(Cornwall Day 24) Cape Cornwall

 

The combination beauty of sunlight and blue sea is enticing, it is true. I go out into it as early as possible, where it's just me and a dog-walker, or maybe me and a man pushing a pram. There are a lot of men pushing prams this week, giving their wives a lie-in.

But by 9:00 am, the tourists are out of bed and the SconeLady is squashed. Looking down Fore Street, I saw a mass of bodies ahead of me, bodies trying to pass each other and making no headway. In the midst of this a group of workmen began to hammer their way into the center of the road for work that evidently must be done now, right in the middle of Half Term week. To make matters worse, a dog backed up to the hole and USED THE RESTROOM IN IT (I really don't think it meant to be objectionable. It saw a hole).

The dog's owner whipped out his poo-bag and, red-faced, reached down in. I felt sorry as much for him as for the workmen. 

Watching the man with the bag and the dog, I made a command decision. I would go to the bus stop and just hop onto the first one that came. No matter where it went. St Ives excels in buses, and you almost can't go wrong. 

Right then a bus pulled in, and I could not believe it. It was a Coaster bus!

The Coaster is an on-off bus that travels the entire peninsula along the coast. You can see the ocean the entire time and get off whenever you want to, then just come back an hour later and get back on again. It's a great deal for 5 pounds. 

Instead of taking the entire circular route (which takes a few hours), I got off at St Just, walked the circle to Cape Cornwall, and went back the way I had come (they have clockwise and anti-clockwise buses).

You may have visited Cape Cornwall, or heard it mentioned in the song, "Cornwall, My Home":

I've stood on Cape Cornwall
In the sun's evening glow
On Chywoone Hill at Newlyn
to watch the fishing fleets go.

Watched the sheave wheels at Geevor

As they spun around

And heard the men singing 

as they go underground.

And no one will ever move me from this land.

until the Lord calls me to sit at His hand.

For this is my Eden, and I'm not alone,

For this is my Cornwall 

And this is my home.

-Harry Glasson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNCcSJiZR1I

This song is my favorite of the Fisherman's Friends' songs, so it was lovely fun today to see where they filmed the song's video. 

St Just has an adorable town square that includes a clock tower, a medieval church, and a collection of tea shops, grocers, Cornish pastie shops, and others. The photo below of the Parish Church is lovely, but in real life it is breath-taking. If a church like this was in California, people would line up to go see it I'm sure! But there were no lines, today. 

I needed a place to eat my sandwich because it was a bit nippy outside. Coffee and tea shops look down on people bringing their own sandwiches in, even if you want to buy a pot of tea (my sister and I know this from British experience), so I hoped that the church might not mind if I did. 

It was a particularly delicious sandwich to which I have become attached - roast chicken, lettuce, tomato, onion and mayo. It would be embarrassing if I were to start eating it in a pew, and a church official came in and asked me to leave. But no person, official or otherwise, came in to say that and I was able to sit in those unbelievable surroundings, eating my chicken and mayo.

It became time to catch the clockwise bus back to St Ives. As I walked that short distance, the sun streamed out from behind the clouds. Then the clouds went away altogether, and those of us in the top of that bus had huge smiles. The beauty was overwhelming, as if it were Eden itself.

For this is my Eden, and I'm not alone,

For this is my Cornwall 

And this is my home.

See you along the way!

the SconeLady