Tintagel

Of course it would be wrong to come to Cornwall without visiting Tintagel, the romantic castle ruins on a headland that juts out into the sea, further down the North coast of Cornwall from “our” little village St Teath. Legend tenuously connects it with King Arthur, his knights of the round table and Camelot (did King Arthur exist? where did he live? who created the legends surrounding him, and why were they created? etc etc)

Whatever the origins, Tintagel was built strategically almost impregnable; on high cliffs with only a narrow passageway that anyone has to cross to enter the castle. It would have been easily defended.

Built during the 12th century there are only ruins there now, but interesting ruins.

Of course, like any major historical site in the UK you shuffle through with three gazillion other interested people. Including us - here's Jon, Lucy, Evie, Leo and Robbie.

There’s not only a castle and courtyard, but the ruins of approximately 100 little dwellings and buildings, a walled garden ( which would not have been big enough to sustain the people living there and which is too exposed to harsh weather and salt spray to grow too much), a well, a little chapel with a stone altar and poignantly a grave next to the chapel unmarked except for a cross overlooking the cove below.

Tintagel the village is devoted to the tourist trade. Every shop carries through the theme (“King Arthur Arms”, “Merlin’s Gifts and Confectionary”). We found a wizard.

Polzeath

We have spent a couple of days on the beach. Warm, sunny days in the early 20s. With a breeze. When you can stay out all day. We drive about 8 miles to get there, listening to Harry Potter along the way, driving past the hay being cut and baled, through high country until the hills descend to the sea to Polzeath.

We have claimed a spot each day on some terraces build against a cliff. Clare doesn’t like sand. It’s a good spot – high so that you can see the beach and the sea and the headlands. On one headland you can see an old tin mine. On the next one around, a lighthouse.
There are some slightly different beach customs here.

The ice-cream van on the beach, for instance.

The garden fence custom

Lots and lots of games on the beach; beach cricket, kite flying, frisbee and of course sandcastles. On the first day John and the kids built Minas Tirith.

I hired wetsuits and surfing gear for the boys so that they could join the throngs of surfers in the sea. It’s safe swimming and surfing with a gently sloping beach. On the first day Robbie disappeared from view into the mass of surfers which was pretty freaky for me. When I spotted him again he was right out the back and had drifted near some rocks outside the surf flags. Horrors. He realised where he was and rode in on some swells. I saw a determined little person pushing his board over to the other side of the flags. He told me later that while out the back of the waves he had been chatting up a 21 year old girl and had a good talk to the lifeguards who were patrolling the area in their IRB.
The next day Leo and Robbie both went out together, Leo with a boogie board, Robbie with a surfboard, swapping halfway through. They really enjoyed pootling about in the sea together. The Polzeath locals here body surf using what looks like a polished plywood board about snowboard size, curved up at the top edge. Very portable. They walk down the beach carrying these things, redoubtable older women wearing battered wetsuits who look like they swim every day of the year.

St Teath

St Teath is the village in north Cornwall we will be staying in for a week. Like many other villages in Cornwall it is perched on the top of a hill surrounded by farming country. The houses are made of local stone, sometimes painted white or cream. The colour of villages can vary, depending on the colour of the local stone. We are staying with Clare, Jon, Tom, Georgie and Harry. Friends of Clare and Jon’s, Lucy and Duncan Staff are staying in a little cottage next door, together with their daughter Evie, who is 11.
The cottage is called Clock Tower Cottage, after the village clock tower directly outside. The clock chimes every hour and, like the call to prayer in Qatar, measures out the day and eventually is only noticed if we need to. There’s a cottage called Holm Cottage up the road. The cottage has flagstones on the floor. It is cosy and a bit dark. Georgie and I share a room upstairs. There’s a big dark dining room directly underneath. At night we play cards, Newmarket and racing demons.
The kids all get on well. Leo and Robbie have (re)discovered Lord of the Rings models. They had a brief phase in NZ and have rediscovered them through Jon who is a keen gamer. He has been sitting patiently with them, showing them exactly how to paint the models and explaining how the games work. The kids all disappear periodically off to one of two local parks to let off steam on the days we have at the cottage. We have bought a pile of DVDs with us and they watch one in the evening, or else (favourite) an episode of “House”.

Stonehenge

When we were first planning the trip and were talking about what we might go and see, Stonehenge was the first word from Leo’s lips. Just out of Salisbury, the iconic standing stones are a world heritage site and have been around in their earliest for for 5050 years, since 3050BC. The stone monument remains that can be seen today were constructed, arranged and rearranged over almost 1,000 years 4,500-3,500 years age. The stones come from the Marlborough Downs 30 km away, and also from Wales, 385 km away.

It is right beside a busy road, with a carpark across the road with a pedestrian subway leading to the stones, which are roped off with a walkway around the outer circular band and ditch that surrounds the stones. You walk around with an audio commentary with headphones, together with all the other tourists taking pictures. Despite this it is awe inspiring. I walked picturing the effort that must have gone into building it and trying to imagine the rites and uses the stones had in ancient times.

Here we all are, being Stonehenge.

Mairi’s reunion with Salisbury friends

I had also been in touch with some friends before we left for the UK, people who I hadn’t seen for sixteen years. When I finished my midwifery training in 1989 I moved from Chelmsford in Essex to Salisbury, mainly to be closer to a group of friends who I had met in Thailand and whom I had kept in touch and visited regularly since I had lived in England. Back then I initially lived with Lesley and Ian before moving into hospital accommodation at Odstock Hospital, where I was working as a staff midwife. I also spent a lot of time with Suzy and Rob. I arranged to have dinner at Lesley and Ian’s place the night we were in Salisbury.

When we all arrived in Salisbury we unloaded in a youth hostel, where we were planning to kip down for the night before going to see Stonehenge early the next day on the way to Cornwall. We had boys dormitories and girls dormitories. Robbie decided he wanted some mummy time and came along with me to visit my friends. We caught a taxi to Quidhampton, the little village just out of Salisbury where Lesley and Ian live with their 15 year old daughter, Emily. The last picture I had seen of Emily was of her christening.

We had a wonderful evening of course, catching up on a précis of each other’s lives in the time that we had available. Ian and Lesley look just the same and apparently I do as well. Emily is stunning.

Robbie helped feed the chooks and found three eggs. We picked raspberries and blackberries from the garden for dessert while Lesley cooked up the most glorious vegetarian meal using veges and herbs from their garden – I had been vegetarian when I knew them last. Lesley is still health visiting and Ian works in IT. They live a life which is deeply connected to their village community and friends in the area. Their house is a charming idiosyncratic very English blend of all of their lives and they look happy.

Rob came around for dessert. Suzy was, unfortunately for me, in Costa Rica visiting another friend Birdie. He and Suzy in the last 15 years have developed their deep love of old rural building from a small building business into a rural building skills training centre with a business arm that builds strawbale houses. They are passionate about sustainable development and have also started up a not-for-profit enterprise building low cost strawbale rural housing.

We had a thoroughly satisfying catch up and chewed the fat about all kinds of interesting things – sustainable development and the oil and gas industry, middle eastern expatriate lifestyle, how living in another culture influences how you think about your own way of life etc etc. When I looked at my watch I was past my curfew at the youth hostel and I had forgotten to get the door combination that would get me in after hours. Oops. I sent a hasty text to Clare the Bear and Robbie and I kipped down in the spare room.

The next morning Lesley dropped us off at the youth hostel with a big bag of Discovery apples and Comice pears from their garden. The van was packed already and they were just about to come to Quidhampton to find us. Jon had slept in his clothes waiting for Robbie to arrive back in the boys dormitory and Clare had rolled her eyes and gone to sleep when I was late back, knowing that I had a key to get in. In that wonderful way that really old and good friends have with mild inconsiderations they completely overlooked it all and declared that it was no bother at all.

The trip in the big red van to Cornwall

I have to paint a picture of the trip to Cornwall. Clare has booked a cottage for the last week in August in a little village near the north coast of Cornwall called St Teath. There are five Watts; Jon, Clare, Tom, Georgie and Harry (another Harry). There are three of us; Leo, Robbie and myself. The van is a big red Volkswagen people-mover. Clare and Jon sit in the parents’ seats at the front. Georgie, Tom and I sit in the big people’s seats in the middle. Noisy younger boys sit in the seats in the back where they can poke each other and be puppies together.

We listen engrossed to the last Harry Potter story on audiotape, wonderfully read by Stephen Fry, which booms through the car loud enough to reach the back seat. Every so often the traffic service that Clare and Jon subscribe to breaks through the story, updating us on where the traffic hotspots and traffic jams are. Whoever is navigating sits with the UK roadmap on their lap actively working out the quickest route given the traffic situation. The traffic is heavy but orderly and courteous. The roads are organised and well-marked in a non-intrusive way, It is green everywhere and the grass and trees come up to the edge of the roads. There is grass on the roundabouts. There are hedgerows and flowers and trees and fields and old buildings and old villages and old towns all along the way.

Every hour or two we stop at a “services”. You leave a slip road from the motorway and suddenly find yourself in a small traveller’s service town surrounded by an enormous carpark crawling with cars. There is petrol, of course. There are huge restrooms with vending machines (painkillers, sanitary stuff, condoms, toothbrushes) inside. There are supermarkets, takeaway outlets, bookstores, money machines, games parlours. Everyone queues. Outside there are picnic tables and garden and grass areas where people sit and have a break from their journey.
It’s OK in the car trip zone.

Robbie’s reunion with Harry Bartlett-Scott

Robbie contacted Harry before we came over to the UK. Harry and he had gone to Ohope Beach School together for a year before Harry and his family, Sharon, Kevin and Oliver, went back to the UK to live. We arranged for Robbie to stay for a couple of days at their home in Godalming, a beautiful little town in Surrey. On the way down to Harry Robbie said to me, “I thought I was never going to see him again.” He’s discovering one of the wonderful things about travelling; seeing old friends again and having the opportunity to see another aspect of that friend’s life to that which you knew.














Well, the two days turned into five after both the boys begged to have more time together. The boys rode bikes, played with Harry’s dog Buddy, went fishing, went on trips and generally had the time of their lives. They loved seeing each other again.
We met Sharon and the boys in a layby near Salisbury when we finally picked up Robbie. The boys had exchanged taongas – Robbie had given Harry the hei matau bone carving that he wears around his neck, Harry had given Robbie the pendant he wears around his and a bracelet. Robbie was sad when we left. We’ll look forward to keeping in touch with the Bartlett-Scotts and catching up again with them some day.