LEJOG Day 11: Liskeard to Golberdon

Weather: Wall to wall sun with a cool breeze

Distance covered today:15.6km (9.7 mi)

Last night's B&B: TheNebula Hotel B&B (£35)

% Complete:10.2%

GPS satellite track of today's route: Day 11 (click!)

My slightly worrying obsession with avoiding “A” roads is leading to ever longer legs, so it is a good thing that I planned shorter routes for the earlier part of the journey.  Today’s dogleg almost doubled the “crow’s flight” distance, but I am delighted that it did.

Firstly, it is impossible to imagine a more perfect day for walking! The sun shone all day, with just a hint of a small, puffy, white, English cloud sometimes in the distance, driven slowly onward by a refreshingly cool breeze behind my back. My route took me to a magical place via a couple of delightful river valleys with evocative names. Everything here has names. So I crossed the River Seaton at Stony Bridge, the diddy River Tiddy at Trehunsey Bridge (the use of that adjective is dedicated to Veronica, her Head Groom Jo, and Jo’s dog, Diddy) and the River Lynher at Bicton Mill Bridge. If these are added to the four rivers I crossed the previous day, it all adds up to the crossing of seven rivers in two days, not in itself all that remarkable, but given that every time the steep descent is followed by a stiff climb, I have I think earned my enjoyment of the crossings.

But I digress. I mentioned magic earlier, and as I approached my destination for the day, I noticed a public footpath along the Lynher just beyond the mill, which looked inviting enough to persuade me to take the detour.  I don’t know whether it has to do with my education or the idiosyncrasy of my background, but I have an image of rural England buried somewhere in my subconscious that is seldom reflected in reality. This is the world of Enid Blyton, the Famous Five and the Secret Seven, a world as far removed from my African experience as it is possible to imagine.

I entered that land today, on a lovely path alongside a babbling brook (I never thought I would ever write that, but that’s what it did; it babbled!!), through green grass, punctuated by wild flowers, with bushes and trees and birds and bees and butterflies and nettles and everything I could imagine from my youth, all there, nothing missing and not another soul in sight! I suppose health and safety would prevent any young seven year-olds from playing there unattended in this new world, but if so, they are paying a hefty price.  Certainly there was no-one else there to share it with me. Only with difficulty could I drag myself away, and head once more upwards to Golberdon.

For want of something better to do I took a series of pictures of wild flowers. I’m going to need help identifying them, as I’m useless at that, partly because Veronica is normally my resident encyclopaedia on all things natural, but also because my education is sorely lacking in this respect, which leads me to my “Rant of the Day”.

I was educated by English Jesuits in a catholic boarding school in Grahamstown, South Africa. The school was already an anachronism when I went there. The Jesuits had a puritanical approach to education in which the sciences and the classics played a big part. But their charges, many of Italian and Portuguese extraction could not have been less interested. The Jesuits tried to persuade me to do an extra year of school, so-called Post Matric, which would have involved studying Philosophy, Theology, Higher Mathematics and Ancient History.

Instead, I went to the USA on a scholarship and did a final year of school there, studying Psychology, Sociology, Fine Art, American History, Physics and Chemistry. To say that I enjoyed the change would be a huge understatement. The fresh approach to education of the Americans was stimulating in itself. For example, my American Physics teacher decided that the Jesuits had taught me more Physics than he knew. He promptly ordered me to teach the class in some of the relevant areas, while he sat at the back, taking notes!  I can’t see that happening in an English classroom in a hundred years, and yet, why not? It certainly meant that of an evening, I studied till I was squint to make sure I didn’t get anything wrong the following day! And it certainly taught me how to do a presentation.

But my point is that despite all that education nowhere was there any Botany or Biology. The Jesuits and their charges regarded these as “girlie” subjects and no reputation would have survived even a passing brush with them. The result was that I was able to translate Ovid with some difficulty from the Latin, but I still don’t know a stamen from a stigma! I certainly don’t know the names of even the commonest of the English wild flowers. Veronica is always rather positive about the Jesuits and my education, but I feel they have a lot to answer for, and I suspect that I will be having conversations with my old Director of Studies, Father Johnson PhD, as I proceed on my way. My concern at present is that he and General Freyberg may turn out to have too much in common!

We shall see!

 Youngsters enjoying themselves in Liskeard. Almost the same as home, just somehow a little less aggressive!

The road down to the River Seaton, with the climb beyond!

Perfect walking weather!

The mill race and the old mill-wheel at Bicton Mill, now a private house

The entrance to my magic garden!

The path led along the river bank. Not a proper path. Just flattened grass.

 Then the brook babbled! OK it's a bit more like a stream....

Here come the flowers. No 1 is a Veronica or Common Field-speedwell (perhaps?)

No 2 is Garlic Mustard (maybe?)

No 3: Meadow cranes-bill (possibly?)

No4: Common Dog-violet (could it be? Except it looks blue!)

No 5: Red Campion (except it looks purple?)

No 6: Is this a violet again? (this is very confusing!)

No 7:What on earth is this?

No 8: An unfolding plant. They look good on slow-motion movies. Do they have a name?

No 9: Primrose!!!