Cornish holiday retrospective 2012

Can it be three years? well it can. I remember that 2 years ago the weather put us off and last year - maybe the weather again. This year, despite already having been away once in June, we had a long week camping at Higher Chellew. Our hosts were as friendly as ever, although the campsite itself was a little quiet.

Even in the rain I am glad to be camping in Cornwall, so long as the temperature is not too low. The boredom is good for the children, especially if they can be separated from their gadgets for long enough to realise that, without exciting and engaging continuous input, brains start to work. This year we had a couple of days of rain, a couple of additional wet mornings and a share of warm sunny days with variable breezes.

For reasons of nostalgia we had booked The Balnoon Inn for Sunday lunch and, whilst the food (a carvery) was pretty good, we missed the old ambience. The place reportedly changed hands 18 months ago and the redecoration is now bright and a little minimalist. I used to like the old, cosy look; even when I banged my head on the stupid glass lamp shades. To be fair, the prices were also OK and anyone could get the number of covers wrong......

Also under new (to us) management was The Engine Inn at Cripplesease. We fell in there by default on our first evening, since it is close to the campsite. Very friendly staff and a good menu, with children's size portions of real food if required. The puddings also went down well. We revisted The engine a few times to try out their Acoustic Tuesday and also during their beer festival, when, despite the water that was running across the marquee floor, everyone was entertained by the bands and, naturally, the selection of beers.

I won't list all the places that you should include on your Cornish itinerary, which would anyway vary with the weather (your age and fitness, etc). Suffice it to mention that it is surrounded by beaches, covered in beautiful, if man-made countryside, possessed of interesting industrial history and monuments and serviced by unpredictable weather. From our location, between St Ives and Penzance, we had a free choice of South and North coasts which, though only ten miles apart, frequently display entirely different weather, depending on the wind direction and other, more mysterious factors.

Though the bank holiday weather was predictably wet, we were fortunate to have a warm Tuesday with a light breeze to drop the tent dry and save all the hassle of re-erecting it in the back garden to dry out.

three blazers

When written, of 2012, history will record English rain. Droughts elsewhere of course, all things being equal. Respite last week arrived in the form of three days of sun; baking roasting sun, ameliorated mildly on Thursday by a breeze.

I saw the local highland beast collective standing knee deep in a forest sink, their belly hair sucking up moisture like the skin of a thorny devil. Half shaded, but with blessed cool silted hooves, they were the usual picture of content.

Butterflies bloomed briefly, in greater numbers than hithertoo and I saw two slowworms patrolling without having to seek them out. Last week there was one on the front path, soaking up the radiance from the crazy storage heater paving; a near rival in size for the one I accidently took to the domestic waste site in the spring.

Olympian tales of sailing and the slow passage of cloudy goliaths makes me regret my desk-bound existence, but I am waiting, until badminton time.