Paul’s blog

We woke up late, my alarm clock decided this would be the day it would give up the ghost. Luckily I awoke at 5:45 wondering why it was getting light. It was not a good start to our Easter weekend jaunt, we wanted to get up earlier to miss the expected traffic, and so we expected the worst. As we travelled down to Cornwall we expected to be confronted by heavy traffic around the next corner, but it never occurred. The traffic was slightly heavy past Bristol and there was a bit of a queue at the Tamar Bridge, but besides that it was plain sailing (well driving anyway!). We got to our Bed and Breakfast accommodation just before 11; we had a nice cup of tea (well I am English), unpacked and started our sightseeing frenzy.

We first drove down to Fowey, which was a wonderfully quaint small town on the coast. Évi loved to explore all the narrow back lanes and alleys, and we walked a fair distance as far as St. Catherine’s castle. We next went to Mevagissey, here we found a lovely small fishing village. Again we walked everywhere we could. It was here I had my first ‘proper’ Cornish pasty - which was nice. As it was the first day we were pretty tired so we finished the day at a local Chinese restaurant before retiring to our beds.

On Saturday we left early to miss the expected big crowds and traffic at the Eden project. We hoped for the best, as our accommodation was only a mile and a half from the Eden project. Luck was on our side as we were one of the first to arrive, and could look around without hundreds of other visitors in our way. Bliss. We spent just over 3 hours there, as the place got more and more crowded. Next we decided to visit a National Trust property but I had left the directions at our B and B. No problems as this was less than 2 miles away, but silly me turned the wrong way and we ended up further and further away. Still we decided to head towards Bodmin, after a little while we spotted the familiar brown National Trust road signs for Lanhydrock and arrived there 15 minutes later. We found Lanhydrock to be a magnificent late Victorian country house, with over 50 rooms to explore. Our next port of call was the small village of Charlestown, which was worth an hours stay. Next we headed down the cost to Gorran Haven before moving downwards to Dodman point.

Sunday we went to Truro to find it closed! not surprising being it was Easter Sunday. I wanted to see the Cathedral but its front facade was covered on scaffolding and a protective cover so we soon left. Next we planned to go to the National Trust property at Trelissick but I saw in our NT handbook that parking was £3 and we had no cash thanks to Barclay bank cash machines not working in the South - so we headed down to Falmouth and explored the English Heritage property Pendennis Castle instead. This was worth the visit. Next we headed to Porthleven, stopping at cash machines on the way hoping Barclays had resolved their cash point problems. We were now desperate for cash, so I came up with the idea of using my Barclaycard to get money out and we would pay this off ASAP via the Internet when we got back. If Barclaycard charges us a fee for this I will kick up a fuss, as it was Barclays inaptitude that we had to withdraw money this way. I will wait and see…

Porthleven was nice enough but we had our fill with quaint Cornish fishing villages at this stage so we decided to visit St Michael’s Mount.
It was a long drive but worth every inch travelled. We arrived around 2:30 in the afternoon and walked across the causeway just before the tide covered our steps. It was a steep walk to the top but worth every step, the views were breathtaking. We had to get the boat back to shore where we had a quick look around Marazion before returning to our Cornish base.

We returned to High Wycombe on Monday, but not before visiting England’s smallest city, Wells. We looked around the Bishop’s palace and Gardens before moving onto the Cathedral.

Overall it was a great weekend although very tiring due to the amount of walking and travelling we got up to.

Just a quick post to wish everyone a Happy Easter. Évi and I are off to Cornwall tomorrow, we plan to leave at 5 am to miss the traffic so wish as luck. We have tickets for the Eden project and plan to check out a few other places during our three night stay.

Bye for now.

On Saturday Évi and I travelled down to Corsham to meet Timi and Gavin, and especially to see their newborn son Daniel. We managed to find the house with no problems and stayed around three hours. Their son slept the entire time we were there, so I asked Évi that when we have a baby could we have a quiet one as well.

Next we headed northwards to my parents in Stroud. Staying the night. The next day we went to the National Trust property at Dyrham Park. Unfortunately the weather was not as good as the previous couple of days, but this didn’t really affect the visit. It was a good opportunity for my Dad and I to experiment with our digital cameras, which I did with great gusto taking around 70 photos in 3 hours! I have included one of these; the two people in the distance are my Mum and Dad.

Whilst travelling back from my parents to sunny High Wycombe, we passed the grisly site of many a dead animal on the roadside. All sorts of the animal species were lain in their final resting place beside the A40. Approaching Witney, Évi commented on this fact, and what a terrible site it was. At this very point I espied two pheasants flying from right to left across the path of our car. Seeing what was destined to happen I applied the brakes sharply to hopefully miss the bird in question. Alas it was too late, the kamikaze pheasant was on an intercept course. The next second the pheasant careered into our car bonnet, causing it to barrel roll onto the side of the road as the next statistic of the road of doom. Poor Évi did not know to laugh or cry.

I am a member of a few forums, and it always suprises me how much information you can gleam from asking the right questions. For instance someone on indiamike asked a question on what the hotel Évi and I are staying at in Goa is like. From the replies I could gauge that the hotel is ideal and is in the perfect location. This is always reassuring when you are going to a new hotel in a new country.

I have also had a few problems when I converted this blog from Greymatter to Wordpress. Again, adding a post to their forum soon solved the problem.

Talking of Wordpress, I have been very impressed in what I can do using this powerful tool. I have also learnt more PHP code, which I can put to good use when I finally upgrade my main site to PHP. Trouble is I have so much to do at the moment. I also want to put a few photos up from the time Andi, Évi’s sister, stayed. I will get around to it!

Yesterday I received an e-mail informing me of a Hungarian restaurant in Aberdeen. I need to get some more info on the restaurant and add it to my site. It’s good to know that people are viewing these pages and feedback is always welcome.