LEJOG Day 6: Come to Good to Tregony

Weather: Cloudy, then sunny and windy

Distance covered today: 16.5km ( 10.3 mi)

Last night's B&B: Come to Good Farmhouse (£40)

% Complete: 5.5%

GPS satellite track of today's route: Day 6 (click!)

I should have worried!  Last evening, when I had read the blurb for the King Harry Ferry, it had assured me that the Ferry operated every 20 minutes throughout the year.  Except, that is, early this April when it had to go into dry dock!!  It doesn’t say anything about that in the local publicity blurb, though I now find that it does say so quite clearly on the website; or at least it does now!
 
Anyway, at breakfast this morning, one shared with a rather prim couple from Dorset, my hostess, Sue, casually asked me where I was going and the problem emerged. All of a sudden I was into the 27 mile detour I had feared last evening and my schedule was in chaos!  I might have had to detour via Truro, find another B&B and cancel the next free day. But the real trouble was that I would have been forced to walk the “A” roads and that would have been unpleasant and dangerous.

Sue was nothing if not inventive. Under fairly continuous, and much resented, instruction from her husband, Sue phoned an array of numbers with no result. Most phones remained unanswered. “Cornwall!”, she said.  I went off to pack my things, resolving to take my medicine and sacrifice what I had hoped would be a lovely day doing the back roads of Cornwall and the ferry. But I was underestimating Sue!  By the time I returned to the kitchen, she had unearthed a boatman in the village of Loe Beach, by name Alistair, and he had agreed to ferry me across the river in his own boat.

I resisted their invitation to take me there in their 4-wheeler and set off at a fast clip through the village of Feock to the exquisite little resort of Loe Beach, where I found Alistair next to a colleague who was teaching a bleached blond the principles of sailing. Alistair dragged himself away and went to fetch his boat. There was no jetty, but I managed to clamber aboard without getting water into my boots and we set off on a fascinating trip to the King Harry Ferry site. On the way we passed the famous Trelissick Gardens and Lord Falmouth’s huge pile in this really beautiful estuary, besmirched only by the presence of an enormous car carrier, riding out the recession in a cheap and sheltered cove.
 
For those of you who are being anal about my statistics, I’m pleased to announce that I have adjusted all of today’s statistics to exclude the boat ride, though of course you will still see me motoring along in the estuary at great speed if you look at the Everytrail page!

I’m not sure whether it was my enthusiasm or Alistair’s kind heart, but he kept wanting to show me other treasures. In the end I persuaded him I needed to get on, secretly worrying that he would adjust upwards the fare that had been agreed before we set off. I needn’t have worried!  When we landed at a jetty next to a café closed for the winter, he decided that he had enjoyed the trip so much that he reduced the fee!

I felt so exhilarated by the whole affair that I decided to be even more inventive in my selection of short-cuts through the ensuing rural countryside.  I soon realised that I was again off the beaten track and the dreaded Cornish footpaths conspired to ensnare me yet again. At one point, I had to scale a giant wall or retreat at least a mile. My foot slipped and I grabbed some foliage to prevent a fall, realising too late that I had grabbed a fistful of nettles! Hasn’t happened to me since I was 7!

On the plus side though, I listened through earphones to a wonderful BBC programme on the cuckoo that my brother-in-law, Julian, had told me about, and which I had downloaded from the internet onto my mobile phone. There can be few greater pleasures than walking through the English countryside in spring while listening to the Beeb at its finest, describing the wonders of nature!

Tomorrow is a rest day, so no walk and no blog post! It’s also the last of my three-day weeks! Next up, its four days and escalating!  

In my B&B garden this morning. Not a Nuthatch? What is it?

Now they tell me!!

This the water I had to cross

And this is Alistair - the man to get me there!

And this is a car carrier ship, laid up for the recession in the estuary

And this is the same river, just 10km upstream. How can such a small river feed such a huge estuary?

Passed on my walk this morning; the entrance to "The Secret Garden"??

LEJOG Day 5: Carharrack to Come to Good

Weather: Brilliant sunshine and warm

Distance covered today: 10.7km ( 6.7 mi)

Last night's B&B: Benson's (£35)

% Complete: 4.6%

GPS satellite track of today's route: Day 5

Having talked about the tin and copper business yesterday, I intended to give it a break today, but I find myself just too interested to let go. At breakfast this morning, a particularly lazy one as I didn’t have far to walk today, I got talking to my hostess, Sue. She was a mine of information (sorry!) on the history of the tin and copper in the area.

The only reason I chose to go to Carharrack was because her B&B, (named after their dog, Benson) was conveniently placed. I had no idea that the three villages of Carharrack, Gwennap and Lanner were once the epicentre of the local mining industry.  According to a local publicity pamphlet, this area was widely known as the “richest square mile in the world” in the middle of the 19th century, (though one sometimes wonders how these things were measured).

Just imagine if I had been walking down the road and had similarly chanced upon this place 150 years ago.  I would have found myself in the midst of a crazy mining boom, comparable to those in Johannesburg, Kimberley and California. I might have become “Kevin, the tin magnate” or “Kevin, the copper baron”.  On the other hand, knowing my track record I probably would have bought in just as the market crashed. Which it did spectacularly in Carharrack! Unlike the ores in Camborne and Redruth, where they discovered tin under the copper, there was no such luck at Carharrack and the decline was sudden and complete as the bottom did indeed fall out of the copper market through immense over-supply.  The entire industry died in a very short time and the population declined precipitously.

The atmospheric names remain. There are signs pointing to places such as “The Great Flat Lode” and “Wheal Jane”.  Even the villages have entertaining names such as Sunny Corner, Coldwind and Little Beside. The village I am staying in tonight rejoices in the name of “Come to Good”, which I suspect has more to do with a very old, local, Quaker meeting hall than a sense of having struck it rich underground!

Yet the local environment is still paying the price. My route today enabled me to return to the bridle paths and the tracks, and hence to avoid the “B” roads. The paths in this part of Cornwall are much improved, possibly as a result of the greater population of both people and horses. In any case, I travelled off the metalled way for much of the day, and then suddenly, I found myself in the “Bissoe Valley Nature Reserve”. This peculiar little park runs along the Carnon River and thereby hangs a tale.

The river itself looks peculiar with very red banks and bottoms and remarkably clean water flowing through it.  Eventually a noticeboard informed me that there had been an environmental disaster when the waters from a disused mine had suddenly flooded the local area and poisoned the environment all the way to the sea. A major reclamation project was established and ran until the environment was restored. To this day a much reduced operation is permanently in operation, paid for by the Dept. of the Environment (i.e. the taxpayer), draining the mines, cleaning the water and sending it off to the sea. The area covered by the initial reclamation project has now been given to the nation as this nature reserve.  Hence the clean water over the red soil!

I am currently sitting in a perfectly delightful pub for my evening meal, a mile or two from Come to Good, called the Punchbowl and Ladle which has been here since the 15th Century and eventually served the trade headed towards The King Harry Ferry over the Fal River. This is good because I need to use the ferry tomorrow to get to my next port of call, and the alternative, I am informed is a 27 mile detour, something which is well beyond me!

Before I left home, I phoned to find out if the Ferry was operating at this time of year. Time and again, there was no answer. I decided to take a chance!  It turns out that this particular ferry is rated amongst the 8 most celebrated ferries in the world and has been operating every twenty minutes with incredible reliability for centuries.

I needn’t have worried!

 These mining/industrial skeletons continued to dominate the landscape

Today, I took to the bridal paths and trails, and the result was hugely satisfying

 

You wouldn't, by any chance, just possibly, have some Polos on you, would you?

The very first bluebell of my spring!

The river in the Bissoe Valley Nature Reserve. The sign said "Don't touch the water!"

LEJOG Day 4: Little Pengelly to Carharrack

Weather: Sunny with a cool breeze

Distance covered today: 22.0km ( 13.4 mi)

Last night's B&B: Little Pengelley (£40)

% Complete: 4.0%

GPS satellite track of today's route: Day 4

Yesterday was a rest day and, to be honest, I felt a little foolish taking a rest-day after only 3 days of walking! But, when Veronica and I had initially discussed it, we decided that it would be better for me to work up to a normal schedule and avoid the risk of an early injury that might jeopardise the whole enterprise.
 
In the event I was delighted that I did!  For a start, I chanced on a perfectly charming B&B, and was hosted by Robert and Maxine in wonderful style and great comfort for the two nights!  Robert went to great lengths to make me feel comfortable, even to the point of installing a wifi repeater so that I had a 5-star connection in my bedroom. He introduced me to his very diverse  group of local friends, who seem to have many things in common, especially a rather profound affection for a good pint!  Also, completely off his own bat, he invited me to accompany him to Porthlevin where he was maintaining his authentic Cornish fishing boat. I wouldn’t otherwise have got there, and I’m very pleased I did. I have specifically designed my route to avoid the South West Coastal Path, which I intend to cover at some future time, but it did seem a pity that I wouldn’t see some of the gems of the Cornish coast, and Porthlevin certainly is that.

When I took my leave of Robert and his friends in the pub last night, narrowly avoiding the point of no return because I was concerned about today’s extended walk, the entire Friday evening clientele wished me well on my way. I shook literally everybody’s hand. I’d only been there 24 hours!  Robert told me this morning that he needed a lift to collect his car from the pub.  I’m sure he wasn’t alone.  I clearly only just escaped!
 
My route today took me south of Redruth through an area of industrial archaeology, or more precisely, the ruins of the tin and copper mines that populate the area around Camborne and Redruth.  I was taken aback by the sheer scale of the ruins of these old mines and smelters. I hadn’t realised they would dominate the landscape to the extent they do.  And the influence seems to persist to the present day. As I sit here, I can see an advertisement inviting people to attend a lecture on two very famous mines, Wheal Jane and South Crofty. There is even talk of South Crofty opening again given the level of raw material prices at present. But it is hard to imagine that any industry will dominate this place in the way that mining did, ever again. It must be strange to live amongst preserved industrial ruins. I was fascinated to discover it has been designated a UNESCO World heritage site. What a contrast with the Kogelberg! One area bemoans the passing of an age and the other fears the depredations of the future.

When I started thinking about this journey, I suspected it would be as much internal as external. I notice that so far it has been pretty much entirely external. No excuses for that, because I have been so bowled over by the people and sights that I have experienced so far, that I haven’t had time to think about much else, or not coherently anyway.  I’m sure that will gradually change.  As the routine sets in and as days fuse into each other, I suspect that whether I like it or not, I will be swept along on the internal tide. For the time being, everything is so new and so strange. I am also very interested in how these old bones are coping with it all. There hasn’t yet been time for quiet contemplation.

No doubt that time will come.  We shall see….

Porthleven beach

Fishermens' cottages in Porthleven

Opposing wills... And the kids are amused. But which is the caricature??

The lovely Little Pengelley

 

A shortcut through Crenver Grove, a magnificent ancient forest

Industrial archeology all over the landscape

I could have taken dozens of these pictures. The scale and the detail is amazing

GO AWAY! You don't belong here!

Even the yobs have a sense of civic duty here! Though their spelling needs improvement!

Fields of unpicked commercial daffodils. Not enough demand to justify the expense of picking them. (Perhaps I should have bought Veronica a few more bunches!!)

LEJOG Day 3: Rosevidney Barton to Little Pengelly

Weather: Cloudy and cool

Distance covered today: 13.5km ( 8.3 mi)

Last night's B&B: Rosevidney Barton (£35)

% Complete: 2.7%

GPS satellite track of today's route: Day 3

The difference between quaint and prosperous coastal Cornwall and the rural interior is already very real.  Right at the moment I am sitting in a pub in a village a mile or two from my B&B, where there is at present no-one other than my hostess and I, and she doesn’t seem surprised.  She told me rather matter-of-factly that the first to close was the petrol station, then the post office, then the shop and now she is trying to sell the pub, but there are no buyers.

Of course, we know all this, but today has been an exercise in experiencing in practice the things I knew in theory.  Just a few miles from the coast, the new reality of Cornwall is inescapable, and it is poverty through change.

I saw something of this yesterday as I trudged between Newlyn and Penzance. I wanted some sugar-free mints and some sugar substitute for my tea.  I thought I might find them in a Lidl store I passed, a little out of the way of the tourist trade. Silly me!  I had never been in a Lidl store before, let alone one in Cornwall.  As I negotiated the aisles, I had trouble even recognising the brands! Of course I couldn’t find what I wanted. People who shop here don’t watch their diets.

On the way out, I had to go through the tills even though I didn’t want to buy anything.  I watched the locals checking out.  A couple of them didn’t have enough cash to settle and had to surrender some items. No embarrassment, no negative reaction at all from the cashier or anyone else in the queue. Just an everyday experience.  Then, literally one or two hundred yards up the road in a more fashionable part of the town, I came upon a myriad of boutiques selling quaint items and objets d’art for ludicrous prices.

Of course the cataclysm facing the rural communities of England is well documented and is readily evident beyond the rural communities of the Home Counties.  But somehow, it seems to me more starkly etched here in Cornwall.  For what it is worth, I think it is because the incursion of the well-off here has had the opposite of the trickle-down effect.  Everyone knows that it has played havoc with property prices, but there is another more subtle effect. They are perfectly entitled to do so, but as the wealthy buy what they need, so the market responds. The laws of demand and supply operate as usual and all the luxuries are available, satisfying the market, but the process drives prices, not just of property but of everyday commodities, inexorably upwards. In the event, it creates a two tier market, much as exists in most of Africa and the third world. The clientele of Lidl are evidence of the underclass.
 

The young here can’t afford to buy property and anyway they are lured away by the bright lights. Their place is taken by people escaping the city. They have no tradition here, nor, in many cases, much stability. But they are used to competing. The locals are pushed even harder.  In the pub tonight, I quietly asked my hostess and she said that there was only a couple of Cornishman out of every 10 patrons. The locals can’t afford to drink in the pub, she said.  If the traditional community is not moribund; it is in deep trouble!

Not that the authorities haven’t noticed! There has been this big effort to stimulate business in Cornwall and I came upon evidence of this in the village of Leedstown. At the local village hall, I found a sign advising that Leedstown is the location of an experiment in super-fast broadband up to 40MBPS, something we can only dream about in Surrey, where my broadband crawls along at 5 or 6 MBPS.  I happened to stop for coffee at the local pub and I asked the publican whether anyone was interested. She told me most people had no idea what they would do with it, and surely it was more than one needed for movies. I said that I thought it was aimed at business innovation rather than entertainment and she looked at me a little patronisingly and asked me whether I wanted to break my habit of not drinking at lunch-time! A case of supply-push, rather than demand-pull, I fear. If anyone takes up the offer, they will doubtless come from elsewhere and they may well make a fortune but I doubt that it will trickle down here.

There are other signs of economic activity. While I was there in the lunch-time pub, I noticed that in the lounge-bar there was a meeting going on with a fellow presenting to an audience. I snuck in and found that he was a representative of Natural England (a UK government quango) presenting a PowerPoint presentation to a bunch of farmers on some extremely technical stuff about manure.  The whole thing was very professional.  I have never before seen farmers engrossed by a business slide-show.  Somehow, I hadn’t associated PowerPoint with rural Cornwall. I thought I recognised Brian Aldridge from Ambridge in the audience, but I couldn’t be certain. After all, I only know his voice….

And tonight, I met a farmer/businessman who told me he grows industrial amounts of courgettes that he sells to Sainsbury’s and Tesco’s, and he has even exported his surplus to Italy.  He grows much else besides, and has a highly sophisticated packaging and marketing operation. I heard on Radio 4 this morning that agricultural land prices have tripled in the last two years. There are others in the community who appear to be doing almost as well.


Clearly there are winners as well as losers in Cornwall.

(Tomorrow is a rest day, so you will be relieved to hear; no post!)

Off the beaten track, little evidence of prosperity.

Superfast broadband for Leedstown!

How to store manure!!

A lovely winding road through rural Cornwall

A beautiful example of Greater Stitchwort (check me out!!!)

St Erth. I discovered St. Erth derived its name from St Erc, an early Catholic from Ireland who came here to convert the heathen in the dark ages. So much for earthy maidens, then.....

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!

LEJOG Day 1: Land's End to Mousehole

Weather: Driving Mist, clearing to cloudy

Distance covered today: 19.7km (12.1mi)

Last night's B&B: Cornerways (£35)

Percent complete:  1.1%

GPS satellite track of today's route:  Day 1

It had to be done!  There is this rather corny tradition that one has to have one’s photo taken next to the Land’s End sign-post by the man in the little shed who puts your name on the pole. I paid the rather exorbitant price on condition he also used my camera so that I could include the picture in my blog. He’ll send the official picture home. So now I was officially on my way!

I was interested to hear from him that there hadn’t been any other LEJOG nutters as customers this week. He was earning his crust by taking pictures of day-trippers who wanted the sign to say how far they were from home in some midlands' industrial town! Seems it is a thriving business. All the other attractions which compete earnestly with each other to reach ever higher levels of kitsch are still closed for the winter, but there is still a steady flow of people who want to have their picture taken at the end of their land!

There was one lovely moment five minutes earlier as I was arriving on the bus. I was accosted by a rather attractive and lissom young lady speaking in a French accent and flailing a couple of walking poles in all directions.  It turned out she was looking for the start of the South West Coastal Path and had not been able to understand the instructions of the staff inside the buildings. She told me that this was the third time she had struck out!  I was just about to suggest she amend her plans and take to the road with me, when another official materialised and pointed her in the appropriate direction. Probably a good thing. She looked a lot fitter than me!!

Talking of the bus, of course I got chatting to the young female bus driver, having successfully negotiated free travel with my Surrey old codgers’ bus pass, and she was very interested to hear all about my plans. Much later, as I was walking down a tiny single lane road on my way to Mousehole (pronounced "mouzzel", in case you didn’t know), suddenly this bus hove into view, occupying most of the road and forcing me tight against the high, hedged verges. The bus stopped, the door opened and there she was, grinning from ear to ear!!  She wished me all the best, revved the engine and disappeared in a cloud of diesel fumes followed by a little pony-tail of cars all having to proceed at her pace! Not a care in the world. I do like this place….

The walking today was relatively easy as most of it was on the back lanes of the lower peninsula, and it wasn’t as hilly as I had expected. Having said that, I had deliberately planned in a few footpaths where they afforded a logical short-cut. This steepened my learning curve. One footpath looks much like another on an OS map, but I found that Cornishmen are a tough breed. These were not the refined and predictable footpaths of the Surrey Hills. To all intents and purposes they didn’t exist at all!  In general they were no more than rights of way through knee-high grassland, punctuated every now and then by gargantuan granite walls which are supposed to be stiles! Climbing over one of those was like mastering a climbing wall in a leisure centre where every second foothold was either completely missing or Vaselined for extra challenge! This will change of course when I get onto the recognised trails, but meanwhile, I’ve learned my lesson: the short-cut has to be substantial!

At one point, I wasn’t quite sure whether I was on a path or not, and saw a farmer on a huge tractor in the field. I decided to seek his advice, expecting to be yelled at for trespass. Quite the contrary, he stopped the tractor, jumped down and, in a wide Cornish accent, proceeded to detain me for 10 minutes, regaling me on the  various affairs of the farm. Clearly I was a polite if rather captive ear, and he got his money’s worth!  It must be lonely on his tractor…

In the event, the weather today was in general better than expected. I started out in a rather dank, wind-driven drizzle, but by lunch-time it was just misty if still rather dank.  Quite pleasant for walking, if not for photography or sight-seeing. Mostly I couldn’t see more than 50 yards. Today’s walk was longer than I had anticipated at 19.5 km (12.1 miles), but although I am clearly tired, I was feeling well enough (or thirsty enough) to walk an additional couple of miles back from my B&B to the delightful coastal village of Mousehill to find a pub.

Staggering back may be more difficult!

A Cornish path

This stone circle is called "The Merry Maidens' Stone Circle", so named according to legend because the maidens were turned to stone for dancing in a circle. Be warned, my ladies...

Beautiful Cornwall in early spring

It may have been too misty for views, but the architecture is stunning!

A lovely Cornish cottage, in a beautiful location beside a stream. Perfect!!

Day 0: Penzance

It’s overcast and rain is in the air. The forecast for tomorrow is bleak. I have underestimated the distance from Land’s End to Mousehole for tomorrow, and it will be a stern test right from the start.  I’m feeling jittery and apprehensive. Veronica and I had an emotional and difficult parting this morning.  And it doesn’t help that the last time I was in Penzance was just over thirty years ago when Veronica and I were setting out on our honeymoon in the Scilly Isles. This doesn’t feel remotely like a honeymoon.  I need to get started to settle the nerves….

To make matters worse, the promised wifi isn’t working, so I am going to have to look elsewhere for a connection. Though, to be honest, that isn’t all bad. Over the last few days I have been reading internet accounts of other LEJOGs and what they all seem to have in common is much younger participants with a lot more experience of long-distance walking.  At least I won’t be able to frighten myself even further!  It will be much better when I’m on the road…

I had a long and interesting conversation with a fellow on the train from Reading to Truro. He is an Anglicised Spaniard married to an Irishwoman and is suffering all the tensions and contradictions of a two-career family living in multiple countries with very young children. Sounded all too familiar! It was so interesting how over the course of a number of hours, his initial rather business-like, if not distant, manner changed to a much more intimate and  honest sharing of thoughts and experience.  He said afterwards that he had benefitted from the conversation, though of course he may just have been humouring me! Still, it suggested to me the real value of experience.  After he went his way, I got to thinking about how I am going to have to use all my experience to find the reserves of resilience and determination to match the youth and fitness of the successful youngsters who have preceded me on this LEJOG. It’s still hard to find someone who doesn’t think I’m crazy….

They certainly do think so here!  I was sitting tapping on my netbook in this delightful pub in Penzance, the Admiral Benbow, drinking a pint of the delightfully and appropriately named Sharp’s Doom Bar bitter. The pub is apparently something of a landmark here which I stumbled upon by accident, and I was eavesdropping on a fascinating conversation amongst a bunch of Cornish rugby fanatics about the advantages of being Cornish. Difficult to argue, really, and just possibly dangerous!

They dragged me into their conversation. Turns out they are retired policemen, town planners, and artists and not one of them is Cornish of origin! Yet they were all so welcoming, uniformly positive and encouraging that they cheered me up immensely, despite jovially suggesting to me that I was, in fact, genuinely, certifiably, insane.

And yet two of them quietly confided to me in later asides that I was doing precisely what they had wanted to do, but had left it too late…..

Right! Back to business!!  I have now updated the blog to include details of my planned itinerary which covers the first 500km of the journey. The details are included under the Section “Schedule” which appears on the right-hand side of the blog in the “Pages” section.   I have booked into all of these B&Bs, so I am more or less committed to keeping to this schedule.  If anyone is interested in joining me for any of these stages, here is the info you will need.

I really would value your company!