Travel to Cornwall and the first day

We left a couple of minutes before 10 am, which was pretty good going. Google said the trip via the A23/M23/M25/M3/A303/A30/M5/A30/A39 was going to be 284 miles all the way to Newquay. As it happened, we went via Taunton to spend an hour or so with Naomi and family plus we only had to go as far as St. Columb Major, so it ended up 295 miles. I never thought that going via M25/M3 would be so good. Alex didn't feel like struggling round Chichester and the motorways were behaving themselves on the whole.

Stonehenge

What was an incredibly nice surprise, that coming this way we drove past Stonehenge and I managed to take a really good photo of it on the move.  Admittedly, we were not moving too fast, but I took about a dozen before this good one happened.

Naomi and Sid were really lovely.  They are such nice people and never change. We saw Joseph, who is 16 now and I managed to embarrass him grossly by giving him 2 kisses. Callum spent an hour and a half in the garden playing, which was great, as he was really cooped up for 3 and half hours from Hassocks to Taunton.

Sid

Sid suggested that the remaining trip would take 3 hours, which turned out to be a gross exaggeration. We were at Sheila's in 90 minutes and we were not hurrying either.

Naomi

The weather has been great since we arrived, although quite windy. My head cold got really bad and I had to sit up for about an hour in the night and take some painkillers. My head is now a lot better, but still a bit shaky. The plan for today is to go to St. Michael's Mount, which is great as I have never been there in all our trips to Cornwall before.

Later
The weather stayed nice and we had a fantastic day out. In the morning we did three lots of washing and Meaghan put it on the line. We decided to leave before having lunch and find a pub once we got there.  Alex had marvellous instincts for pubs and kept driving until we found a lovely one with a car park and a garden.  It was called The Fireman's Arms and on top of all that, the views over St. Michael's Mount were gorgeous from the garden and we spent quite some time taking photos from every conceivable angle.

St. Michael's Mount

On the boat

The food was lovely: Roy and I had fish and chips, Meaghan and Alex Cornish pasties and Callum a beefburger. Once our tummies were full, we found a reasonably priced car park for £4 and took to the little boat to take us over to the Mount. That was £9 for us, which while not unduly expensive, was quite a lot to fork out twice. However, we were told that the causeway will be in use after 5 pm, so we decided to return that way.

Callum with the cannons

The castle was quite interesting.  I haven't yet found out, but will Google it when I get a minute, when it ceased to be a friary and became a private house/estate. Callum was using the quiz book that he was given on entrance. Once it was filled with his answers, they presented him with a medal, which he was very happy about.

People crossing on the causeway still under a bit of water

We had a couple of Cornish cream teas between us at the end and waited for the causeway be clear of water. It was a splendid day, everybody had a good time and we got home to a lovely spaghetti Bolognese for dinner. Jo and Chris are arriving late tonight, so tomorrow will be spent with them. Another group of 9 Grants, but mixed with some Freemans this time as well.