All the Feels in Camelford

I wasn't sure how I was going to feel, returning to the small Cornish town in which I grew up, 30 some years ago.  Turns out, I was still fond of the old place.

And now I feel sad.

For a bit of background, we moved from a fairly posh London suburban town (Godalming, darling) when I was 6 yrs old to Camelford in Cornwall, where Mum ran a guest house called Kings Acre (ably assisted by our cousin, Janice) while Dad commuted back & forth to London as a Station Officer in the London Fire Brigade.  It made for a rather unique childhood, helping Mum to check guests in each week and building obstacle courses in the back garden (which was a least an acre... hence the name) for the more adventurous of our residents.   Like most things, it was a bit of a mixed bag - the fun bits of having a giant house as your entire playground, off season, plus that huge garden with trees to climb and explore (we kept two goats to keep the grass down).  Offset with the not so fun bits of having to move out of that giant house come the summer season plus a bunch of strangers taking your Mum's time and attention away from your Very Important 7yr Old's Needs.  We would decamp into one of the 3 caravans in the grounds - no plumbed in loos, so if you needed a wee in the middle of the night, it was either the Pee Bucket in the cupboard or you took your chances with stepping on giant, orange-frilled slugs on the path over to the house.  That sensation, of a slimy slug popping and schmearing underfoot, is one that is not easily forgotten.  Shudder.

As my sister and I got older and started secondary school, Mum wanted to spend more time with us so we sold the guest house when I was about 11 or 12, and moved into our place on Mill Lane, a regular house on a little, quiet cul-de-sac, built into a hill overlooking the town park, Enfield Park.  It was a lovely place and had the quirk of being an upside-down house where you entered the main living space from the front, then went downstairs to where all the bedrooms were. Built into and at the top of a hill, it also had a large back garden - this time, a little bit that was level, before the main part of it descending in a steep slope from the house, all the way down to the park.  It was pretty much wild and I remember hacking my way through chest high ferns (the ones with the little coppery nuggets on the back of the leaves) to get from our house, down to the little wooden sty gate right at the bottom, and into the park.  In that same steep garden is the tree I used to have to climb up to escape the psychotic goat, Billy (I know), that HATED my guts and used to charge at me, full pelt, from the top of the hill as soon as he saw me enter in the field at the bottom.  It was a race to the tree in the middle to see if I could get there first before he would headbutt the shit out of me.  Our loathing was mutual.  Even today, I hate all goats - and they hate me too.  Stupid goat.  But its OK.  I'm over it now.  Really. 

I left Cornwall at the age of 18 to go to University.  I'm sure I probably did come home a few times for holidays after that but by the time I started my PhD, I'd pretty much left for good (and soon after the rest of the family joined me in Cambridge, so that was that!).  So it's been a minute since I've been back and I was very curious to see what had changed and how I would feel about it all.

Nom nom nom.

We started the day with a full Cornish from the Scarlet Hotel to round out our very enjoyable experience there.  I'd booked a taxi to pick us up at 9.30am to take us back to the airport to collect our rental car for the next few days (yes - that does mean I have 2 car rentals running concurrently RN - bizarrely enough, it was actually cheaper to do it way!).  First decision point of the day - do I go with the smaller, manual transmission car (helpfully pre-scratched this time) or the larger automatic transmission SUV?  Two competing factors at play here - 1) the roads in Cornwall are even smaller, steeper and generally more AAARRGGHH than those we'd enjoyed so far on this trip.  2) I've been driving automatic cars for the last 20yrs since moving to the US, so was not sure how rusty my clutch control skillz were.  In the end, I plumped for the smaller car - and I'm glad I did.  My driving skills were just fine (I'm clearly tapping into my residual UK driving mojo) and the roads feel even narrower than I remember.  I've obviously been spoiled driving on fat American roads.

Today's itinerary was a bit loose, with a vague intention of exploring a bit of the North Cornish coast before heading over to Camelford at some point.  Driving up from Newquay, I decided first to take ManpanionTM to Polzeath, a lovely beach where we used to spent a lot of time in the summer as kids.  It was just as I remembered it - especially the bit where you park on the actual sands themselves, paying attention to the signs that urge you to make sure you get your car before the tide comes in or it might get washed away!  We also go to another beach next door called Daymer Bay - this one was smaller, less touristy and equally as lovely.  I'm not a huge beach fan (I don't like how the sand gets everywhere) but my sister was always in her element on the beach and in the water, so I have very happy memories of time spent at Polzeath and Daymer Bay (not forgetting the Mr Whippy ice-creams, of course).

Despite this, some idiots STILL get swept away.

Polzeath beach

Next up on my Childhood Reminiscence Tour was a stop at Port Isaac, an historic fishing village that has gained recognition more recently for appearing on the UK series Doc Martin.  We parked up at the main Car Park (4.50GBP to park!!) and walked down into the village.  Ay carumba!  This was ManpanionTM's first real exposure to the insane steepness of Cornish roads and a reminder for me!  It was SOOOOOOO steep!!!!  And ridiculously narrow!!!  Just brilliant.  ManpanionTM was in a bit of shock, I think as he kept saying "well, thank goodness it isn't raining..." - the combination of both verticality and slipperyness would have been too much for his little American legs!  

One of those stupidly named cars!  In the wild!!

Anyway, after only about 10mins, we reached the bottom and the lovely harbor - with all those attendant harbor smells.  The tide was out when we were there (it was about 11am at this point) so there were just two fishing trawlers lying beached in the harbor, anchored with big rusty looking chains.  I'm sure all the shops are different from my day, but otherwise, it didn't feel as if it had changed much.  There were quite a few visitors around and its now more of a tourist destination than active fishing port but it had a certain timelessness to it that I remember well.  I'm not sure why I used to like Port Isaac so much (or even how often I used to go there, tbh) - I think in my mind it was the quintessential Cornish Fishing Village, so it was emblematic in some way.  

Let's go!!  First stop on our 
coastal tour...

Oh yes.  Now I remember.
Cornish hills.  

ManpanionTM was getting increasingly
squeaky about the narrowness of these
streets

All the smells with the lobster pots

Tides out, sun's out.

View of Port Isaac harbor

Just loving the fish handshake logo!

We wandered about for a bit, enjoying the sights (and smells) before starting our slog back up the hill.  It really wasn't too bad (just one foot in front of the other) so it didn't take us too long to get back to the car.  Next to the car park was a recreation park, where some swarthy chaps were dismantling three red-striped pointy circus type tents - apparently we had just missed the Port Isaac Sea Shanty festival, which had taken place over the weekend.  Shame, really as that would have been an amazing experience for ManpanionTM.  But never mind.  By this point, it was coming up to lunchtime, so I decided to shift our intended visit to Boscastle and Tintagel to the next day and instead head for Camelford, to check out the place, maybe get some lunch in one of the pubs and then pay a visit to George & Pat, old friends of the family.

Look where we are, Mum!!!

It was kinda weird picking up the familiar road signs and places, so there was a LOT of squeaking from me as we got closer.  "OMG - DELABOLE!!!  The place with the HOLE!!"  "Wadebridge!"  "BODMIN!".  You get the idea.  As we start getting closer to Camelford, I turned to say to ManpanionTM "well, depending on which end of Camelford we are coming in, we should see Kings Acre on the left hand side".  No sooner had those words left my mouth, then I spotted twin peaked rooftops poking up above the trees on my left - and we were there! 

Hello, old friend!

It was quite surreal and I was pleasantly surprised by the fond feelings that the sight of the old place brought up.  In my memory, it had this rather stately air about it, standing proud and resolute - now, with it in front of me, it evoked those same impressions - but it did feel a little bit, well, smaller than it did when I was a kid. Not quite as imposing as I remember.  Some of it was the same - the main house, the garage next door that Dad had converted into a living/play space for me and my sister (but which we were a bit scared to use because of all the GIANT brown wolf spiders that stubbornly refused to leave) and the front garden.  

Moving round the back and sides of the property, though, it had all changed.  There were multiple new buildings and extensions and fences. The caravans we used to live in had all gone (understandably - they were a bit knackered when we lived in them) and the back acreage of land was unrecognizable from the wide open space that we used to play in and get chased by our goats.  The little raised bed garden that used to be off by the side of the house was no more - and I wondered whether they had discovered all the pets we had buried there (RIP Kimmy).  I didn't see the bank with the line of ash trees we used to climb in so I think they had been cut down - but the old well was still there.  Unfortunately, we didn't get to look round the main house but we did meet a lovely lady called Linda who had bought the place from the people we had sold it to.  So it was nice to reminisce with her a bit.

The back of Kings Acre - everything to the right of the 
fence (including the fence) was new

Converted garage that is undoubtedly STILL
full of giant child-eating spiders

So that was Kings Acre.  And then it was time to head into Camelford itself.   We made our way past my old school on the left ("there's Sir Jims!") and to the top of the high street, it all came flooding back.  I remembered these roads like the back of my hand.  No GPS required.  As the Co-Op at the top end of the high street came into view (past the village hall on the right) the first inkling that Something Wasn't Quite Right starting to surface.  I had spent a summer working at the Co-Op as a teenager on the check-out tills and stacking shelves (and also getting interviewed by the police after having been falsely suspected of theft - FUN) and while it was never as fancy as Waitrose (the UK version of Whole Foods), it was nice enough and always busy.  Now, driving past it, it looked downtrodden, a bit dirty and old.  As we continued to drive down the hill, through the town, it became apparent that a lot had changed in my 30 years away - namely, where are all the shops?  Where are all the people?  Where has the life in this town gone?  It was a Monday lunchtime and the town was dead.  Hardly anyone around and, of the few shops that remained, most were closed. 

Everywhere, boarded up shops and hardly any people.

I discovered then that I had more affection for the place that I realized as it was heartbreaking to look at what had been such a vibrant, lively town and see the hollowed-out husk of a place it had become.  The SPAR shop was still there - but inside it was now more like a service station or 7/11, rather than the proper little convenience grocery store it had once been.  It was symbolic that the largest, most prominent storefront on the whole high street was, in fact, an undertaker and funeral home.  Talk about depressing.  Also depressing was the state of our second house in Mill Lane - it wasn't super fancy before, but the street was nice and well kept when we lived there.  Now, the road was full of pot holes and all of the houses on our old street looked tired and a bit run down.  Our old house had weeds growing in the driveway, mildew on the walls and the amazing view of the valley and park below were obscured by an ugly brown fence.  That also made me feel sad.  The park was still nice, though - so that was something, at least.

Former site of many a great Pooh Stick battle.

In my childhood memory, this 
part of the river was a raging torrent.

Enfield Park is actually, genuinely really nice.  
Not sure who that weird creeper behind me is, though.

Back garden of our old house on Mill Lane (which you can 
just make out) - mid way up this tangled mess is the tree I used 
to seek refuge in.  Fucking Billy.

Our secret entrance to & from the park
as kids.  A woodland douche pass, as it were.

Do some fucking weeding you slobs!  Grrr.

My old school.  Didn't look around too much - but many happy 
memories playing badminton in the covered court with 
Mr Durham (aka the Pirate King)

We looked in vain for somewhere to have lunch but the two pubs I remember fondly (the Mason Arms and the Darlington) were now both shut.  Talking later with George and Pat, they gave us a breakdown of how the town started to die out after the three banks left, each within a few months of each other.  We ended up taking a short little trip out of town, to the Old Inn at St Breward, on the fringes of Bodmin Moor.  I had a sausage and egg bap and ManpanionTM had his first Ploughmans (with a side of chips fried in beef dripping - yum!).  I also bought him a pack of Scampi Fries to try later - so I'll let you know what he makes of that gastronomic experience.  

The weather was still glorious (THANK YOU, weather gods!) and after lunch we headed back into Camelford to visit with George and Pat for an hour.  It was so great to see them - we had spent many fun hours with the Brown family growing up (especially playing charades at New Year) and G&P were in the same house that I remembered, so it really was like stepping back in time 30yrs!!!  They were both doing great and we heard about what everyone was up to, so it was a really nice way to finish out our time in Camelford, reliving some fonder memories and offsetting the sadness of seeing the town's decline.

After our visit, it was time to head over to Bodmin where we were going to be spending the next two nights, and check into the Bodmin Jail Hotel!  I've stayed in many interesting and unusual places over the course of the years - but staying in a converted jail is going to be a new one for me! 

 

Off to the land of pirates and pasties!

Quickie post today before we head out and start to explore Kernow.  Its just past sunrise and I'm writing this looking out over a stunning view of Morgan Porth beach from the balcony of our second floor room in the uber-fancy Scarlet hotel.  I have fresh cup of coffee in hand, am nibbling on a homemade complementary cranberry hobnob and the sun is shining.  SUNNY, I TELL YOU!!!  Not raining!!!!  So far, Cornwall, I'm digging my return.

We had decided to fly down to Cornwall, rather than drive for 7hrs to get here.  I know to most Americans, used to the vast distances of the continental US, a drive of such magnitude is barely worth mentioning - but to all Brits, that is a fooking Long Way.  Anything over 2hrs here requires careful thought and much debate about The Ideal Route to get there - usually involving at some point a discussion of the roadworks on the M25 and how shocking it is they are STILL ongoing after they have been there for YEARS.  We decided to skip all that and instead avail ourselves of the 55 min flight from Gatwick down to Newquay, courtesy of the slightly confusingly named Eastern Airways.  

As our flight wasn't until the evening, we had another lazy morning, with one last run of the toast gauntlet before doing our packing.  Eastern Airways has a very stingy luggage weight allowance, with only 15kg (30lbs) allowed on a non-premium ticket.  This required an additional column on my travel planning Excel spreadsheet for required clothing/shoes for the Cornwall part of our trip, as well as a foldable lightweight Samsonite hold-all to pack with, with minimal additional weight.  It worked a treat.  When we got to the check-in counter, my bag weighed EIGHT kilos and ManpanionTMs weighed less than 5!!! I did feel really quite smug.

nom nom nom

The gang came over to our hotel at 11am for one last hand of "Oh Hell" (I think we got them hooked) before Thomas and Engie bid their farewells and headed back to Coventry to do a flight (he's training to be a pilot).  As we didn't need to leave the hotel until at least 1.30pm, we stayed and had an absolutely spectacular Proper Sunday Roast Dinner.  It was SOOOOO good!!! It was also another first for ManpanionTM and he enjoyed his roast chicken version immensely! (I was too excited by the prospect of Yorkshire puddings and gravy and couldn't decide between the beef, chicken or pork - so decided to have a slice of each!)

After saying farewell to Dad (we'll be back again soon!), it was an easy 90min drive down to Gatwick.  I had pre-booked us into Long Stay parking (easy, no ticket required - the gate recognized the car's number plate) and had also booked us a Douche Pass to speed us through the Security Lanes.  It was actually called Premium Security on the website, but we all know what it's really called, right?  It took less than 5 minutes to get through the security screening which was brilliant (I don't travel through Gatwick much, so had no idea what to expect).   To round out our Bougie Travel in Style at Gatwick experience, I had also booked us into the Number 1 Lounge in the South Terminal. " Complete with a fully tended bar, quiet library and range of comfortable designer seating areas" it actually was pretty nice and the pink bubbles were perfectly serviceable.  We did have a couple of hours to kill as we'd arrived earlier than even I'd planned (and I build in a fair amount of float time just to be on the safe side) but ManpanionTM did some work and I battled with the wi-fi ("security risk! your connection is not private!") to try and update my blog, before giving up and watching Superman and Lois on the lounge screen, on mute.  Based on the subtitles and all the emoting that was going on, I think its probably best that way.

Proptastic

Eventually, it was time to make our way to the gate and to board our little prop plane for the short flight to Newquay.  I haven't been back to Cornwall in over 30yrs and when I was last here, the airport was still RAF St Mawgan - definitely not a commercial airport.  Rick Stein had not yet taken over Padstow and it certainly was NOT yet known as the Cornish Riviera!   I wasn't sure what to expect of Eastern Airways - but it was an actual proper airline with emergency exits, wheels, wings and everything.  It was quintessentially Cornish, however, as we got chatting to the cabin crew lady (we were sat right at the front so had that obligatory, slightly awkward conversation that comes from sitting opposite a stranger whose knees are almost butting up against yours) - turns out one of the other cabin crew's daughter works at the reception of the Scarlet Hotel!   And she knew one of the passengers seated a couple rows behind us - he worked in Newquay airport.  Growing up in a small town in Cornwall, it used to take you an hour to pop down to the shops for a pint of milk, as you would be guaranteed to run into someone you knew, multiple times, requiring polite conversation about the weather at least.

Pretty patchwork fields

The plane was bigger than I had been expecting - certainly bigger than some of the planes I've taken on regional internal flights in the US.  This one had decent size overhead bins and there were about 60 passengers (the cabin lady did an actual headcount, which I thought was adorable).  Even though the flight was so short, there was enough time for an inflight service of a cup of tea and a pack of mini Cheddars (or you could have had shortbread).  US airlines - take note!  A packet of mini-Cheddars is a FAR superior inflight snack than a shitty tiny bag of pretzels.  I had the window seat so spent the flight trying to see if I recognized places as we flew over them - the captain was clearly bored with flying this same route, day in, day out as he hadn't bothered to tell us the flight plan (the ONE time I'm actually interested in our flight path!).  Apparently, according to our cabin crew, he liked turbulence as it made it a bit more "spicy" for him and more interesting - without it, the whole thing just felt like driving a car to him and a bit of a chore - eek!  I think we might have flown over Delabole - unless there is another giant quarry somewhere in Cornwall??

Newquay airport

And just like that, we were already in our descent.  It was about 7.30pm by this point and the sun was starting to get low in the sky, so the land below was looking gorgeous.  Our landing was soft and we were through the portakabin that was Newquay airport with our bags and driver in tow in less than 10 minutes!  

The Scarlet Hotel was only a 10min drive away, so we made it to the hotel before 8pm, well in time to enjoy sunset from our balcony, then the bar, then the restaurant (does anyone else run round a new hotel looking for that perfect spot to watch the sunset from?).  The food was pretty good but what was a standout was the wine.  CORNISH WINE!!!  When exactly did that become a thing??  I was deeply skeptical and so we had an impromptu taste test - we ordered one glass of a bog standard Chablis and one glass of Polgoon Sauvignon Blanc. We asked the sommelier not to tell us which one was which so that we could try and guess - and also not be biased by our doubts.  One glass held a wine that was deep yellow color, the other held a wine that was so pale it was almost colorless.  I already knew which was which just from that - but I was then pleasantly surprised when the super pale wine turned out to be delicious!  Well done, Cornish vintmakers - I stand corrected!  Also - as a bonus - according to ManpanionTM, Cornish wine prevents scurvy - so there's that too.

View of sunset from our balcony at the Scarlet Hotel

Overall, this place is niiiice and a great start to our trip - the view from our balcony is outstanding, so its a shame we'll only be here for just over 12hrs!  Tomorrow, we go back to the airport to pick up our rental car (manual this time) and really get this nostalgia tour going.  Its going to be a slightly surreal experience for me - how much will I remember? How much will be completely unfamiliar? What should I do with ManpanionTM?  What will give him that memorable Cornish experience?  Obviously we are going to stop by Camelford where I grew up, but other than that - do I take him for a robust walk on Roughtor? Is he ready to hike up Brown Willy?  I do have some thoughts (thank you, Daniel) so we'll see how the next few days unfold!  Its's gonna be fun!!

Can you tell from this pic which is which?

You can tell you are in a super 
swanky hotel when they give you
a free pencil and an unidentifiable
 drink.  Biscuits were delicious.

The Gang's All Here! (plus more thoughts on roundabouts and butter)

Addendum to yesterday's post about roundabouts.  We haven't yet figured out how to get my phone (Samsung S23) to talk to the BMW and get the map onto the dashboard console, so I'm reliant on ManpanionTM to call out the directions from my phone.  For some reason, he's not comfortable with my holding the phone in my hand while driving...  That's where we run into 2 issues. 

One - the roundabout's IRL rarely look like how they are depicted on Google Maps.  On Google Maps, they are a lovely little round circle (obviously, right?) with a clearly marked lane in and out.  In real life, they are a bit more clusterfucky.  What is shown as a neat little circle on Google Maps is in reality a distended, grotesque oval behemoth, sprouting entry and exit roads like an all-consuming tarmac octopus.  I'm looking at you, roundabout on the A12 to Colchester!  That one is a total nightmare and is stitched together by multiple mini-roundabouts that had traffic coming in and out in both directions at the same time in a very disorienting fashion!  Not entirely sure how I managed to get through it without incident - lets see if my luck continues to hold out!

The second problem (exacerbated by the first) is that ManpanionTM has no idea how to describe them.  Not surprising when you don't run into them in the US very often.  I do feel a bit bad for him when its not clear where the first, second or third exits are (see above) and how those relate to the directions we are being shown on the map.  And when I'm urgently squawking at him to tell me "which exit do I need?" as I need to make sure I'm in the right approach lane. He's now pretty much got down pat the "go straight over" direction, but we are still struggling with anything other than "first exit".  One time, he decided to try a completely novel approach and told me "go 270, 270" - umm, what?  He was talking in angles and meant, of course, the third exit (aka last exit).  While it was an innovative solution to the problem in hand, it wasn't the most helpful direction I'd ever received.  As an engineer, though, he thought it was a perfectly acceptable way of describing the intended direction.  After much protestation and general scorn from yours truly, he did accept that it could cause confusion with road numbers ("I want the 290??  But it says A12?") so he hasn't tried it again since, poor lad.  I think Cornwall is going to blow his mind.  I can't wait until we go down our first one lane road that has grass growing up the middle.

Addendum to breakfast.  Butter strategy is also as important as boiled egg strategy - especially in those special cases where you are handed a wodge of butter that has clearly been hacked from a lump still sitting in the fridge.  Again, dipping into his engineering mojo, ManpanionTM devised an extremely precise (and, as it turns out, rather effective) way of optimizing the butter meltage per toast square inch (BM per TSI).  He even refined it further by hot-pocketing it on his second slice.  I sat in shame as I tried to glue the ripped up holes in my toast back together using said still solid butter.

A complete butter fuck up by yours truly. 

Spot the engineer....  ManpanionTM's far
superior approach....

.... although he still struggled to operate the Gerbil
Powered Browning Device properly, however. 
This was his pitiful attempt at toasting wholemeal
 bread for his boiled egg (which was hard today!)

Gilding the lily of optimal toast melting strategies.
He's kinda showing off at this point....

Toasty nonsense aside, we just spent a lovely two days hanging out with Dad, Thomas and his wife Engie.  We had met up with Dad on Friday, and Thomas & Engie were due to join us on Saturday afternoon, driving up (down, across?? I have no idea which direction, to be honest) from Coventry.  We arranged to meet everyone at a Olde Fashioned Pub in Great Bentley called The Plough for lunch, so we had a fairly lazy morning, exploring the throbbing metropolis that is Wivenhoe High Street on a Saturday morning, visiting the tiny Boots and then pretending to be the little green and red men on the pedestrian walk signals on the 2 min walk home,  We know how to party.

Wivenhoe High Street
11am Saturday morning

Pretty accurate, I would say. 
 And never, ever bland.

We headed off to Great Bentley around 12pm and found the Plough easy enough (fun fact: apparently GB has the largest village green in the whole of England - that's a LOT of opportunities for cricket).  Dad soon rocked on up and we were finally joined by Thomas and Engie at just after 1pm.  It was great to catch up with him and hear all about his flight training, to finally meet Engie and to hear what they've both been up to.  We also had spectacular pies, so lunch was a great success!  After the feeding frenzy, we waddled back to Dad's place, aka The Lodge where we proceeded to teach everyone the Nalbach Family classic card game Oh Hell!  I will give you the deets of how to play in a later blog - but its very simple to play, with easey peasy rules (that were mostly followed - Thomas, I'm looking at you) and has just enough potential to screw people over to keep it interesting.  We ended up playing a couple of hands and much fun was had by all!

A fine dining establishment in the
Greatest of Bentleys

We managed to sneak in a quick afternoon nap, before meeting up again for dinner at an even older establishment in Colchester called the Old Siege Inn.  It was covered in ancient timber beams and there was not a straight surface, roof or floor in the entire place!  It totally gave me Sandwich vibes! (the old cinque port in Kent where I used to live).  We had dinner on the 1st floor (aka the top floor, for any US folk reading) and it was very creaky and simply fabulous.  The food was decent enough and again, the company was excellent, so made for a very pleasant evening.  None of us were massively hungry (on account of the giant pies and burgers that had been consumed at lunchtime) but there were enough lighter options available (although I have to say I was a bit disappointed that I couldn't actually get a ploughman's there!!!).   Then it was time to tackle the Triple Threat roundabout one more time and head home, rolling into bed around 9.30pm.  Tomorrow we had off to Cornwall for some DEEP nostalgia!  

Stay tuned!

Steak and ale pie.  Ohhh baby.  So tasty.