Cornwall.

We hired a car and headed off down south for a family get together in this beautiful cottage overlooking the sea front. It was so exciting as we had never stayed in a  thatched cottage before. This was the view of the little fishing boats down on the beach from our bedroom. We slept with the window open so that we could hear the sound of the waves gently breaking on the shore which lulled us to sleep, perfick! Early one morning some of them went out fishing and returned later on with a good haul of fish.

This was the old capstan winding house which is now a gallery displaying lovely local artworks and sculptures. The wooden capstan wheel is still in its central position where the men would have turned it round to haul the fishing boats up the beach attached to cables or ropes. Today the hauling is all done by a tractor instead.

                           

The Lifeboat Station was open every day with displays of the crew members past and present and lists of all the rescues they had been called out to. I particularly liked this photo of the ‘Head of Security’, a little dog called Tyson. There was a donation box where you could drop coins in to roll around in ever decreasing circles until they plopped into the box beneath. Of course our grandson liked doing this every day so we were regularly relieved of any loose change we had when passing!  As  a certain someone had his fiftieth birthday recently, the ‘Birthday Boy’ took us all along to the restaurant and treated the eight of us to Sunday lunch. The food was marvellous as it was all locally sourced and beautifully cooked. I opted to have fish which was so tasty and just melted in the mouth, yum. The others chose various roasts and Langoustine which they all thoroughly enjoyed. The beer brewed in St Austell was the ‘Proper Job’ and very tasty it was too!IThe afternoons were spent digging in the sand making dams, rivers and sandcastles,then searching out shells and pebbles to throw, splosh into the sea.. We had a job to keep pace with our Grandson as he tends to do everything at top speed. He has such boundless energy, and although we took it in turns to play card games, football and tennis, read stories etc he just kept on going. In between times we took it in turns to have a rest, phew! Plenty of cuddles were had with our new baby Grandson too and  I enjoyed giving him his baths in the evening. We also had another enjoyable meal together along in the newly refurbished pub, called ‘The Old Success Inn’. Three of the family left to return home by train. We trundled back a few days later along the A303 which is a delightful route to travel with wonderful views over the rolling countryside. We stopped off overnight at Bottles parents house in Surrey and treated them to a meal out the next day to celebrate their anniversary. When we left on our journey north, surprise, surprise, when we hit the M25 the traffic was reduced to crawling along in places, because of an accident elseware. Eventually we arrived back onboard Oakfield, lit the Squirrel, put our feet up relaxed and unwound with a hot drink, before crashing into bed!

We had a  truly wonderful time thanks to our daughter who kindly invited us all to join in their special holiday. It was just like living in a dream-world as the cottage was equipped with every convenience that you could think of. A conservatory was attached all along the back of it that could be used for relaxing, dining, drying the washing, or playing ball games, especially if the weather was too windy, cold or wet.. The cottage was cosy, but spacious enough for the nine of us in the four bedrooms. We especially enjoyed ourselves sitting around the wood-burning stove in the lounge in the evenings together.   All in  all we covered over 700 miles in our round trip and had a truly amazing time!