Kevin's LEJOG Day 2: Mousehole to Rosevidney Barton

Weather: Sunny with cool breeze
Distance covered today: 15.1km (9.3mi)
Last night's B&B: Panache (£35)
% Complete: 2.0%GPS satellite track of today's route: Day 2

The BBC said the weather would be good today, but they needed a few more superlatives!  A calm, blue sea, blue sky, warm sun and a gentle cooling breeze from the South. If you try to imagine the perfect conditions for walking, you will simply not be able to come up with anything better!  This was good because I was feeling a little jaded after yesterday’s lengthy walk, followed by a walk to and from the pub last night, and it felt as if it was going to be a long day. I had deliberately planned a shorter walk for today as I had guessed it might be more difficult.

To begin with, I felt stiff and sore and the pack felt dreadfully heavy. Suddenly, General  Freyberg appeared in my mind’s eye, giving me a particularly disparaging glare. You’ll remember General Freyberg; he of the flinty eye with the VC on his chest, who accompanied me on the North Downs Way from his grave on St Martha’s Hill. He took one look at me bent forward under the weight of the pack and, in his clipped Sandhurst accent, overlaid with a noticeable Antipodean drawl, he suggested that on this form, I would be lucky to make Bodmin Moor, let alone John O’Groats.

I explained to him that I was convinced I would get fitter and stronger along the way, and he growled that if his soldiers had had a similar approach to training and preparation, he wouldn’t have won a single battle.  He demanded to know why the pack felt heavier than it did on the North Downs Way training sorties?  Slightly abashed, I told him that, well, in the trauma of packing to leave home (I mean, base) for three months, I had in the end put in a few extra things for my comfort on the long slog. “Well, there you are, man!  What kind of idiot are you?  Focus on the job! You want to walk to John O’Groats; not fail in ignominious comfort!! Get rid of the surplus! Tonight!!”  I told him I’d think about it, and he disappeared, shaking his head in a bit of a huff.

Fortunately, his place was taken by a fellow called Peter, who chose to join me while I was eating my sandwich on a bench looking out to sea, near Marazion and St Michael’s Mount.  Peter told me he ran a holiday camp that he had inherited from his father and he was just getting some fresh air before the hordes descended from London for the Easter holidays. 

We talked a bit about the economy in the South West, but the conversation wasn’t really going anywhere until somehow we got onto the subject of music. It turns out that Peter is passionate about the band “Queen”. He had personally been to a concert when Freddie Mercury was still alive and it was the most moving experience of his life! He has been a faithful supporter of the band ever since, and I told Peter that I had actually walked past and recognised Roger Taylor’s house “Millhanger”, a magnificent mansion in darkest Surrey, but that I understood that Taylor had sold the house.  Peter looked at me with new respect!

He confirmed that indeed Taylor had sold the house and had bought instead Puttenham Friary, yet another estate which I have passed on my walks. I explained that the friary was much less public than Millhanger which may have been the reason, and Peter agreed! He told me that Taylor had also bought the “biggest house in Cornwall” at Helford, just up the coast, complete with its own helipad. He left to get back to his duties after giving me the warmest of handshakes, and I was left to reflect that a few hundred years ago, a conversation such as this would have been all about the aristocracy buying and selling estates. How different the new aristocracy!

And while I was thus ruminating, a large helicopter took off behind me, in the livery of “British International”. It was of course en route to the Scilly Isles and caused me to think nostalgically that Veronica and I had once used that very service to get to St Mary’s for our honeymoon, when it was run by British Airways. I understood from Peter that the service is closing as it makes no money, though there is a possibility that it might restart further down the coast.

I put it all behind me and set off again for Marazion, where I had to make a sharp left-hand turn up Virgin Hill. I got to thinking that this must be where the merry maidens of yesterday’s stone circle came from, and I became even more convinced when the next little village turned out to be Truewall. I had this terrible vision of what must have happened in those far off days when the virgins were found to have been merry maidens when interrogated at the Truewall! No wonder they were turned to stone. Turns out Cornwall is a rather earthy place. Yesterday, I even walked past a rock out to sea called Shag Rock! And I’m just a couple of miles from St. Erth!  Shiver me timbers!

And after that little bit of unspeakable misogyny, I had better get back to my important duties, most pressingly, a small pile of dirty washing. Serves me right! Thank goodness for the sunshine! 

 Penzance from near Mousehole

 The attractive working harbour of Newlyn

Please, please can I come with you?

A proper Post Office

British International to The Scilly Islands

St Michael Mount

A fair place to blog!