Back from hols

Ah, it's nice to be back in blogland after my sojourn in Cornwall and happily cutting myself off from the outside world (well, from the internet world anyway).

The holiday got off to a great start - hot sunny day, lovely cottage, England getting knocked out of the World Cup. But then the weather conspired to prove that Cornwall was not the sunny place we hoped it would be. All in though, a fine relaxing time.

Some highlights and lowlights. Firstly, things that were good:

The lovely seculded country backwater where the cottage we rented was. And just generally, the quiet country backroads, all only wide enough for one car where you can zip around, with just that whiff of danger where a car may come round that next corner a wee bit too fast.

The beaches are generally pretty fine, especially if you stray away from the main surfing ones. There are good ones on the south coast as well, with nary a wetsuit or surfboard in sight.

Padstow is a lovely little town, and probably the best we visited. Celebrity chef Rick Stein has kinda taken over the town with his food empire, but that's excusable. Particularly when the food his joints serve up is so good. Special mention as well to the 'Krazy Golf'. Heck, these dudes are so crazy, they don't even care about spelling!

Tate St. Ives. Well, it's not amazing, but after being a Tate member for a couple of years, I finally made it there.

The bad:

Did I mention the weather? It did rain every day. Not all the time, but enough to be annoying. Oh well, if you want good weather, you don't stay in the UK!

Seagulls. If you're a London pigeon-hater (like I am), these beasties take it to another level. Even more fearless, a lot bigger, and there's always the chance that one might turn agressive. Vermin with wings.

Driving. It was pretty much essential to have a car in Cornwall, so we duly hired one in Exeter. However, a combination of interminable traffic jams there and back, the wince-inducing parking charges, and just generally feeling that we were eating way too much food for the amount of walking we were doing, made me unusually glad to step onto the tube again at Waterloo.

And finally, the ugly:

That has to go to Newquay. It's an odd place, to put it nicely. Seemingly populated by Antipodean surf bums, wannabe surfers and chavs on the lash. There's very little in the way of mixed-gender groups, just packs of each, probably on the prowl. And often with the bizarre feature of all wearing identical tops with their names and a number on the back. What's that about? Anyway, unless you're a surf nut, stay well away...

Well, that'll do. I've managed to get a few photos on my Flickr, with a few more to come. Back to music tomorrow.