At the beginning of February, I took Jen off on a mystery weekend down to Cornwall.
We went to a tiny village called Boscastle, recently in the news due to a the terrible flooding of the village in August 2004.
Jen in a Boscastle Street
They are still working in the village to widen the river and building a new bridge to try to stop further flooding.
The Wellington Hotel
Our room is the turret room between the words "THE" & "WELLINGTON"
The hotel actually had three floors damaged during the flood, and in the bar they have very old oil lamps which were donated by Thomas Hardy the writer many years ago when he used to stay there. One of them was badly damaged in the flood, but has been lovingly retored by the Thomas Hardy Society and replaced in the bar.
There were a few themed rooms, and our's was the "Guy Gibson" room. There were quite a few photos and memorabilia relating to the great WW2 veteran of The Dambusters Fame.
Jen looking out over Port Isaac
On Saturday we drove from Boscastle, through Tintagel, the home of King Arthur's Castle and onto Port Isaac. We had seen Tintagel and walked to the Castle when Jamie and Marisa were children, so we gave it a miss this time. We went to Port Isaac because there is a popular TV programme shown here called "Doc Martin" which we like to watch. the village is quite idyllic, and very picturesque. Although the day before, I drove through it, big mistake, the wing mirrors on the CRv were millimeteres away from scraping the houses on either side of the vehicle. Apparently you are supposed to park at the top and walk down into the village, which is what we did the next day.
The rugged North Cornwall Coastline
We walked down into the village, and then up the other side past Doc Martins house and a little way along the coastal path to look out over the fantastic coastline. we were very lucky with the weather for the weekend, as it was the first sunny Saturday for a few weeks.
Padstow Harbour
We then drove a few miles further to a favourite place of ours, Padstow.
Nowadays it has been taken over a little bit by a famous chef here in England named Rick Stein, I don't know if you get him out there in California or not. He is well known here for being a fish chef, which is quite handy really I suppose being near the sea. there are Rick Stein Fish and Chips, Rick Stein's Seafood Cafe, Rick Stein's B&B, Rick Stein's Cookery School, and Rick Steins Delicattesen amongst other things. For a small area seems a shame, although I suppose it brings in the tourists.
In the evening we drove back to the Hotel, to see the end of England being beaten by the Welsh at rugby, and then headed downstairs for an evening meal in the hotel bar.
They also had 4 stained glass windows in the hotel that Queen Victoria had made specially to commemorate her only visit to Cornwall.
On the Sunday we drove home, the weather had changed, it was raining and the wind was so strong it was blowing the Honda all over the road as we crossed Bodmin Moor.
It was a lovely relaxing weekend, and perhaps later in the year we'll take another one somewhere else in the country.
