Bodmin

A great intro to Cornwall

Susan and I headed off for our week long adventure in Cornwall this morning. We had expected it to be a long and tedious drive, but in fact we got there in a little over two hours from Geoffrey's place.
The scenery as we drove through Devon and then entered Cornwall was spectacular.
Firstly it was verdant green pastures and then changing once we hit the moors to a more sparse and desolate landscape then back to green again.

on Bodmin Moor

Susan at Jamaica Inn

We saw the sign for Jamaica Inn, the place where Daphne du Maurier based a book by the same name. It was in time for a late lunch so we entered the Smuggler's Bar (now said to be haunted) and ordered my first real Cornish pasty and veges. It was very good. Not too much pastry and too little meat as I'd feared.



Jamaica Inn

Susan in the Smuggler's Bar

Barb outside Jamaic Inn museum

The Inn certainly makes the most of its Daphne du Maurier and smuggling connections. There are reminders of it everywhere you look. In fact at the front of the Inn there is a dedicated museum to these icons.

There is a lot of the famous author's memorabilia there, kindly donated by her son Kits Browning. I didn't realise she'd written quite so many books. I'm in the middle of reading her novel "Mary Ann", so it felt surreal to be looking at the desk where she wrote it.

Daphne du Maurier secon from left top

novels by Daphne du Maurier novels

main characters from Jamaica Inn

The smuggling part of the museum was really interesting too. It showed how they used to hide contraband in hidden pockets in ladies corsets or in hollowed out Bibles or hollowed out potatoes or fruit or in porcelain figurines.....hang on...didn't I see all this on Border Patrol recently. Clearly smugglers haven't moved on much.

smugglers relics

smuggling items

cornish attire

As we were driving towards Bodmin we saw some stunt aerial acrobatics being performed. Perhaps they were practicing for an upcoming airshow. At first I thought I was witnessing a small plane crashing as I saw it spiralling seemingly out of control towards  the ground. Then it suddenly recovered out of the dive and climbed straight up into the sky only to do it again.

The road into Mulberry Farm, which has the cottage where we'll be spending the next week is one of the one lane tracks through a tree tunnel that I mentioned yesterday.You have to beep at every corner to warn other motorists possibly coming in the other direction. We only had to back up oncetoday so we've been lucky.

farmers at work on Mulberry farm

When we got to the cottage, the farmer Alan greeted us and showed us around. It is a converted cattle byre with walls about 12 inches thick made out of quarried stonework. It's absolutely delightful especially the lovely touch of having the table set for a cream tea for two, complete with homemade blackcurrant jam and fresh baked scones and clotted cream. Hooray!!!! It was good!

our cottage in Cornwall

Fresh flowers on the windowsill

cream tea!!! with clotted cream and homemade blackcurrant jam

The cottage is really well appointed. We both have our own double rooms with ensuite, there's a kitchen and dining/lounge area fully stocked with all the equipment you might want including a selection of DVDs and books.The kitchen also has a dishwasher, washing machine and clothesdryer. We're going to love it here!
The farmer apologised for the noise of the tractor loading up hay bales when we arrived, but hey it's a working farm. At least the place is pretty well soundproofed due to the thick walls anyway. I loved meeting one of their horses, when the farmer's wife, Sue led him round to the stables for the night. Ryan (the horse) was dressed in a coat and masked hood, which turned out to be protection from horse flies. He was a BIG horse, but very gentle and allowed me to pat his nose.

Ryan with his mistress Sue

We will pour over the brochures we picked up today to decide what we want to do over the next few days. Yee Ha!