Land's End

The soul-less tourist attraction that is...


A new day is dawning from Land's End looking north to Cape Cornwall


Sunrise...


The sun has risen!


Where the Land's End signpost should be...


Offshore rocks - you can just see Longships lighthouse on the rocks to the right.
Old lichen covered menhir with deserted stone circle.


The tourist stones complete with model houses... *sigh*


The soul of those stones is still there though, if you catch them from the right angle...

Adventures at Dawn

Last night I went to bed saying to myself, if I wake up then I know I should go, if I don't then I wasn't... Where you may ask? Land's End of course! Will of Pedal Power Adventures was setting off on the a little jaunt from Land's End to John o'Groats. These are the two points the furthest apart in the British mainland.

So I woke up and tried to ignore the fact I had and went back to sleep. Probably only a few minutes later I woke up again with a little voice in my head saying that I was meant to go. So I got up (3.20!), showered and dressed and left the house at 4.00. It took 40 minutes for me to get to Land's End.

Now Land's End has long been given a very special place in the heart's of the public. With it's iconic signpost showing distances to places all over the world. Steeped in legend and history with archaeological sites and a dramatic coastline prone to wrecking ships it should be amazing.

Last time I went to Land's End I paid the exorbitant parking fee and wandered through the dire tourist mill buildings to the coast. Any connection to the place was lost in the crowds and the unsymmpathetic development. Tacky is a word many use....

I had been planning recently to go and treat as a tacky place with S and F and pay all the different fees to the different exhibitions so as not go get to sad about the way the place has been treated. I hadn't gotten round to it. They charge for parking but as there is a public footpath they can not close the gates and you just have to wander through the deserted money mill. They even charge for photographs at the signpost. They take away the top of the post to prevent theft over night and removed the second post that you could use for free.... So i got photos of the post but no signs...

So dawn. When exactly is dawn? According to this handy website, it was at 4.50 this morning. So I was there. Except it had been getting light for a while. It seems twilight began at 4.03. Apparently this is when the sun is 6 degrees below the horizon and is the limit for distinguishing objects. There is also nautical twilight with the sun at 12 degrees below the horizon when outlines can be distinguished and astronomical twilight with the sun at 18 degrees and at this point the illumination of the sun starts to affect the sky. Nautical twilight was at 2.52 and the sun never made it below 18 degrees, too close to Solstice.

So all in all, Will could have set off earlier and been able to find his way. He might not have known to make his way through the ghost town to the coast. He might have arrived when I was exploring the area around the most westerly point and not seen me with Little Dog in the distance.

I stayed for quite some time and it was magical. The ticket machine wasn't working either which was great. I could finally feel some attraction to the place, a connection. The sun slowly lit up more and more of the sky, until when I left it was relatively high and breaking through the clouds. It was lovely and clear and I managed to spot both lighthouses, Longships is easy to spot being only 1.25 miles from Land's End but Wolf Rock Lighthouse is 8 miles from the coast and harder to spot.

I didn't see anyone till about 6 and then I saw some hotel guests waiting for reception so they could book in and go to sleep. I saw a man with a dog and a couple wandering aimlessly. It was time to leave the point itself.

I wandered along the path to the attractions petting farm and discovered a standing stone, covered in lichen, with a small stone circle around it. Almost overgrown it was pretty much ignored... Thankfully. Returning to the car I realised I had missed another one earlier to the side of the buildings. It was all spruced up and used as the setting for some tasteful model houses. Personally I find that a bit wrong...

Giving up on meeting Will and deciding to leave before it got any busier I left, dragging Little Dog with me. I took the first tiny little lane I found to a lovely cove called Porthgwarra. Houses nestle at the bottom of a valley from which a steep slip way leads to a tiny sandy cove edged with blocky granite. Looking back up I suddenly realised that the headland actually had two tunnels one of which led to the next cove which was rocky. I decided to lose a page of my wreck this journal to the waves here....

Next was a stop at St Levan but I hadn't looked up how to find the well exactly or what the other interesting things might be there... So I missed the ancient pagan rock, split in two. I did spot a nice celtic cross or two and a lovely entranceay to the graveyard. Strips of granite had been spread to make a cattle grate with granite benches at each side of the grate facing across it. In between the two seats, dividing it in two, was a coffin shaped stone.

Next I drove down the valley of Penberth but didn't stop at the car park (mostly because I didn't find it, I don't think I drove far enough...) and then to the car park at Treen and then Lamorna Cove, both of which I stopped at briefly...

Pukka

This is a little bit on consumer power and the internet...

I like herbal teas. I find the medicinal ones from health food shops a little much a lot of the time, they are fine if you have a health issue you need them for, but for everyday drinking pleasure... The teas generally sold in Tesco come in a few main varieties - summer fruit, mint, chamomile and a few others, maybe chai, maybe ginger or jasmine. You know the sort of thing...

Then Pukka appeared on the shelves. They were lovely. Blends of different herbs and spices to create beautiful, balanced teas with lovely names.

There was...

Love - rose, chamomile and lavender

There was...

Detox - aniseed, fennel and licorice

There was...

Clarity - ginger, lemongrass and gotu kola

There was...

Harmonise - rose, hibiscus, vanilla, shatavari, licorice and chamomile



and they were lovely. I owned all of them at work and at home and drank whichever one I fancied at the time and it was all good.

and then....

Tesco decided to stop stocking them. eek! They didn't stop stocking Pukka teas but I sensed the hand of Tesco in the choice of flavours that Pukka decided to develop.

We have...

Night time - chamomile, oatstraw and lavender

Three ginger - ginger, galangal and golden turmeric

Three mint - peppermint, spearmint and fieldmint

The mint is very minty and the ginger is very gingery but the night time is really nice. This only gives me one variety to play with at work that I really like. *sigh*

So I go online. What I discover is that Pukka have a lovely little internet business going. Not only that but all my old favourites are still there. And even better there are a whole lod of other beautiful and interesting teas there for me to try!

We have...

Relax - chamomile, fennel and marshmallow

Revitalise - cinnamon, cardamon and ginger

Refresh - peppermint, licorice and rose

Cleanse - nettle, fennel and aloe vera

Protect - Jasmine green tea, cardamon and rosemary

Pleasure - cocoa, licorice and roasted chicory

Three Berry - elderberry, blueberry and blackberry



oooh! So when I got paid I went and ordered all my favourites plus all the ones I had never tried before. The presence of variety packs means that this was cheaper than shopping for the new premium teas Tesco stock and I don't like so much.

They arrived earlier this week and since then I have been enjoying the return of beautiful variety to my tea breaks....

I know this is a shameless plug for Pukka (that they will probably never know about) but it is an important thing to me. I hate the way that supermarkets cater for the lowest common denominator. We think they are giving us choice but in reality they so often take choice away and discourage us from cooking and thinking for ourselves.

We are creatures of habit and so often we develop habits and then they take them away from us. Well, I no longer buy tea from Tesco.... I buy it direct. Did I mention that it is organic?

Still

It is late and I should be in bed. Tonight I went out by myself. It was a works thing and F's work has taken him away all weekend. i find myself sad at the thought of spending so long without him. The presence of friends didn't make up for the lack of him...

I found myself alone on the beach after dark. The moon was near full and the stars were coming out. Someone sat on the cliff lit a flying lantern and let it go off the cliff. I watched it drift out to sea as I bade my love good night on my phone.

So I have an entire weekend of freedom....

Now home with a small (not really) dog curled up and I am resorting to blogging and chocolate cake. All that a girl needs...

Residual Image

I am unsure whether to make this a post about general things or to put some more specific thoughts down. I have so many things to write about right now.... But I am going to go with the thoughts, cos if I don't I shall forget them....

Do you ever bump into someone and it is clear that they are reacting to you as if you were still the same person, who would do the same things and make the same choices, as when they previously knew you? I sort of had this happen to me tonight, on my way home.

I bumped in to someone I knew back when I was still single and wild and a student. He was married at that time but possibly the unfaithful type (suspected rather than proven) and a little full of himself. I had no idea that he and his wife were no more but he dropped this into conversation and then wondered off with an odd cheeky expression on his face. I bumped into him again and helped him find something. We chatted a little on the way to the tills and he asked how my love life is (he knows very well I have been with F for quite some time). I am a little down cos F is away all weekend with work and got given the evening shift before and after he comes back. So my response was that F was working and pulled a disappointed face and his response was that he couldn't come round. (ew! as if I would want him too!) He made a few more remarks and then wandered off again...

I so hate this sort of behaviour! He was playing games either because he wanted too boost his own self image or because he wanted a roll in the hay. He wouldn't have spent time chatting me up if he met me in a pub these days, I am fat and dull, really, if those are the sorts of criteria you have. He is remembering the me that could drink a lot of the chaps under the table, the me that was somewhat wild (although never actually as wild as the rumour mill would have people believe...) That was the me he was playing games with, not the devoted fiance of a very lovely man.

Thing is, I have seen this in operation via facebook recently from the other side... In college, many years ago, I knew a lovely, good, clean cut sort of a chap. Slowly via facebook that old crowd is finding each other again and a friend who had found him, suggested him to me. I was shocked at what I found. I found a man who had been diagnosed with MS in his mid-twenties nearly a decade ago and had shortly after diagnosis become wheel chair bound.

I still see him as I knew him. Yes that residual image exists in there somewhere within him but he is a long way from that person. A very, very long way. We all are but for some people that difference time makes is more obvious.

I think we pass through life with little echoes of ourselves spinning off and held in the memories of the people we once knew. Like flies trapped in amber. All the me's that each of has ever been are not lost, they are there... somewhere for a while....

Thing is these echoes come with emotions attached. If we did something bad, they come with bad emotions. We do something good and they come with good emotions. Most sets of emotions are more complicated than that. And these emotions stay atatched unless new meetings with that person alter the emotions.

If we meet a person who carries an echo, then their reaction to us can not be that of a complete stranger. For some people they trap, others they comfort. If you are a member of a community for a long time, the amber echoes must form a web.

Imagine going through life always trapped, once the bad boy, always the bad boy? Doomed to never, be given a break?

Imagine being the goody two shoes? Never being able to cut loose? Never being able to drop those standards?

Maybe we need to let people re-establish their echoes once in a while and let go of the emotions we attach to their memories.

Maybe when we re-meet someone from long ago we shouldn't expect them to be the same person or treat them in the same way.