A Cornish Birthday: St. Ives

This year, my birthday landed on a bank holiday weekend (aka a British excuse to not go to work or school). This meant that every living creature in this country also decided it was time to go play on a Cornish beach. 

While this usually takes some of the joy out of a vacation, somehow the buzz of excitement in the air of St. Ives only made the places seem more charming and quaint and whimsical.

 

After our somewhat abysmal hotel stay from the night before (they gave us the wrong time for breakfast and we didn't even have a shower curtain!), we were ready to head farther south as soon as possible. When we made it down to St. Ives, it seems everyone had already beaten us to it. We parked on top of a very tall hill, which we had to climb down to reach Portmeor beach. 

Strangely, for so many cars, very few people seemed to be there. We splashed around in tide pools and found little treasures and just sat in the sand and read. It was lovely.

There is a little cafe right out on the beach that was delicious. 

Finally, once we'd had enough of the sand and water, we took a turn through town. St. Ives is this pristine little sea village that is dripping with charm.  From the little shops selling pasties to the candy-striped awnings, everything felt fairytale perfect. We meandered though the little streets, got ice cream and finally popped out on the other side of the peninsula. 

This bit was significantly busier (we'd found all the people!). We were still at low tide so all the boats and been beached in the bay. They were all just out there waiting patiently for the tide to come back in.

After St. Ives we went out in the countryside (battling more hedges) to find Men-an-Tol, a bronze-era holy stone. Jon was less than enthused, especially when he found out he'd have to walk up a mile trail to find it. 

But I like rocks, so off we went. 

There are lots of fun legends around the stone, especially with fairies and folklore. One says that a mother put her changling baby through the hole in order to get real baby back. For many years the stone was used to cure children of rickets. My favourite says that if a woman goes out the rock at the full moon and climbs through it backwards seven times, she'll get pregnant. 

I'm not quite that desperate yet.

We meandered around the Cornish coast, visiting little towns like this one, called Mousehole. Everyone was so friendly and kind, we couldn't have felt more welcome. 

Finally we got our hotel then popped into Penzance to go to dinner. It seems that most the people had gone to St. Ives, as every place else was quiet and peaceful. 

After dinner we drove out to see St. Michaels Mount, which is a little island with a castle and church on it that you can walk out to at low tide (there is a causeway that is covered up at high tide).  As we drove back to our hotel, we had this glorious site in front of us almost the whole way. 

We drove out to the western most point we could find and watched the sun die out. The clouds looked like there was a whole other city just out on the horizon, which felt crazy because we knew there wasn't any more land for thousands of miles. It felt a bit like we were on the edge of the world. 

Read about Part One of our Cornish holiday!

A Cornish Birthday: Tintagel

My heart has had a little pitter-pattering for Cornwall for awhile now. I feel like every picture I've seen of the place, shows a landscape covered in that velvety green moss and magic. It makes my soul swoon!

While I haven't exactly been bashful about my hope to go down there, I was seriously shocked when Jon surprised me with a trip for my birthday. I guess I just assume half of what I say washes over him... way to prove me wrong Jonny. <-- Husband of the year right here.

Our first day was a trip to Tintagel. There are lots of legends about this place, but that one that seems to have been around longest is that this is where King Arthur was conceived. Whatever the truth is, it is completely romantic and beautiful. 

This castle was built on this little peninsula-island that juts out into the water. You are surrounded by cliffs and water on every side. And while the wind is blowing something fierce, it still feels all hobbit-y and picturesque. 

Our greatest struggle on this trip was the blasted hedges that are flanking basically ever. single. road. The "hedges" are actually stone walls (which can be 10ft+ in some areas) that are covered in hundreds of hears of foliage. Since our phone data didn't work down there, it felt like we were in a claustrophobic wonderland maze. 

The hedges were so tall, we had no frame of reference for where we were, and the roads were so narrow. Somehow the locals would whip around them and squeeze through. It was heart-attack inducing stuff... especially when we got lost and couldn't find out hotel. Luckily the Cornish are very very friendly (perhaps adding credence to 'good fences make good neighbours?') and eventually helped us find our way. 

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Islington in Autumn

This morning started out with Jon bounding out the door to teach our Self-Reliance/Entrepreneurship class.  We volunteer-teach it together on Saturdays and have four fantastic students we work one-on-one with. Jon teaches the fundamentals (accounting, price structures, developing a business plan, etc) and I do the marketing/internet bits (brand development, building websites, utilising social media, etc). 

Luckily I got the day off today. 

When Jon came home, I convinced him to come take a stroll with me up in Islington. I'm pretty sure there is no better way to spend a day in October than wandering through that neighbourhood. It is so darn beautiful. 

Does anyone know what kind of flower this is? I only saw one for the first time earlier this week. Crazy pretty, but it seems like it belongs someplace a lot more tropical than London.

In a moment of Project-Runway-Handbag-Geniusness I grabbed a leather waist belt and wrapped it around this purse. It is alarming how satisfied I feel about this.

Jon is getting to be a pretty great photographer. Although I generally prefer to be behind the camera than in front of it, I like that Jon now knows how to tell me to pose and how to capture the right image. Love it when he gets a chance to explore with me.

Every couple of months one of the higher ups in Jon's company will work him completely ragged. Sometimes when this happens, a little sliver of humanity will break through. This usually means they'll tell Jon to take me out to a nice dinner on the firm's dime. Last night his manager threw us one of these bones, so we definitely took advantage of it. 

We went to the Comedore Grill on Islington High Street. It was about 3pm and despite the fact that most other restaurants were pretty busy, this one was empty. However, it had great reviews, so in we went.

Food Review

Empadas - 9/10

Jon got the steak and the spinach. The steak was amazing, spinach was less inspiring.

Ceviche - 7.5/10

Delicious autumnal take on ceviche. Large portion, tasty.

Steaks (sides of mashed potatoes, spinach, and broccoli) - 8/10

As steak goes, pretty great. Mine came out medium rare (I ordered medium well). I feel bad sending stuff back into the kitchen, so I wasn't going to say anything, but the waitress noticed right away and was horrified. Not only did she bring me back a new steak, but she brought me second portions of all the sides and a jar of home-canned olives. And, BONUS, we weren't even charged for the steak!

Very, very impressed with the customer service.

Autumnal Ceviche, which (in addition to the fish) came with corn, roasted pumpkin, plantain, pickled shallots, and corn nuts)

Islington Town Hall was right across the street, so every few minutes a new wedding party would emerge, throw flower petals, snap a few pictures, and then pile into their vintage double decker (with a customised marquee for the couple) and jaunt off to their respective receptions. It was so much fun to watch.

After eating, we rushed (literally) home to watch conference, which starts at 5pm here. I heard a friend refer to General Conference as a set of four sessions of Mormon-centric TED talks, which is probably the best description I've heard in awhile.

This session is particularly exciting because there were three new apostles announced. Between sessions, Jon and his brother Andrew were chatting on the phone about it-- they like to pretend it is like a football season draft and would make place the prospectives into rounds. It was pretty funny... and it turns out their guesses were a little off. Regardless, it was a fantastic conference and I can't wait to hear what everyone has to say tomorrow.

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