Cornwall weekend Friday 20 to Sunday 22nd June

Friday afternoon James, Lauren and myself jumped into their brand new little Fiat 500 and headed the 300 or so miles to the southwest corner of England.

For the first time on my whole trip about three quarters of the way to Cornwall I felt incredibly ill and we had to stop at service station fairly rapidly. No I didnt throw up but rather embarrassingly it was a very upset stomach that almost caused me to pass out with pain, as it was James had to grab my arm and he said my legs looked like they were jelly as we made our way to the toilets. Probably a combination of not eating a snack at the previous rest-stop and only having a coffee which was very very bad but I kept drinking it ... that and bouncing around in the back of the car for over four hours!

Anyway, after toilet break, an oatmeal bar and some lucazade fizzy drink, I came good and we were on our way to Redruth in Cornwall where Lauren´s Mum and step-dad Peter live.

This was also probably the saddest part of my whole journey as the house and surrounding towns (including St Ives) is where my gorgeous cousin Raine lived, worked and unfortunately died after an 18 month battle with cancer. She had passed away in mid-Feb this year, just weeks before her 22nd birthday,

In a way this trip was kind of dedicated to her as she always told me I needed to come over again and do more of an organised trip than I did four years ago.

Saturday we spent the day in St Ives, which was a lovely village dating back many many years from a Pilchard fishing history. The weather was typical english weather, dull, dreary and lightly raining for most of the day. It didnt dampen my enjoyment of the town of St Ives, even just to meet people who Raine worked with, to visit the cafe where she worked for many years and to see the church where her funeral service was held. I guess in a way it was my goodbye to her.

Sunday couldn´t have been more a day of contrast as we headed to the other side of peninsula, to Penzance, Moushole, and my favourite part of the day, exploring the Saint Michael´s Mount, which is an island off the Cornwall coast reached by a causeway at low tide. The island has a huge castle on the top, which is still in private hands but adminstered by the National Trust. It was fantastic. I really want a castle to live in!

In the evening was the long drive back, but we made great time, stopping in Salisbury for dinner.

I really enjoyed Cornwall, however still cannot get over how narrow the roads are in the villages and towns and the fact that some of them are two with pedestrians to boot!

Oh and I can tick off Stonehenge from my list of to see, we drove past it on the way down and I got a decent picture. I´d already been to a detailed musuem at Salisbury four years ago that had quite a bit of information on the circle of rings, so there was no need to stop. Plus the road was half-closed as all the druids were gathering for the summer solstice on the Saturday night so lots of people and police milling about.