Cornwall, Day 15: Lelant. Trains.

I knew at once that I would need the purple umbrella. But it wouldn't be for the rain, it would be for the sun! St Ives was positively gleaming, and I had to be out in it.

The iPhone shared that we should expect this gleaming to continue, all day long. So we four determined a plan. We would:

• walk down to the Porthminster Beach Cafe for breakfast
• walk a few more steps to the train station and ride it to Lelant
• get off the train (such a cute quaint little thing) and walk the beach path back to St Ives
• end up somewhere for a 'pint of wallop' (I was thinking of the proverbial pot of tea)

The breakfast at Porthminster was, as expected, delicious and beyond. Some of us had the poached eggs on sour dough toast, sausage, and bacon (have you ever had English bacon? You must!), and someone else had the fresh homemade granola with honey, yoghurt and fresh fruit. All of it was made the sweeter by sitting at the expansive window overlooking the sea. 

Soon it was time to catch our train and make our winding way to Lelant. I like being in Lelant because Rosamunde Pilcher was born there and it features in some of her writings.  

As we left the train we walked a short distance along from the station and came upon this view:

'Riverview House'

I could hardly believe it! I immediately recognized this view from the book Coming Home. It seems to be, in my memory, Riverview House, where Judith lived with her mother and sister. Each school day Judith would walk down the terraced back garden to the train station below. 

"The little branch-line train waited at the platform. The engine, two third-class carriages, one first-class carriage, and the guard's van. She did not have to buy a ticket, because she had a School Season, and anyway, Mr William, the guard, knew her as well as his own daughter. Charlie, the engine driver, knew Judith too, and was good about holding the train at Penmarron Halt if she was late for school, tooting his whistle while she pelted down the garden of Riverview House. 
Travelling to and fro to school in the little train was going to be one of the things that she was really going to miss, because the line ran, for three miles, along the edge of a spectacular stretch of coast, incorporating everything that one could possibly want to look at. Because it was dark, she couldn't look at it now as they rattled along, but knew it was there just the same. Cliffs and deep cuttings, bays and beaches, delectable cottages, little paths and tiny fields which in spring would be yellow with daffodils. Then the sand dunes and the huge lonely beach which she had come to think of as her own." Coming Home, by Rosamunde Pilcher, 1995

We finished our walk to St Ives and looked around a bit for possible future cottages. We are scoping them out and by next year, we will have our plans all laid and be ready for the next foray into the Cornwall dream. 

My husband and I have one week left here, but we say goodbye to Rosie and Ted tomorrow. Goodbyes are tough to say, especially this one. I want another week! another two weeks! But the coming year will speed by, and we will meet once again in this most magical spot in Cornwall. I don't see how it could be as beautiful as this one week we have had. But you never know here, for anything can happen.

And I can't wait.

See you along the way!

the SconeLady