We set off for Cornwall on Thursday 19th June, breaking our journey for the night at Tebay West. It was really hot, and I revelled in walking out behind the hotel before dinner in thin trousers and a T-shirt. At last we were going to get some of the heatwave that the south was enjoying - or so I thought.
Greger had all the charging stops worked out; this one was in Lifton, near Launceston.
An early visit was to Land's End, although we'd once sworn never to go there again! It's now £8 to park - however short your stay is going to be; while further money will be extracted from you by the shops and the various "experiences". But nothing can really spoil the grandeur of the granite cliffs, while the presence of choughs came as a nice surprise.
The roped-off path had diversion signs at both ends. I'm not sure if this was to prevent disturbance of the choughs as the sign we saw didn't mention them; but even if it had mentioned them, no doubt those people who were manoeuvring themselves past the barriers and walking the path anyway would still have done so.
On a rainy morning, Greger suggested a visit to the King Edward Mine Museum near Camborne, where we had a guided tour. It was very interesting; I hadn't known that copper was also mined in Cornwall, and was actually removed first as it's closer to the surface than tin.
Our holiday let was a small but spotlessly clean property near Nancledra, between Penzance and St. Ives. You needed to negotiate stretches of single-track road whichever direction you went, and getting to the large car park above the town would involve even more. Greger had the idea of driving to St. Erth, where there's a large park-and-ride, and catching the train to St. Ives - and we ended up doing this several days in a row, walking through the town (pausing to buy hot Cornish pasties on the way) and then along the coastal path to Clodgie Point.
Neither of us felt like walking far, and an effort to get to a trig point along the coastal path was called off when we realised we were just too tired! I didn't mind - I was happy to do some sea-watching, while Greger was content to help me spot birds or just lounge around - or go for short walks when he felt he was being too lazy! It was sometimes sunny, but there was an irritating and quite cool westerly wind (sounds familiar!) for the whole week. We saw hundreds of Manx shearwaters pass going west, mostly quite far out. You really need a telescope to sea-watch properly.
Also seen seawards from Clodgie - a flypast little egret and a family of Sandwich terns; while my first whitethroat of the year was in the bracken behind us, along with a sedge warbler. A family of linnets whizzed about, and a rock pipit carried food to a fledgling down on the rocks; but a chiffchaff (surprising in a heathy area with no trees) was heard only.
On our last day, we walked over to have a look at Man's Head.
Something that looked vaguely orange was buzzing about so fast that we could hardly follow it - we had caught a glimpse of one such insect at Clodgie, and been unable to stay on it then. Now, it occurred to me that it must be a hummingbird hawkmoth. There were at least three individuals, zooming around and seemingly investigating nooks and crannies in the rocks, but never settling. I googled about this behaviour, and AI Overview suggested that while hummingbird hawkmoths might act in this way, it certainly isn't a common sight, and perhaps the insect in question was a different moth or even a different insect altogether. Well, AI Overview, I did manage to catch one of them in its manic flight, and poor though the photo is, we are definitely talking hummingbird hawkmoth!
The morning we left our holiday let it was raining - and the rain persisted until we had left Cornwall behind. By the time we reached Hilton Park services, north of Birmingham, it was sunny and warm - and while Greger charged up (it was too hot for him) I walked about soaking up the sun.
We saw no accidents on the way home (two on the drive south on the M5) which was nice, but there were two disconcerting incidents. A motorbike came up very fast in the slow lane as a car ahead in the fast lane switched to the middle lane we were in. The rider swung out in front of us, and veered into the fast lane to pass that car, in front of a car that was passing us - which had to brake. The second incident was just south of Perth on the A9. What I thought was a dog came running along the grassy verge, parallel with the road, against the flow of traffic. The car's dash cam and side camera caught it, and proved it was a dog; but for what looks like a collie or sheepdog type, it had strangely short legs.
The dog was almost galloping, as though it was desperate to get somewhere - so we can only hope it got there safely.
We enjoyed our holiday. It was particularly nice to be in St. Ives again, as we haven't been there since 2009; but I have to admit there was no heatwave, and our swimsuits came back unused.
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