Wild Tea, Strawberries, and Youth on the Granite Way

The highlight of my day today was finding a toilet, for it led to finding three new friends. Seriously. This event put the little village of Bridestowe on the map for me.

It all started as a 9-mile walk up the Granite Way bike path from Lydford to Okehampton. I stopped in Bridestowe (BRID eh stow) a few miles out to mail some items at the post office and use a toilet.

"Sorry, luv," the postmaster shakes his head. "There's no public toilet in Bridestowe. The nearest one is a mile down the road."

A mile? Yikes. My bladder can't wait that long. Bushes notwithstanding, I hit upon the idea of relying on the good graces of a B&B that I pass on the way out of the village.

I knock on the door, a smiling woman greets me, and I tell her my plight. I not only get hustled immediately to the upstairs bathroom with a hearty, welcoming laugh from the proprietress, but am happily, purrily greeted by her year-old Maine Coon cat, Barnaby, and then invited to stay for tea with her (Janet, at right in the photo) and her friend Trisha.


We are joined soon after by Janet's grown son, Alex, who rounds the kitchen corner and greets us all with "Oh, god, it's the coven" before sitting with us at the round dining table.

An hour later, we are still there, laughing ourselves silly over the image of hefty women in Spandex and overly short shorts creating their own wedgies, Janet's inadvertent Princess of Wales imitation (wearing a cotton skirt against sunlight on the stairs for the delivery man), Bush, Blair, stupid foreign and domestic policies, and US and UK TV programs.

It was all terribly non-politically correct and hoots of fun. There are very few people I've met who are more straight-shooting than British "coven" biddies. They also enlightened me about the British armed forces where men are encouraged to question orders that trouble them. Alex had served in the first Gulf War and now works for British Gas in Egypt and surfs the Devon coast and fixes mom's B&B toilet seats when he's home.

Janet and Trisha have been friends from their time working for the Royal Marine Academy on the Dartmoor moors. I have easily missed the worst of weather on these moors, where, the ladies tell me, winter winds double people over and rain comes sideways and ice builds up around flag poles so thick a man can't wrap his arms around it.






The 9-mile walk itself was easy--a bike path is flat and paved most of the way, and the route is well signed. I found a tasty snack of wild strawberries en route, took in some lovely views of Devon from the Lake Viaduct (that's where I am in that photo), and shared the day with very few other mammals--only the occasional sheep or bicyclist.

Got into Okehampton in time to buy my YHA (hostel) card for future use and to watch a dozen girls team up to help each other on a climbing wall at the hostel. I was as impressed with those who chose to retreat when they got stuck, as with those who made it all the way to the top. There was no teasing or ridicule, only "You can do it, Theresa!" and "She wants to come down--give her some rope." I'd like to try that at REI sometime.

Wandered around Okehampton and now understand why every person I've met who doesn't live here grimaced when I said I was going there. It's good sized, has all the right shops, some old buildings, but no spark. Nothing to set it off, no real sense of town identity.

Tonight is another local football game in the World Cup, England v. Trinidad & Tobago, and I want to catch the game before I take a bus home. But none of the pubs on the main road catch my eye as an interesting prospect.

I ask a local fellow who is closing up his jewelry shop where to see the game.

"Wouldn't know," he says apologetically, latching the expandable iron grill that secures his doorway. "Don't watch football, and I don't drink, so I don't go to the pubs."

Great. I happen to ask the one teetotaller in all of Okehampton how to find the best bar in town.

I thank him, press onward, then spy a group of young footballers coming up the street. All are in their late teens/early twenties, dressed in white and red England jerseys, one draped in a flag of the Cross of St George, all loud and rambunctious and arms wrapped around each other and singing some kind of team song.

I enter their circle, laughing. "Just the people I need to meet. Where's the best place to watch the game?"

"The Prat" spouts a blond one near me. "Definitely The Prat." An arm goes round my shoulders, and I am spun on my heels in the other direction. "Come with us. Best place to watch any football."

"How's the food?" I am almost yelling to be heard above the tumult of his friends.

"Oh, the food's terrible. But you don't go for the food anyway, do you? You go for the game, to be with your mates and cheer England on!"

This statement is met by raucous cheers. What Okehampton lacks in luster it makes up for in English pride.

"So you're a school team, then?"

"Not a school team. Okehampton's team." More whoops and woo-hooing and group kisses on the cheek.

"The Prat" is the Pretoria Vaults pub, down a side street near the top end of town center. It has an enormous projector TV, with standing-room only viewing, right inside the main entrance.

We are greeted by a crush of young 20-somethings, also all in red and white or wrapped in St George flags, chanting, singing, being the biggest fans in the place.

My group escort carves a way toward the back end of the bar and I hang onto a shirt tail to keep track of them. They are already totally psyched for the game, and the hugging, cheek kissing and draping of arms around mate's heads and necks continues in earnest as they settle in for a view the game from across the room.

They stand on chairs, exchange more hugs and kisses and beers that they pour over each other, pass wallets and cash overhead to order more bottles and pints, chant chants, whistle and holler to friends across the pub, and then sing the opening chorus of "God Save the Queen" (to the same tune as "My Country 'Tis of Thee") at the top of their lungs once the game starts.

I stay long enough to get the feel of things--the boys have already forgotten their charge in their enthusiasm--and then step back from the press of bodies to watch the game at another, quieter screen at the back of the pub, where the grown-up men (also sporting white and red clothing and an occasional Union Jack) watch a smaller projection TV, and where I am less likely to get beer poured all over me.

I order the only food the pub offers--a hot Cornish pasty--and eat it while standing in an open doorway that offers fresh air and leads to a household yard. Two five-year-olds with squirt guns make a game of dousing us guests with water--I become a prime target nearest the door, and I playfully shoo them away. They finally give up when I keep an active eye on the doorway so they can no longer ambush me.

Wanting to sit down instead of stand for another hour, I finally leave The Prat through a back door and go to the Plume & Feathers pub, which is quieter and downright cozy. Only a few adults are gathered around tables and the bar here, but they're just as vocal about good and bad plays as any youth at The Prat.

England wins 1-0 with a goal at the very end of the game. "Well done," say I, and head for the bus home.

Hoofin' and Footin' It in Lydford

In order to experience the Dartmoor moors first-hand, I needed better transportation than my feet. Enter Ellie, a very willing little horse at Cholwell Farm in Mary Tavy, a few miles south of The Springs. Margaret drove me to the stable and picked me up, and I shared the hour's horseback ride with several other women who came there regularly for lessons and day rides.

We headed straight out from the farmyard onto the moors, where we cantered a few times and mostly walked over the rocky trails. Endless view across the moors, with patches of heather that have yet to flower.

While I was happy to be on a horse again, I was glad this ride was only an hour. My legs felt the workout after many months of not riding Barney last year. My tailbone definitely felt it, too.




The mile and a half walk to Lydford Gorge in the afternoon passed the ruins of Lydford Castle within the village. This centuries-old keep is owned by the National Trust but open to the public without fee or welcome wagon. Just walk up the hill and around the back, and there you are, roaming around the ruins and climbing the steps. Cool.

Had lunch at the Lydford Gorge tearoom (including a mango/orange/cinnamon tea that was astonishingly pink) before heading out to "do the gorge"--£5 for a 3-mile nature loop that's a tame, wide, gravelled path winding along woods at the south and downright hazardous at the north end near Devil's Cauldron.

Here the trail comes right along the river and you're walking on slippery, anywhere-angled layers of rock. Some of the paths have thin pipe handrails. Others don't. Signs definitely warn of the danger, and brochures tell people to wear sensible shoes.

A couple whom I chatted with later in Lydford said that rescue teams have to go in three or four times a year to retrieve someone who's fallen in by a misstep or foolish footwear choices like flip-flops or high heels. I can believe it. My hiking boots saved me from twisted ankles, but sometimes I slipped alarmingly on the smooth wet stone. I kept chanting, "I am a graceful, surefooted mountain goat" to get through. Goofy, but it worked.




While Lydford's is nothing like the Columbia River gorge, the glimpses of river, waterfalls, and greenery were spectacular at that end of the gorge. Waters rush and wind through high narrow channels in miniature rapids that later smooth into sections gentle enough for fish to laze in the current.

Early in the gorge walk, I met a Scottish couple who were trying to take a timed photo of themselves on a bridge by balancing the camera on the railing. I offered to take the shot, and we kept passing each other the rest of the route.



We met again at the very end, Devil's Cauldron, where they offered to take my photo and e-mail it once they got back from holiday in a week or two. We got to chatting a bit.

They live between Glasgow and Edinburgh. Names are Eleanor and Alex. I laughed to myself; the names are very close to ones I've used in Sigil, and are just two of many "hits" I've come across related to the book. Clearly spirit is getting my attention about finishing it.

Walked home via Lydford and paused to talk to a couple having tea on benches in their courtyard. I admired the paint job on their window sashes--the woman had been adding a fresh coat of creamy-yellow paint when I'd passed earlier in the day.

Their big dog, Dudley, a black-and-white long-haired border collie mix, placed his forepaws on the stone wall to ask for pets. The woman was still in her painting apron; the man’s shirt had a fire department emblem--he was involved in many gorge rescues. We talked for the good part of an hour, discussing home maintenance, gorge stories, house prices.

Many attached cottages like those around us were selling at around £230,000 (about US$400,000). The homes are two stories, three very tiny bedrooms upstairs with a galley kitchen and one great room downstairs, small shared courtyard spaces down the front of the housing.

They thought these were fair prices. I gulped. Charming as it is, I marked Lydford off my list of possible places to live. Still looking for a one-story cottage somewhere...

To Heligan and Beyond

After a long, if fitful, sleep and then a shower, I am feeling refreshed and capable again. My pack is still exploded all over the room from last night--I dump everything into a pile and re-sort and repack and purge a few more things to mail back to London.

I see now that I do better on a travel day to wear the daypack and haul the big bag all tidied and tied up for the shorter distances. Without the hip and shoulder straps flopping around, it goes better onto bus and rail racks, and there's no need to climb into and out of it every three minutes. Combining the packs is definitely better for the longer schleps from a train station to a B&B. This plan sets me in a better mood already.

I hate reading history. Always have. Had a blurb in my hotel about the room and the hotel. My brain seized up halfway through the first page. I like hearing and seeing history. Hearing it through docents and walks, seeing it through pictures and reenactments. I deal with words so much that the thought and effort of reading more today leaves me enervated and blah. It's another form of taking in from the outside, from someone else's view of the world, and being influenced by it.

Yet isn't all life creation, artistic creation, an outpouring of our experiences and views in life? Can we pour out from a vacuum? Not really. But where comes the source? Head experiences lead to head output. Heart experiences lead to heart output. Physical experiences lead to physical output. Spiritual experiences lead to spiritual output.

We out-put into the world what we dwell on the most. Our minds build a model, a construct, a way of thinking, and our words and actions and even the world's responses retune themselves to that model and construct. We see what we believe. What we choose to vibrate to, the world will give us. I'm trying to stay out of the head experiences as much as possible on this trip.

I'm beginning to experience the pull to write and to put my words out into the world, even if no one reads. I write. That's one of the things I do. I am here, and my words are the proof of it. My graffiti is left in bits and bytes on servers instead of stone all over the world. I was here. Remember me.

The Lost Gardens of Heligan, which I bused to this morning, are called "lost" because they were a Victorian garden that fell into acute disrepair during the war. Buildings toppled under the weight of overgrowth, gardens died, ponds choked with plants and debris. A group of volunteers began resurrecting it several years ago, and have returned much of it to its former splendor.



It is still a work in progress, with many long walks and interesting paths, areas devoted to special types of vegetation (a jungle, for instance), a lovely café that cooks with site-grown organic foods, a huge gift shop, and an amazing collection of restored plants (such as a decades-old rhododendron forest--really!--and rare handkerchief trees, like the one I saw in London).

I liked the idea of starting from the debris. Of the teamwork and design involved in creating a place like that--of reclaiming it, really. The bones of the place were there; they just needed a loving hand and lots of back-work to bring them back. I like that better than working on acres of land from scratch.



The other thing I liked most about Heligan is the mud art. The Giant and the Mud Maiden, both of them very big. I am drawn to the idea of sculpting to that scale with mud and cement. It's like a sand castle only more permanent. Simultaneously whimsical and artful and useful to a garden.

Like the brother and sister artist who created these outdoor pieces, I loved mudpies when I was a kid. Anything that makes a mess is a preferred medium for me. Is that where my sculpting needs to be put? A great feeling of enthusiasm bubbled up inside me when I looked at those: "Hey, I could do that." Anyone have a bit of garden they want to spice up?





The rest of my day was anti-climactic travel--a train ride to sprawling Plymouth through some lovely countryside in between endless tree-blur. An amusing busboard of Britain’s ubiquitous campaign to get people to use a trashcan for their gum instead of sticking it to sidewalks, buses, signposts, and toilets. A one-hour trip to Lydford that stretched to two hours because of a huge backup after an accident on a bike path that crosses the area.

Reached The Springs with ease from the flag-stop bus route at the top of the road out of Lydford. It's a cozy three-story B&B run by Mr and Mrs Wray; she's Margaret. She and her husband spend every winter in southern India, and he's over there now building a home for them to use when they're there. My room has a view onto a friendly garden with a lovely collection of June flowers, and Margaret is a great cook.

Ate dinner at The Dartmoor Inn, barely a quarter mile from The Springs along a dangerously narrow (no shoulder, heavy traffic) B road.

I am hungrier than I expected to be. Also tired after a long trip up here. My server, Val, is very game--arranging for me to sample the black pudding, a traditional slice of stuff made from pig's blood, fat, organ meat and who-knows-what-else leftovers from a slaughter. Leave it to the frugal Brits (or any European heritage) to put all parts of a pig to work for sustenance.

The stuff is very rich--a forkful goes a long way--but tasty in a meaty, slightly peppery kind of way. I could almost feel my iron and vitamin A levels go up with each of my three bites. My main meal of marinated fish over salad greens was worthy of a fine restaurant, which this has been rated as.

Finished off with a lemon tart with a dollop of clotted cream (yes, that’s solid cream, not ice cream on that wedge), waddled home, and was more than grateful for the chance to roll into bed and sleep it all off.

How Not to Land in St Austell

Today was the kind of day that strips the romance out of traveling without a car, a map, and a plan and turns it into a frustrating, stupid, and miserable idea.

The day started well enough, with my leaving my self-catering cabin and taking a 9:00am bus to Redruth, where I planned to toss my big pack into a locker and hop a local bus to visit a copper and tin mine museum for an hour or two, and then take the 2:30pm train to St Austell and book a bed with the help of the onsite tourist info center.

First off, there are no lockers at the tiny Redruth station. So I lug the bag onto the bus and leave it with Andrew, the mine's helpful docent, while I tour the three mine facilities. Lug the bag back on the bus in plenty of time to catch the train. OK, inconvenient, but so far, so good.

Then came my arrival at St Austell. I wanted to stop there overnight so I can go to The Lost Gardens of Heligan tomorrow before heading out of Cornwall for Devon the same day.

St Austell looks pretty big on a map. It's a relatively major rail stop and has a bus station across the parking lot. I pictured something like Bath, where I'd pull in by train, get help from the at-station TIC or, better yet, book at a B&B down the street. Leave my bag at the railway locker tomorrow while I took the day tour to Heligan, return to hop the train to my next destination, Plymouth. Easy.

Not.

There are no lockers at either the bus station or the train station. Since the terrorist attacks on the London subway, I'm told, the lockers are gone from all but the biggest stations. (So are the trash cans.) Damn. That had been a standby plan for future day touring. It also meant that I'd be schlepping 25 pounds on every step of my search for a bed in St Austell. And on another scorcher of a day.

Rather than being next door as I expected, the TIC for St Austell is two miles from the station. I'm feeling too cheap for a taxi, a bus doesn't run for half an hour, and using the TIC two miles away could mean even more backtracking to an actual lodging. I'd rather stay close to the train station, as I'm here only for the night.

No youth hostels are listed in the phone book, either--I found out that "hostel" also means a rest home, which, as one amused proprietor I called told me, didn't take overnight reservations.

I am hopeful when the clerks at the rail and bus stations say they think there are B&Bs a few blocks away, even though they don't know for sure where they are.

I set out in the direction of the B&Bs--and in defiance of physics, it is uphill no matter which way I turn. Strapped to my 25-pound pack, I break into a hot-faced sweat within five minutes and have no luck finding said establishments. Repeated requests from locals to point me to the streets that were supposed to have B&Bs scare up nothing but one B&B (booked) and another half a pint of sweat retracing my steps.

I head back to the train station, hot crabby and bothered, without a car, all by myself, relying on stupid public transportation that never leaves when I want it to, and stupidly entering this place without first finding a way to call into town beforehand. No nearby Internet access, no TIC that's near where people are likely to land in their city, not even a map of the city at the train or bus station.

All of which makes me hotter and crabbier and closer to wanting to cry. Waaah--I don't like this part of traveling alone, when the avenues of help are shut off or dry. And this pack is too damn heavy on a hot day. And I've mailed back the Ramblers hotel book to Norman because I didn't want the weight and I specifically wanted to go without the printed guides. Dumb dumb dumb. Damn damn damn.

OK. These feelings are familiar. It's scare. Plain and simple. Breathe. Remember what this whole trip is about. I know I have ideal lodging waiting for me--I just need clarity instead of confusion to get to it. I remind myself that I am in the right place at the right time, and that all of this is good. Yeah, right.

I ask for a definite lead from my intuition--make it really clear what direction I should go.

I am facing the first street out of the rail station, a shady downhill curve at the outskirts of town center. The elusive B&Bs are supposed to be to the left and behind me.

Movement catches my eye. A crow is flying straight down the road ahead and veering to the right over the trees.

"Follow it," I think. "Go that way. This is your lead."

"Stupid," I answer. "That's not a sign. It's a bird."

"It's the lead."

"This is irrational."

"OK. So it's irrational. Intuition is like that. Follow the hunch."

"This is irrational," I say aloud, "so it must be right."

As I head down hill, I notice the bird has flown over the yard of the big church that the bus clerk had pointed out as a landmark. Church people can help people find lodging. At least they used to. If anyone's there.

I climb the stone steps to the shadowed yard, still looking for what Crow had been trying to tell me. Across the street and now visible from my elevated position is the White Hart Hotel, home of St Austell ales.

"There. Check it out."

"Probably very expensive, by the looks of it. Hotels always are."

"Find out."

Out of more than 50 beds, they had only two rooms available tonight--both of them a double at £60, twice my target maximum rate.

"Can you do any better?" I ask the young man, Scott, behind the desk. I am breathing a little hard, and sweat is pouring down my forehead and into my eyes. Now that I've stopped walking and am inside a warm and still lobby, my overheated body is offloading liquid from every pore. I am sure I look like I used to after PE every day at school--beet red in the face, sodden hair flat to my head, a generally unflattering picture of physical fitness. I don't want to remove the pack if I need to keep moving, so I peel my paper fan out of my waist pack and breeze my face.

"No, sorry." Scott seems truly pitying of this woman who is wilting before him. "We've got the same rates throughout the year, so no seasonal differences. Maybe the Queens Hotel down the street."

He calls the Queens. No openings. Before we can go further in our interaction, he takes an incoming call for a reservation. It's from Switzerland and it turns exasperating for Scott. The caller can't locate the expiration date on his card in order to reserve a room. Scott patiently--and repeatedly--tells the caller how to read a credit card while he shares a rolled eye and a grin with me.

Then he starts explaining into the phone, "No, that's Exeter…400 miles away…a different county. No, I wouldn't know about that hotel--that's 400 miles from here. Yes. Yes. No. Thank--thankyo--yes, alri--that's right then, goo--no, not there, yes, goodbye then."

He finally manages to hang up and we are laughing. I am still fanning my face, but the sweat has dried, and I have managed to consolidate what fortitude I still have left. "Can you recommend any other hotel?"

I must still look rather pathetic. "Tell you what," he says, "I can give you the double room for £50, but that's the best I can do."

"I'll take it," I say with a flood of thanks. I dislodge my bag from my back as he takes my information and tells me that the cost includes a full breakfast.

"Cooked?"

"And continental--you can do both if you want." Score.

He carries my bag up two flights of stairs while I plod up behind him. Score.

The room smells of flowers and has a bathtub the size of a wading pool and a big, deliciously phlumphy double-bed. Score.

I don't care how much it costs. I'm in a real hotel for the first time in a month after an aging hotel, a Spartan YMCA, a B&B with cold breakfasts, and a musty smelling self-catering flat that requires coins to keep the electricity going.

I chuck off my sweaty clothes, wash my face and neck, break into my pack for my culottes and a fresh shirt. Off with the socks and boots and foot wraps. On with the aerated flats. Ah. I'm human again.

Refreshed, I head downstairs to ask Scott for pertinent information: TIC number? Check (too late to call though--they're closed).

Internet? Only at the library half a mile up the street. Sigh. I need that to arrange lodging for rest of my Dartmoor stay. I'm not going to land in a town without lodging this way again...especially since I'm heading deeper into the countryside, away from civilization, where TICs and rail stations are progressively smaller, or nonexistent, and open fewer hours.

I manage to get to the library a half an hour before they close. Their Internet has just crashed. Not available. Not no way, not no how.

Grrr. Can I scream now?

The librarian and I resort to old-fashioned research for help finding lodging in the Devon area: a row of low-tech phone books upstairs. We pore over a few with my Dartmoor maps, and he leaves me to it.

I manage to call a few places in the area, remembering that I really do have enough cash to take a taxi when I need to, or that I can often find a host who might pick me up from a station 15 miles away. Information, information.

I rough out the next few days with yellow pages and train depot help, grab phone numbers to call from the hotel once the library closes. I feel relieved to have a plan after today's bit.

As I work, I consider what I've learned about how I prefer to travel and the silly assumptions I made that escalated my scare. I just expected St Austell to be bigger than it was, and discovered that getting around the small towns only on foot and public transport is tricky. I remember someone telling me a few days ago--was it Norman?--"It's often the last 14 miles to a destination that are the hardest."

I've also decided that staying at least two nights is best if I want to see a place, and that I do better having an idea of where the TIC and my lodging are in relation to a train or bus station before I arrive in a town.

When I'm traveling with only the small daypack, all of this is much easier. I keep wanting to downsize more to make the big bag lighter, but I'm already thin in the pack while still being prepared for weather shifts of rain and cold later in the trip. I haven't found much more to jettison.

I finished the planning by calling for lodging through Salisbury from my room, combining youth hostel and B&B and asking proprietors for help getting phone numbers and bus info as much as possible. It felt good to ask for and get help, something else I'll remember to do more often.

Just looked at the clock. 7:30pm. I've spent four and a half hours putting together lodging and travel plans for the next 5 nights. Better than feeling stranded again, or getting stranded for real.

Ate dinner at the hotel and nodded off soaking in the tub. Big bath towels, big bed, four fluffy pillows. Really needed this bit of pampering tonight. It's only 9pm and I'm in bed, pooped and feeling better about where I am. Tomorrow's another dayrise.

Room for Chats and SWC Walk2

It is 1:30pm already, and my bus back to Mullion is arriving soon. I have just spent the last few hours walking and photographing the six miles from Mullion Cove to Porthleven on the Southwest Coast path. I am feeling proud of myself, hot, sweaty, and ready for home.

I sit on a rock wall by the main road that skirts the sheltered harbor, eating a freshly grilled burger and onions, bought from the food tent just across the street.

"Real Cornish beef, just caught this morning," said the barbecue cook. "Perfect flame grill, too--12 months of black on it." His enthusiasm as chef is matched by his prowess. The burger is good. Or maybe I’m particularly hungry. The melting Snickers bar I ate an hour ago has worn off.

A local festival is going on, a fundraiser for something called the Porthleven Gig Club. People mill around a small green to buy home-baked breads and cakes, grilled burgers and hot dogs, and--yes--freshly brewed tea poured from teapots instead of an urn. Kids kick footballs around, shoppers flow through a lane of flea-market tents, and toddlers waddle around in the sun with parents in tow.

I am across the street from the hubbub, joined on my rock wall by a wiry man with thinning gray hair, my self-appointed companion of the moment. He is wearing an aqua-and-green cravat under a striped long-sleeve shirt. His smile is wide over deeply tartared teeth; I remind myself to floss more often. He holds the last quarter of a blackened hot dog in its bun, undoubtedly obtained at the same tent where I bought the burger.

He had stopped in his sidewalk stroll to ask if I was taking a break. I told him I'd just walked from Mullion Cove.


You should be part of our gig, then," he smiled and sat down beside me. "The gig," he said, indicating the long crewing-like boats and their many oars waiting to be launched in the harbor, "is 300 years old. Used to meet the ships coming into the harbor and steer them in.

"Every port in Cornwall has one, and we all meet at each other's port for an annual race. Helps us raise money for the boats. They cost £15,000. Course the tide's out right now, but later in the evening it'll be in and the race will start."

"The tide is out" is an understatement--every fishing boat and dinghy in the harbor rests in mud.

He asks where I’m from and I tell him the Seattle area.

"My best friend is from America," he offers as I finish my burger and pick the onions from the paper. "Came to spend three years with the Royal Navy here as a transfer. Really fine fellow. Everybody liked him. Went back home. We'll be going to Boston soon for a visit. He lives 300 miles from there. He's going to take us to Civil War sites. Fascinating that. And I want to see the site of the Tea Party.

"He's into computers now, Rick is. I absolutely detest the things. I'd rather have a steam-powered radio, I would."

He is on a roll, and has forgotten the cooling hot dog in his hand. "One thing I hold against the Americans, though."

"What's that?"

"What they did to that British man's body. Dug it up and cut in into pieces so everybody could have one."

"Who was that?" I am expecting some historical figure I'd forgotten; cutting up bodies as relics is an outmoded practice from what I hear.

"Alistair Cooke. Was in all the papers. 'Bout three months ago."

What? Masterpiece Theatre Alistair Cooke? Surely not. I snorted, suspecting that he'd been reading a British version of the National Enquirer. "Sounds like some saint being chopped up for distribution."

"Oh, he wasn't that famous," he says seriously. "He wrote the history books and programs about America. But why they had to do that..."

He trails off, and I turn the topic to Cooke’s contribution to the world, which he warms to. My bus soon arrives, I bid my old friend good luck on the race, and he wishes me well on my travels.





The walk north today was much the same as going south, only with the Atlantic on my left and more signs of civilization to pass by: the Marconi Center and a monument commemorating the first transatlantic telegraph transmission; the Mullion Golf Course, which runs right alongside beach grasses; a Porthleven man cutting his lawn with an electric mower (yes, complete with extension cord) that’s as quiet as a vacuum cleaner; sunbathers--almost fully clad--seeking sand or flat rocks to lay on; a row of lookalike houses cum B&Bs, self-catering units, and holiday rentals along the Porthleven harbor.

The world changed subtly around me on the walk. Cliffs and my distance from them altered the sounds of waves from rolling to foaming to crashing to silence. Smells shifted on the wind--cows and sea and seagulls--and my skin felt hot sun, cool breezes, muggy and sticky sea air, chilled shade from the rare boulder or building. Vast views of the coast dropped to enclosed beaches and a freshwater pond, gave way to rock walls and paved roads between homes on the way into Porthleven. On a footpath, it's always worth looking back as well as up and ahead.

It was a day to notice small things—flowers and butterflies, stones and birds, a kestral hovering on the breeze--none of it the same, each moment newly minted. Granite faces eroded smoother one windsweep at a time. The path eroded deeper from my row of footfalls. The trails moved closer to cliff edges with each blow-off of sand.

Arriving back at Mullion, I take cream tea refreshment at Colrogers Creamery, a deli that David and Lisa from Farmborough had said to look for. It is a block from where the bus dropped me off.

There I meet Ann, 73 years old, an amazing historian of British and contemporary events, sharp as a tack. She was born in Hertfordshire (north of London), and moved with her mother to Cornwall in the 1960s. She lives in Mullion now. I ask if I can join her for tea as I wait for fresh scones from the oven. She's about halfway done with hers.

I sugar and cream my tea, and she begins to tell me about the British monarchy and many Scottish skirmishes. I listen attentively, for being in the actual country of these events brings a new life and perspective to otherwise dry historical facts. By the time I am slathering butter, thin homemade raspberry jam, and extra-click clotted cream on my hot scones, she has moved on to World War II and touched on the Romans, with a few American-British tidbits thrown in. "But the best thing that ever happened to Britain was the Ice Age," she proclaims, "when it broke away from the Continent." And that "Edinburgh has one thing wrong with it. It has no river. Every proper city has a river."

By now, her pot of tea has diluted to "gnat's pee" from so many refills of hot water. I pour into both our cups from my fresher pot, and she moves on to more personal topics. She used to raise chickens during the war, but didn't live on a farm. "I lived in a psychiatric ward when I was young, and used to run away from the asylum to visit London theatre." She says this with a twinkle in her eye, and I can picture the mischievous girl she once was. "The asylum folks got used to my absences, and they never gave me any trouble for it."

She reminisces about Dorie, a non-egglaying chicken they had for Christmas dinner, and about Charlie, another chicken they ate the next year. "He was a marvelous cockerel. Used to drive Danny [another rooster] all over the yard for the ladies."

Soon both our teapots are empty, my belly is full of jam and scones, and my waistline is filled with another dose of butter fat. I bid this other new old friend goodbye and head back to the cabin, stopping by Julia's shop and happily finding her there (it’s Sunday).

We visit in between customers and have fun making stamped swatches to sew to my visor. I select personally mixed teal and purple paints, flower and sun stamps, and a charming bird stamp inspired by a Mexican pattern Julia had seen on her travels.

We laugh like school girls and make plans to visit the Eden Project (a self-sustaining biodiversity center) together the next time I’m in Cornwall. She’s promised to mail me a hag's stone (a sea pebble that has a natural hole through it) for good health, and I’ve promised to keep in touch over postcards and email.

I walk the remaining quarter mile to my cabin, grateful for a perfect day of solitude plus friendship.

Postscript: The Alistair Cooke story apparently has some gruesome truth to it, but it’s more about reputed mortuary-based bone snatchers than grave diggers, and was an event in Dec 2005. Google Alistair Cooke + bones, if you're into that kind of thing.