The Lizard E-Book

Geoffrey Peyton

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

A short journal of an early September week that I spent at the Lizard Peninsula on the Southern Coast of Cornwall, the most southerly point on British mainland. Here I make visits to Falmouth, Helston, and many more nearby places of interest that are close to 'Sea Acres Holiday Park where I was visiting.  

Leseprobe

Geoffrey Peyton

The Lizard

The Lizard Peninsula

I would certainly have to thank anyone that reads my short journals without thrusting unnecessary criticism towards me. Thanks a lot. BookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 Munich

The Lizard

I am taking one last break before I undergo major surgery on the 16th September 2015. Usually I take at least four countryside breaks per year, but this time I have only taken the one thus far, and that was a splendid four days in Snowdonia in early April just after I was diagnosed with Colon Cancer. I wasn’t going to mention my unfortunate predicament, but I found it relevant to this journal as to why I keep on struggling through my morning and evening walks that had to be shortened from my usual umpteen mile treks.

September usually means a week on the North Cornish Coast, but I decided to visit the south for a change. And the quaint village of Kuggar, ten miles south of Falmouth, seemed the perfect spot. The big difference with this selection of mine was that our port of call happened to be situated right on the coast with a morning view of the English Channel. The only problem with this, as far as I was concerned, was that I would have done my walking in a kind of opposite direction. I much prefer to be about two miles from the sea, therefore giving me a nice couple of miles of countryside air before I become rewarded with the sight of the beautifully detailed rock formation and a glorious ocean. You would think that waking up in the morning and opening the curtains to find a spectacular sunrise peering over the English Channel would be the ultimate prize each morning. That would be all very nice of you actually lived there permanently. But I am an avid walker, and the countryside would be what I would have preferred to wake up to each morning. I love the ocean very much, but I like it in irregular instalments. An occasional gift let’s say. But I was the one who picked this holiday site, so I will have to do with what had I ordered.

Google informed me that the journey of 244 miles would take at least four and a half hours. But once we (Pam’s coming too) arrived at our destination of ‘Sea Acres Holiday Park at Kennack Sands, directly on the Lizard Peninsula, the dashboard informed me that we had completed 274.5 miles, and that the journey had taken five and a half hours - despite the car cruising at a consistent 70mph along the M5, A30 and the A39 collect. I did take a few wrong turns here and there, but 30 miles of them, I don’t think so.

No matter how many times I complain about the Motorway Services charging extortionate prices beyond the realms of extortionatisms I still stopped and purchased the advertised ‘Greatest Cornish Pasty in the World, plus a sausage roll at the total non-reasonable price of £8.50p. But the pasty did exactly what it said on the advertisement board, and indeed may make some arguable claim to the Cornish pasty’s most prestigious title. The sausage roll, however, was just a standard sausage roll, claiming nothing in the way of the greatest sausage roll in the world competition. I rejected the offer from the young girl who served me to add drinks to the bill, as this would have set me back into a financial and nervous breakdown.

“No thanks, we brought our own.”

She seemed more than disappointed at my non purchase of a couple of regular coffees at the non-regular price of £2.65p per head. In fact, while I queued for my late breakfast, each of the customers before me were more than happy to squander their finances on overpriced beverages.

I was lucky enough to come across a Sainsbury’s Supermarket along the way, and this enabled us to purchase a meal for our first night on the beautiful South West Coast of Cornwall. And tomorrow we will visit Penryn where there is a decent ASDA store because we were not going to buy anything from the on-site shop, as they are even worse than Service Stations when it comes to legitimate larceny.

It was quite warm when we arrived at our caravan in the late afternoon. But because I was jet-lagged after the long drive I was in no mood to go out and explore anything except for the parks bar. I ordered half of lager and lime for Pam and a pint of lager for myself that was supposedly brewed in Barcelona. If I’d carried on drinking this draught export all night, it would possibly have been more financially beneficial for me to actually take a flight to Catalonia and drink the bloody stuff there, as £4.50p per point was beyond the realms of any realms that may exist in the world of realmisms.

The caravan had a window view of Kennack Bay, which was all very pleasant. But as I was to find out later in the week, it was actually a problem when it came to my hiking routes. I do love the sea immensely, but would I actually like to live right next to it? I would say not. I believe it would be better for me to live further inland, as this would give me more options on the compass scale. But living next to the ocean would lesser that choice, unless I carried some flippers or had webbed feet, but I don’t have either of those.

After a few pints of those exorbitantly priced lagers Pam and I returned for our supper and subsequently went to bed for a well-deserved sleep. I was naturally up before the cockerel could doodle-doo all the other guests who would have preferred a quiet lie-in, and I was soon out walking the Coastal Path in a south-westerly direction.