'
'Perhaps you'll take up fishing'?' I was struggling to understand the attraction of living in a place like this without spending some time in, or on the sea. Loughton Man helps me out.
'Lovely people here, they're friendly to dogs.'
We are very glad to hear it, wouldn't want the RSPCA prosecuting the natives.
'Ah, so you have you a dog then?' we ask, looking down at the mutt under the table.

'No, no I don't, that isn't mine.'
The conversation threatens to stall, we have run out of ideas but Loughton Man has warmed up, is on a roll.
'When I move here I'm going to get a dog like they have inside the pub. A cockerpoo.'
Words fail us. BB is inwardly convulsing, I know the signs; he thinks the pub owners are taking the piss. He doesn't get to Crufts much.
'A cockerpoo, how lovely!' I exclaim, wondering which genius thought that would sound better than a Poodlecock.
'Lovely dogs,' I'm assured by our happy new friend. 'Cost quite a bit you know.'
'I'm sure they do. I once had a Springolurch, mind you I was paid to take it away.'
BB murmurs in my ear,
'Didn't they used to be called mongrels, free to a good home?'
I keep a straight face and am rescued by Loughton Man pointing across the bay,
'See that cottage there, that's Doc Martin's! I was an extra in the latest series.'

By accidental good fortune, at the far right is the Doc's cottage - we think.  Or we might have missed it altogether. Fans feel free to put us right..

He is very proud of this. We wonder how he will cope when the glamour of TV crews and famous actors have gone home for good, but he is very animated telling us the nitty gritty of film practice.
'Doc Martin never goes inside the cottage you know, you see him open the door, but the interiors are all shot in a studio over the hill.'
A ripple of shock goes through us. In spite of the fact that we never watch this programme, we felt cheated on behalf of those who do.
Sadly it is time to leave Loughton Man, we feel certain if we return, he will be there to greet us in 15,000 years time, but now it is time to visit the local pottery shop situated inside an old chapel where The Fisherman's Friends - no, not the lozenges - practice their Cornish music. At least the place has found a new use, and it isn't a Bureau de Change. We aren't the table turning types anyway, we leave without a purchase - not disapproving trade in a church, but the price tags are beyond us. Was that the problem all along?
Probably the maximum time an average visitor (with the sole exception of Loughton Man) would want to spend in Port Isaac is about one hour perambulating, one hour eating. Allow a further half hour for finding and looking at the exterior of Doc Martin's cottage if required. Then it is time to ascend the hill past the metal sculptures and head back to the coach/car or electric bikes.

Port Isaac sculpture - we didn't check the price tag

A possibly more interesting sculpture (NFS)

We set off to find a spot to park up for the night and head towards Padstow. Somewhere between St Columb and St Merryn, BB finds the ideal site in an unused farm gateway overlooking a waving barley field, with windmills on the horizon.
Yes, I know some of you out there prefer to call them turbines, but we like the word windmills, finding the name romantic, their action compelling in often bland rural scenes. they are a dramatic POI. We have yet to find a turbine romantic though many are magnificent, and suggest that anyone who has an antipathy to these elegant giants changes their nomenclature and then sees how they feel about them. You never know, it might help.

To us they bring the same joy as a wave to an ocean, a fountain to a fishpond. The perpetual motion drawing the eye, and the sheer scale of those pristine columns quite humbling. Windmills also have a secret life of their own. We have yet to see an entire cluster in full working order. (Is cluster the collective for a group, or is it a ripple, a roundness?) There is always one windmill refusenik. They always say that is due to maintenance, but we came on an entire roundel of windmills on strike, on a very blustery day. Ten of them stuck in space with nary a twirl between them. What's that about, wind blowing, windmills wedged? To see something designed to spin, refusing to do what it was made for, is as strange as seeing barley refusing to ripple in gale force 10. Windmills are creatures of mystery, possibly magic, so here we are, almost hidden from sight by honeysuckle and rose hedges within photographic shot of a huge Windmill Wedding.  Tall ones, small ones, dissenting ones, consenting ones, towering over us. What more can we want?

Spot the duchess

A heavenly spot somewhere - no idea where. That is the magic of wild camping, you think you will find nowhere to stop as it is getting dusk, slight panic sets in, you note five possible places if nothing else turns up and then, there it is, the perfect pull-over. You know you will never find it again, so the moment is all the sweeter.

Wild Sunrise

Westward Bound July 19th 2013

This is a sample of Things to Come: The Trout Inn, somewhere in Devon - just asked and it's Bickleigh near Tiverton.

After a long day in the scorching saddle, we have found heaven at this beautifully thatched and coutured pub where we can stay overnight in their car park for nothing. More of that later...
Back to the Beginning:

Irrifutable evidence of 2013 heatwave

The Duchess threw a wobbly on the motorway today. We think she was just objecting to a change of driver in the middle of a traffic jam on the M5. I surrendered the wheel to BB as my knees no longer respond to the calf-high clutch with joy. The moment the swap was made, the Duchess faltered and stalled in the middle lane. We suspect it was in deference to her age and status, that  the rest of the traffic stalled too. We pulled over and had a 2 hour cooling off period - for the Duchess and our melting feet.
As we wait for rescue, with traffic streaming past in tight formation,  BB's newfound positivity visibly wilts. It's mixture of heat-stroke and hope-loss.
It wasn't that he thought the Duchess was terminally doomed - he feared our holiday was: that we would be transported back from whence we came only this morning, ignominiously on a trailer. Having deeply celebrated leaving both work and home only four hours earlier, the anticipated humiliation was making him miserable. I have to say he is a very fine worrier when the opportunity presents itself.
It is wonderful to be gifted with a quicksilver brain, but if you have ever tried doing one of those puzzles tipping the slippery stuff down a labyrinth, you will know how hard it is to control those jiggly little blighters, rolling and splitting off all over the place. Give me a good old lava flow of a brain any day. You know exactly where it is going, how long you've got to empty the bins, rescue your photos, and still have time to phone a friend. I am prone to worrying after the event, not before, which is why we complement each other like a pair of perfect Plum Duffers. In fact I recommend installing single-line panicking tracks into any union. Check them out before you set off anywhere, even up to bed. If you both panic in unison it is unlikely you will get much further than the first iceberg. You could sing a rousing song as the ship goes down, but don't expect serviceable lifeboats.
Perceiving signs of a weary body and ferreting mind, I read BB extracts from previous holiday blogs long forgotten, mostly in the hope of distracting his ferrets. I am hoping that like the spurious motorway signs from Derby to Bristol prophesying doom on the road. ahead, our problems will be just as ephemeral. It turned out that the forewarned traffic problems only existed in the mind of the traffic controller - probably based in Kuala Lumpur. Perhaps he didn't know he had post different signs for North and Southbound traffic. Whilst the Northbound traffic stalled for twenty miles, ours hardly faltered, and kindly arranged its sole fit of hiccups to coincide with the Duchess's.
Finally when I was beginning to run out of distractions, a Little Green Flag Van draws up behind us, and out steps a little green man - who as BB observed, was aged possibly twelve and a half. More to the point he wasn't waving any sort of flag. That was quite disappointing. We like a flag.
The green boy looked totally lost when we described the problem (engine runs, but power fails) however since he was only in Year 8, his lack of ideas was hardly surprising. More surprising was the fact that his Headmaster had allowed him to cover his arms in tattoos, and drive a van.
Given that he was obviously bunking off from double science we didn't actually expect him to diagnose anything, but he obligingly unscrewed an air pipe, screwed it back on again, and the Duchess came to back life at the first ask. We suspect she just got overheated and needed a couple of hours off piste, she's an old girl and the temperature was up in the 90's so she can be forgiven.
Relieved to say goodbye to the little green lad and his little green van, we set off again, travelling rather later than we'd hoped, down the A38 from Weston-Super-Mare (cue Psalm 115, 'The sea saw that and fled') towards Tiverton. But tempus had flown too, so back onto the motorway hoping to reach a pub in time for grub, and find a spot to park up for the night.

Trout Inn Car Park - aka campsite

Tiverton seemed dead, so with dusk falling we drove into Bickleigh, saw a spacious car park for the Trout Inn and went inside.
'Greetings!' cried the man behind the bar. 'And what can I do for you?'
'Answer me questions two,' I reply - feeling like someone in a fairy tale. 'First, are you still serving food?'
'Indeed we are!' says the cheerful host.
'Second, could we park our van in your car park overnight please?'
'Indeed you can! For free! We are a Brit Stop.'
'We aren't after a ten-second tyre change...'
He grins.
'Like on the continent, you can stay over for free in certain places, and we are one of them. There's a sticker on the door.'
'Very cheery, isn't he,' I observe to the waitress who is passing, hands laden with the most scrumptious looking grub. I have to restrain BB from following her.
'Hmm, it's just an act,' she confides. 'Wife's covered in bruises...'

BB and I suspect this is heaven. Food, bed - and a sticker - offered just when the sun is setting and we have had more than enough of this day. We order the most wonderful, interesting fish dishes, lightly spiced squid for BB( £9) and panfried fresh mullet fillets with new potatoes in an oily, lemony, minty, caper sauce with green beans for me (£11). Both utterly delicious, and the same price as the Yorkshire Bridge Inn, which wasn't. The best meal out we've had on our travels, and a chocolate mousse to finish with.
The owners, Nathan our cheery host, and wife Emma (unbruised - we checked) opened the pub with friends Rob and Fi last August. They re-thatched and renovated it, got flooded to ankle height in November, undaunted, got themselves an ace chef, and were opening for Christmas when the heavens opened, the rivers, drains and all hell, rose up to hip height on Dec 22nd. Christmas was drowned, but they got back to business by Boxing Day. A remarkable story, and a remarkable menu.

 This is a 4x4  job. Bring magnifying glass.

On top of this they provide public toilets for, well, the public, and free overnight space for motor homes under a relatively new scheme called Brit Stop, the sister of France Passion. (Do try to use a French accent, it sounds naff in English.) The idea is for businesses to attract punters with motor homes, (not caravans, god forbid, they're a totally different sub species, don't get me started...) by offering overnight accommodation, in the hopes you will purchase their wine, cheese or other commodity. And, as everyone who has watched the Tour de France knows, France has the best line in posh Motorhomes this side of the Atlantic - clever move.
You aren't obliged to buy a thing, but by relying on an ancient technique perfected by the Catholic church, and therefore tailor-made for French campers, success is pretty much guaranteed. Who can take something for free and not feel morally obliged to cough up for the alms tray? We can vouch this technique works just as well for Brits Stopping too. It felt like a free night, and technically it was, but in fact cost us nearly £40 in food and drink. You have to be hard of heart and short of cash to resist the charms of Jim the sacred Exe River-chef of the Old Trout's kitchen in Bickleigh. And besides Mine Hosts were so charming and chatty it would be churlish not to fill their coffers as fast as they filled our glasses.

Blue Trout at night, a diners delight