The Cornish Coast

Image via Wikipedia

Just returned from a lovely week away on the north Cornish coast.  We stayed at a lovely holiday home called Azinby in Mary St Week, not far from Bude, and the great thing about this holiday let is that it caters for the beach.  She has all the gear – mats, body boards, bucket and spades.  It is their second home so she also has the basics – tea, coffee, ketchup, jam, cereals, etc.  The only let down was that the local pub closed just a couple of weeks ago (hmm, wonder if mother-in-law, or mother, had a hand in that…).  We went during scarecrow week – the locals all make scarecrows and put them up outside their properties.  We thought we’d stumbled into some bizarre Cornish pagan ritual at first and wouldn’t let the children out of the door (we’ve all seen The Wicker Man).  How we laughed when we discovered it was a fund-raising event!  Ahem.  The scarecrows were weird – there were teeny pixies flying about a front garden (strung on fishing line), Eddie the Eagle, butchers, olympic runners, Rosie and Jim, a clergyman, Spongebob and Patrick, farmers – one did wonder at the occupation of the home owners…

The weather – although wet it was warm and once you’re in the sea it really doesn’t matter whether it’s raining or not, does it?

All things cornish – well we really only really tried the ice-cream and beer, both of which were delicious.  FYI St Austell Brewery‘s Tribute.

We had a peek at the castle in Tintagel.  If you’re a real King Arthur/Arthurian legend fan than I recommend you don’t watch the pre-climb video.  Lovely views and a wonderful climb – the steps can be steep in places and slippery when wet (it’s slate), so be really careful with little ones.  The dizzying drops aren’t all cordoned off so please be extra vigilant.  I could write much about the experience but I’ll let you try it for yourselves.  I will say this though – they did an awfully good job in repairing the walls, so much so it makes one wonder…  Oh, and don’t bother taking the jeep up and down, it isn’t that far.  They do sell some super swords at the shop, though – best not to buy one if you intend to fly – and King Arthur’s car park is not as exciting as it sounds.

The Monkey Sanctuary is closed from Sun-Thurs.  I only mention this because we turned up on the Friday…with two very disappointed and tired children after an hour’s drive.

The Museum of Witchcraft – fantastic, if you like witches, the occult and all things paranormal, otherwise it’s more a case of ‘they need better lighting in here’ and many utterances of ‘I can’t believe it isn’t age restricted!’.  If your little ones are still uneducated in the reasons why men and women are built differently then they won’t be by the end of this tour, unless they are really unobservant.  Unfortunately, they don’t sell replicas like other museums.  I’ll leave you to wonder what I would have bought.

Crackington Haven is a wonderful little cove.  Small enough that you aren’t in danger of losing your children to long-shore drift (look it up), lovely sandy spots, stunning geological features (the strata flips position from one side to the other), rock pools, rock formations that look like sleeping dragons and are great to clamber over, two cafés to choose from, a guy who hires wet suits and boards…dare I mention the fit RNLI guys?

So, a lovely relaxing holiday.  Oh, there was one hiccup: I wrenched a muscle in my back and couldn’t do anything for a whole afternoon and evening except sit in bed and read while hubby kept me topped up with drinks and drugs.  Not such a big hiccup, then.  I read three Cecilia Ahern books.  I’d always meant to try her stuff and am glad I had the opportunity.

Oh, before I forget, the other advantage is that we found it really hard to get a phone signal so hubby was forced to shut down and relax!

PS I came home to find over 200 spam comments.  So NOT funny!

Please support the RNLI, especially if you use them!