Cornwall dreaming!

Cornwall Dreaming!

Cornwall dreaming on such a rainy day! Well, I am sitting here, watching the rain pour down the window, again! I am casting my mind back to our fab Cornwall holiday over a week ago, wishing myself back to our caravan in Mousehole. Wishing I could step out of the caravan at Penlee Caravan Park, out onto the road that looked out to the sea. We would do that dog walk daily, walking past the little allotments with a sea view. We would stop at the sign saying, Allotment by the sea, and wander down to the village, reading all the quaint house names.

This montage is actually from another Cornwall holiday but I thought it fab to be the first photo. A mixture of all different places.

Mousehole is such a special place and we have visited each year but actually stayed there this time. It is full of little cottages, gift shops and cafes and holds a little magic in the air for us. 

There is something so freeing, just walking out onto the seafront and wandering, either left or right, in no real direction. There is a cafe in Penzanze we passed daily called the Codwample which apparently means 'to wander in no direction' and that is me! Just ask anyone who knows me! I love spontaneous trips out. It is good to have some pre planned but I love going somewhere new too.

The gift shops The Mousehole, Cat and Mouse and Just Lily are so lovely. I get my fix of quaint books, Emma Bridgewater pottery and handmade jewellery. The owner of Just Lily was so friendly and we spent ages chatting away about handmade and local. I love the Mousehole Cat story and you can buy the book in The Mousehole gift shop.

The surprise we had on our first visit to athe Rockpool was amazing as you get out of the car in the car park, walk around the corner and the sea just hits you! The little shack like building houses this cute, quirky cafe and if like me, you love anything quirky, you want to sit for hours here!

Our fave cafe has always been The Rockpool and it was very special to us. It was so quaint and we loved having afternoon tea, with a metal teapot and a cocktail, overlooking the sea and the rockpool.

It is under new ownership now and the food and drink is still so yyummy. We love to look over the front bench onto the lovely rockpool down below. 

Our fave pub has always been The Coastguard and when you look at the beer garden, filled with rhododendron, you will see why! We love to sit on the tables, drinking local cider and looking out to sea. Even when the said table lunges over, like a see saw and we nearly topple over onto the grass! We had a breakfast inside this time too and it was marvellous! I love this photo of my travelling enamel Happy mug in The Coastguard garden!

Italian dining is my all time fave and we have enjoyed eating at the lovely restaurant 2 Fore Street. We have always sat outside on the dog friendly patio and the atmosphere, food and drink has always been spectacular. 

The little harbour is so lovely, day and night and we keep saying we are going to have a Christmas holiday to Cornwall as they have a Christmas lights event in the harbour which sounds so magical. There is a little walk, down from The Rockpool, following the shore and there are pebbles everywhere. It is great to see all the handmade pebble sculptures people have made!

This is just one village in Cornwall and I have written so much already! 

We have made it a family tradition to visit Cornwall annually each summer. Six of us and three dogs. That's what we say when we make any table bookings! We always stretch it out another day or two and call down somewhere on the way, either in Stroud,  or Gloucester. The last two years we have stayed at Bowden Hall in Gloucester and it is such a beautiful, cream building with massive bay windows. Very art deco and Poirot! Each room has a Penguin book print framed too and ours was aptly named, 'A room with a view'.

We have started stopping at the wonderful, eco friendly Gloucester services on the way down and back up. Our first visit there definitely wowed us and we were really taken by the deli and gift shop and the outdoor seating with a pond. I spent ages, one time, trying to take a photo of this dragonfly but it eluded me so I just watched it and drank my coffee in the sunshine! A good example of living in the moment!

We always stop for refreshments when we reach Jamaica Inn on Bodmin Moor. Such an amazing place to stop for a breather. We have our first Rattlers and buy some peach flavoured ones from the shop to put in the caravan. We always take a photo of the sign post against the blue sky. It always seems to be sunny when we stop here and take a photo of the sign. It has become a tradition!

The gift shop stocks Daphne de Maurier books and it sells peach Rattlers!

My sis in law bought these beautiful, hard back Daphne de Maurier books. When we reach here, we know we are nearly there!

Still Cornwall dreaming but on a cloudy day! We usually go to Cornwall each year with our doggies but not managed it this year. It will still be waiting for us, with its sandy beaches, endless sea, sunsets, pasties, ice creams, walks on the cliff tops and little rockpools. The gift shops selling the Cornishware I lovingly collect will still have little treasures for me to browse and bring home to Yorkshire. My sis in law and I are living off our facebook memories of quaint villages by the sea, of beer gardens bursting with exotic flowers and little delis with the best flat whites and pastries. Seeing these memories, with our doggies makes me smile, looking back on warm, sunny days in the second county I love best with my lovely family. My sid in law made montages and it is fab looking back on them. Like this one from Porthleven. We loved it here. Lool at that teapot!

Mousehole is one of my fave villages to visit. But there are so many more! I wrote a list for a friend visiting the other week. It was a long list! Polperro with the wonderful, little shopd including the sweet shop Sweet time of Polperro that also sells gorgeous Cornishware. Love it here with its little shops and pubs. The Three Pilchards is a fab, old pub and restaurant where you can eat your pies and linguine sat looking out onto the village and sea below, the boats bobbing up and down as you eat yummy homemade food and drink rum!

Mevagissey is a lovely village by the sea too. When I first went there, I was taken away by all the white washed walls against the blue sea and the little shops with wooden beams. On our visit last year, I ran up to the antique shop but she had just closed. I told her I had come all the way from Yorkshire to see her vintage Cornishware so she smiled and said she would re-open for me. Ten minutes later, I was smiling as I hugged my TG Green pieces!

We also visited Fowey where Dawn French used to live and we loved it there too. I would love to meet Dawn French. She will always be the Vicar of Dibley for me! 

Charlestown is gorgeous too and we love to go there later in the afternoon to the family pub at the top of the hill, then walk down to the little harbour as the sun sets behind the boats, some vintage looking and the old, fisherman's cottage.just like a Daphne de Maurier scene! We walk along the harbour and enjoy their delicious street food.

We have visited Kynance Cove with its secluded beach and sparkling green sea. So worth the massive walk back up the cliff! This was nearly 10 years ago though. Don't think I could do that hill now! I would stand at the top and look through our binoculars!

We also loved visiting The Minack Theatre. Wow! We really did feel like we were abroad! The white sands, the exotic flowers, the heat and the magnificant views! I would love to watch a play or a musical here. 

A lovely, little coastal walk, when we first started visiting was the path from Perrenporth and around Carbis Bay, then a train on the coastal way. So beautiful! The beaches looked so gorgeous. 

We have visited Padstow and been to Rick Stein's deli and shop. The Portugese tarts in his deli were so lovely! We still love visiting Padstow and Newquay for its fab, dog friendly beach. However, a bit like the East coast and its more popular places like Scarborough South Bay and Bridlington, they are becoming so busy and commerciased. On one hand this is great with bringing money into the shops and cafes. The nostalgic person that I am though, keeps harking back to when they weren't so busy and commercialsed. I love Filey, on the East coast for that. I always feel I am stepping back in time there. It feels the same as when the family went, back in the 1990s and I love it!

There are so many more lovely places in Cornwall we have visited or stopped by for a little nosy on our journey to somewhere else. When we first started visiting Cornwall, we stayed at St Ives holiday park in a caravan and had a brilliant week. The sunsets were amazing and we could see Godfrey lighthouse from our caravan window. I love lighthouses and have been lucky to visit Cape Hatteras in South Carolina, walking up the many steps of lighthouses that cover the beautiful coadt there. We even stayed over in a house, formerly a lighthouse. I have always wanted to live in a lighthouse, like Anne of Green Gables, or a windmill, like Jonathan Creek!

So, St Ives is gorgeous, as many of you who have been will agree and we always visit here each year. It is getting busier and harder to get a table at the packed inside and out Sloop Inn or Rum and crab shack but when you do get one, the food, drink and atmosphere are amazing. 

We visited here one year and had artisan coffee at Mount Zion, looking out onto the harbour. I hope it re-opens. Loved it here. The little shops are fab and their bookshop is so lovely. Some shops sell homegrown flowers from their gardens too. One cafe, The Canary cafe, had a poster saying they delivered afternoon tea over the country so you could continue your holiday long after!

Cornwall dreaming. Devon dreaming too. We visited Devon as children and made lovely family memories. We have since been to Torquay  about ten years ago and it was very special going back. You can see why they called it The English Riviera. Back when families didn't go abroad as much. We revisited Peington which was lovely. It always reminds me of Poirot on the English Riviera. Having afternoon tea. Are you a Devon or Cornwall though? Always jam first for me!

The South coast is so nostalgic for me. With our Devon holidays and my grandad coming from Somerset. I love Taunton cider and have visited again on our way down to Cornwall. When I was younger, people would meet my grandad with a 'Morning squire' and he would whole heartedly greet them back, often doffing his cap at them. When I read 'Cider with Rosie' at sixth form, I loved reading about the 1950s with the charabanc bus and the two grannies who couldn't live with, or without each other. The feeling of community was so deep throughout the book and it reminded me of where my grandad grew up. My image was of copious amounts of sunshine, laughter and apples falling off trees.

So I will continue Cornwall dreaming until next year. The county does have a special place in my heart and we do talk about our holidays often. I do have a Cornwall corner in my Yorkshire home, full of Cornishware and gorgeous Cornish handmade pieces, made from driftwood and other natural materials from beachcombing the local area. I love visiting local craft fairs in village halls and gift shops full of local, handmade loveliness. I love speaking to the local artists and makers about their gorgeous pieces, lovingly made. In Mousehole, we had a lovely conversation with the lady who owns the Just Lily shops. We even bought from a little table set outside someone's home with a honesty box. Their embroided pieces were lovely. My Cornwall corner is fast becoming a Cornwall whole shelf! This photo was taken a while ago when I found the wonderful Corniche cards on instagram who sell cards, notebooks and coasters. They also send out gift boxes to people too.

I will continue to look at photos and montages, made by myself and my talented sis in law. I will carry on celebrating the memories on facebook and sharing them with family and friends. I will keep adding to my Cornishware collection in antique shops or by post too! Whilst on holiday, I read this lovely Jenny Colgan book and I love this photo on the beach!

I can do my reading at home, minus the sand getting in my G and T, and even read about Cornwall! 

We also visited Brighton when we went to Torquay and I loved it so much. I kept wandering around the square of jewellers, thinking that I had never been that bothered about being a Wag. But if it meant I could walk into this jewellers and buy this emerald ring that I kept being drawn to, then I would marry a footballer tomorrow! Now, I am drawn to books set in Brighton. I have read a few recently, including 'Local girl missing' by Claire Douglas and 'The Brighton Mermaid' by Dorothy Koomson.

I also love it when Cornwall and Devon are featuted on TV or dramas are set there. I loved watching Wycliffe years ago, as a student and I recently loved Dawn French in The Trouble with Maggie. I must watch Doc Martin, set in Port Isaac too. I have loved watching Beyond Paradise and would love to live on a house boat. As long as I could keep popping into my mum's house next door, just like they do!

Holidays are such a special way of creating memories. It isn't just the destination, which is pretty fab, it is who you share your precious holiday time with. I feel very lucky with my fellow holiday makers. Very lucky indeed. Especially those with wet noses, waggy tails, sandy paws and a continual quest for the next adventure!