Just want to mention the magnificence of the Cornish hedgerows around us at this time of year…more primroses than you could imagine plus ransom and wild garlic popping up and beginning to flower, and bluebells showing incipient growth. These together with flowering weeds of purple and white, always make our walks and bus or car trips a real pleasure…The iwalkcornwall site has this to say about primroses, and we confirm that we have seen the pale pink ones in all kinds of places, but usually singly….

‘Although most primroses tend to be pale yellow, in residential areas, extensive hybridisation occurs with pink and purple garden primulas to create all kinds of weird and wonderful mutants, with some even shaped like cowslips. However there is a pale pink variety of primrose (known as rhubarb and custard) that is thought to be a naturally-occurring variant of the pale yellow (rhubarb-free) version as it has been found miles away from any domestic plants.

During Victorian times, the building of railways allowed primrose flowers picked in the Westcountry to be on sale in London the next day. Picking was done on a large scale but eventually became unfashionable, being seen as environmentally destructive. However all the evidence gathered suggests as long as the flowers were picked and the plants were not dug up, the practice was sustainable’.

At home the garden is starting to put on a real show with our never-ending pink camellia by the house plus one at the bottom of the garden, and a deeper red and a double white, plus our own primroses as well as our pots of primroses and hyacinths and our two troughs with alpines which are doing very well indeed.

By train to Exeter, first class. One of those rare occasions when I found first class tickets cheaper than standard, and what a difference it made to our journey. In fact the carriage we were in seemed brand new…the leather seats were sumptuous, it was all nice and quiet and refined, and free coffee and pastries were welcome. I never want to travel second class again! The train journey itself is a picturesque one crossing several rivers and estuaries, lovely countryside and Powderham Castle (which we must visit soon). We arrived at Exeter St David’s and did the 20 minute walk into the city centre, past some nice houses, parts of

the medieval town wall and a pleasant park. We then booked the one hour tour around the cathedral (2 for 1 with our rail journey…welcome because it was £7.50 each otherwise). A fascinating tour around a simply marvellous Gothic interior, one of the finest in Europe. It is most famous perhaps for its two Norman towers and impressive west front carvings but also for the fact that it has the longest unbroken stretch of Gothic vaulting in the world. The bosses were magnificently painted and it was truly awe-inspiring to see a full reproduction of one at ground level…..a full two tons in weight, and each one acting as the keystone. We were impressed too with the Minstrels’ Gallery, the 15 Century Astronomical Clock, the complete set of Misercords (with a very interesting side-story of the one carved as an elephant), and the highly decorated tombs, bosses and corbels. Great for me in particular was to see the chantry chapel of Hugh Oldham, Bishop of Exeter who was one of the founders of my school Manchester Grammar School. I was delighted to see, on seemingly every inch of spare space, carvings of the owl which I used to proudly (I think) wear on my school cap. This reflected Hugh’s sense of humour as he was ribbed for his North Country accent when he referred to himself as ‘ Ugh Owldom’. We wandered around more of the city seeing different pieces of the town wall (apparently 70% survives), and for the first time Exeter Castle which is quite impressive. Much to see in future visits….

For the first time we went to buy fish during the week in Looe and that meant that the fish supplier we have never found open on a Saturday (our food shopping day in Looe), was there. Simply Fish we found to be different from our usual fishmonger Pengelley’s in one important respect – we viewed the whole fish in the boxes they came in from the market earlier that day. That meant that it was as fresh as fresh could be. We chose a haddock and a plaice, and left them to be filleted while we went on our walk. When we returned not only were they ready, but the fishmonger had added two pieces of Pollack at no charge because he said he didn’t think the plaice was enough for a meal for the two of us. The cost was £7.50, cheap indeed. Amazing. I have nothing against Pengelley’s whose service has been amazing, but I have always thought that buying pre-prepared fillets is not as satisfactory – as you don’t know how old they are, and they might have been frozen before sale. So now we have an alternative.

Finished ‘The Killing 2’. Was it as good as the first in the series? I honestly can’t say. It was long, complicated (for me), and crammed full with incident and plot turns, and it had a contemporary theme..involvement in foreign wars and possible trouble from immigrants at home. There were one or two loose threads for me at the denouement but what I can say is that I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, and it was crime writing of the very highest standard. I might however wait a while before reading the last in the series!

Decided today to combine visiting Lidl at Newquay for our weekend’s shopping with visits to some of the North coast beaches we didn’t know. First to Constantine Bay. A great choice. It was wonderful weather with blue skies and the beach was vast with lovely sand dunes backing it.

At one point on our walk to the far end we saw the high-water mark and unbelievable amounts of plastic detritus, just as had been described on a recent TV program as affecting most beaches these days. Apparently all the plastic that has ever been made still exists in some form….astonishing!! We really need to do something about this problem world-wide but I have determined if I can remember (more and more difficult these days) to take a refuse sack where we go and spend a short while at least picking up rubbish. There were few people on the huge expanse of sand, mainly dog walkers. One friendly old gent who stopped on the dunes path to let us pass said what a privilege it was that we were there on such a wonderful day – he was exactly right. From there we drove to Treyarnon Bay which was fine but overlooked by houses and nowhere near as pleasant as Constantine. Then it was to Porthcothan Bay….where we didn’t stop…a town beach, and no doubt crowded in season because of the plethora of holiday houses and caravans around. Finally we stopped at Mawgan Porth which was lovely if narrow-seeming, hemmed in by the cliffs on each side. The surf swell was impressive and the views too. We saw a group of about 6 people obviously measuring something. When F. politely enquired, we were told that they were measuring sand levels over a period of time because there was a serious sand-loss problem.

Finished Patrick o’Brian’s ‘The Fortune of War’. What a book, what an author! ‘The greatest historical novelist of all time’ according to The Times. Would I agree? I certainly would. And this without me understanding at all a good portion of what he writes. I believe I may have read the first novel in the series but am not sure. This is certainly the sort of sequence of books that I would like to read from end to end and then back again. Set in the times of Britain’s sailing mastery of the seas, around the time of Nelson, the novels are about Captain Jack Aubrey and his good friend the surgeon and secret agent Stephen Maturin. In this particular story, they are about to return to England from the Dutch East Indies when the War of 1812 against America breaks out….two sea engagements ensue one lost, one won and Maturin, when captured, finds his spying activities catching up with him in a potentially deadly way. Much excitement and a wonderful re-creation of life at sea are just the basis for a wonderful storyteller to engage us in every way. And the amount of research underlying the novel, in foreign as well as native archives, is absolutely breathtaking. Wherever possible, as the author explains in his preface, history and fiction intertwine…’in this book I have two historical frigate actions and when I describe them I keep strictly to the contemporary accounts’ which he then enumerates. In the frontispiece there is a diagram of a square rigged ship with its 21 different sails….but this hardly enables you to keep up with a fraction of the detailed action. Nevertheless, and rather surprisingly, this in no way spoils your pleasure…as the TLS said of another of the sequence ‘each incident or description is saturated by a mass of complex and convincing detail…such details might be overwhelming were they not reduced to their proper status as background by the superabundant liveliness and lifelikeness of the characters and by the pace and excitement of the narrative……..’.

We had noticed Pinetum on travelling past St Austell before and, as it is supposed to be one of Cornwall’s best gardens, we thought we would give it a try. Pleasant enough but hardly spectacular. The winter garden was very impressive though with lots of colour and foliage shapes, and since coming back we have ordered Cornus Midwinter for our own garden as it was a spectacular display. £8 each a bit expensive, and the Nursery was pretty pathetic to be honest. As we were near Carlyon Bay we popped into the Hotel where we had lunched before and had a very good value pot of tea and sandwiches (which were very tasty and fresh). We then walked down to the beach where on last year’s visit there was a lot of construction work going on. It was quite impressive to find a fine sandy beach with an area designated for disc golf (new to me, and most others I dare say), and ongoing work taking place. Should be excellent when finished. On the way back we called in to Fowey and parked for free at Readymoney Cove, with a pretty and interesting walk in to town. I can still find nothing to fault with Fowey….although there is evidently a lot of wealth around it does seem relatively unspoilt. A pint at the Ship Inn rounded off another good day.It is Fowey’s oldest pub dating from the sixteenth century and has a nice friendly, historic appeal inside.

Decided to see what use we could make of our Senior Railcards, and we used them to visit Truro and Falmouth today. Total cost for 2 people from our local station £13, so very good value. Pleasant journey, although as this was a local 2 carriage train I had to stand up to St Austell. At Truro we had just a 10 minute wait for our train to Falmouth town on the so-called maritime line. There was a view of the estuary at Penryn and the sea, but overall not a very ‘maritime’ trip. The next and last stop is Falmouth Docks, so we will try going there next time and see what the views are like. In Falmouth we first went to the studio of Nick Gibbard whose art we had seen in his windows before, and liked. He and his partner opened up the studio for us and we had a very interesting chat and looked at his work. The size of picture we want for above our fireplace is, it seems, just too dear….we shall see.nWe then wandered through the town, with its great selection of Independent shops, and went to the fish and chip shop which had just won the 2017 ‘Best UK Fish and Chip Shop’ award (one of the reasons for our coming) – Harbour Lights. With a great view of the harbour and dockyards, and super eating it was a good choice.

Afterwards we sat on the quay for 10 minutes in the sun and admired the busy scene on the water, although we were quite puzzled by 2 boats which were going round and round in ever tightening circles…testing maybe, or rank beginners? We got the train back to Truro, and were relieved to find we could break our journey without penalty, and made our way down the hill into Cornwall’s only city. Our main purpose here was to exchange a faulty book in Waterstones’ which we duly did and of course bought three more! It’s still nice to be on the other side of the counter.

Valentine’s Day. Because I had not had the opportunity of being on my own to buy a card (yet received one myself), I thought we better go out somewhere! We went to an afternoon showing of ‘Jackie’ at the Vue cinema in Plymouth about 40 minutes away. Terrific multiplex with, I think, 15 screens, so plenty of choice. ‘Jackie’ took us back to a time when optimism was in the air which was to be shattered by Kennedy’s assassination. The film was all about the one week after the event as seen from Jackie Kennedy’s point of view. A very brave and polished lady who loved her husband but couldn’t forgive his affairs, these mixed feelings were to point her in all kinds of directions after the death. Yet the overall feeling that remains with you (if you remember the times as we do), apart from sympathy for Jackie of course, is one of opportunity lost – of a Camelot that proved to be a chimera. I have a small bust of Kennedy in front of me as I write (picked up in the Kennedy Centre when we were there), and he is with Churchill, and Nelson one of my truly great heroes. Flawed all of them but great, great men. Meal afterwards in the adjoining Pizza Express (you always get a reasonable standard there, but that’s about it).

For a present our children paid for a bread-making course for us at The Old Bakery Cawsand. It was run by the owner Chris Gunn who together with his wife Liz have made a very successful business at the premises selling sour dough bread, running a cafe and a B+B. We spent a whole day learning how to make sour dough bread, and rye bread, and baguettes, and pizzas and very enjoyable it was too. We came home laden with the fruits of our hard day’s work (and it was non-stop apart from lunch), but the next day with the aid of the starters provided by Chris we launched our home bread-making and the first results seen above were creditable and certainly tasted wonderful. Now that’s what I call a good present!