The first of several posts in my Cornish Winter Break series relating to Falmouth.
INTRODUCTION
I continue my series about my Cornish Winter Break. Today’s is the first of what will be quite a few posts dealing with the last trip that I made as part of that holiday. This trip was unique in two ways among those I made during this holiday:
It was my idea
It featured a train journey
GETTING THERE
My mother and I got on the train at St Germans at 10:36, changed at Truro for the shuttle service to Falmouth Docks, and arrived at Falmouth just after 12:00. Falmouth was a planned port, first built in the late 16th century to provide an extra starting point for the export of china (it was intended to augment the existing port of Fowey, not challenge it – the person who planned it was actually a native of Fowey). It is a magnificent setting (my camera battery ran out before the end of the trip, but not before I had taken some fine pictures). After a pause to orient ourselves we headed for the National Maritime Museum Cornwall, which will get several posts of its own. The museum occupied as for quite some time, and then we had a brief look at the rest of the town, but I was getting tired by then, and we headed back not very long after finishing at the museum. I intend to revisit both the town and the museum.
PHOTOGRAPHS
There are a number of these old train carriages in the grounds of St Germans – I am considering staying in one of them when I am in Cornwall in August.
An account of cooking my signature dish to serve six, plus a mention of a new book about autism.
INTRODUCTION
This one will be somewhat different from the other posts in my Cornish Winter Breakseries – it is about the supper I cooked for six people near the end of my stay. I accompany it with pictures that don’t belong to any of the places I give specific posts to. Before getting into the main body of the post I have a small matter to attend to:
A NEW BOOK ABOUT AUTISM
“Not Weird, Just Limited Edition: Inside the Autistic Mind” is now available in kindle and paperback. It is by Faye Flint, who happens to be the niece of NAS West Norfolk chair Karan McKerrow. I am looking forward to reading it, and you may be sure that when I have done so I will give it a full blog post. If you wish to join me in ordering a copy click here – the kindle version is the third item down and the paperback is the sixth.
THE MEAL
I was cooking my signature dish – my own version of Lemony Chicken and Coriander (the original recipe is by Madhur Jaffrey, but I have made so many changes that I now claim this as entirely my own. For a description of the cooking process when I do it for myself visit this post. This version differed from my usual in several ways – I was cooking twice as much (it reheats superbly, so cooking three meals worth at once works well), my mother was cooking rice tog with it whereas I do pasta, and there was also going to be broccoli. Additionally, rather than having fresh lemons to squeeze I was using a bottle of lemon juice. The meal came together beautifully, the bottled lemon juice worked pretty much as well as the real thing, and the final product was excellent – a view evidenced by the fact that hardly a molecule of it was left at the end of the meal. I am aware that different cultures have different opinions on this matter, but as far I am concerned a total lack of leftovers is a sign of success in this situation.
PHOTOGRAPHS
My usual sign off…
The building in which my parent’s apartment is located.
This bumper sticker was on a car parked near St Germans station.
The latest post in my series “A Grockle’s Eye View of Cornwall”, concluding my account of my day out in St Ives.
INTRODUCTION
In my previous post in this spread out series about my recent visit to Cornwall (Thursday July 12Â through Monday July 16) I covered a boat trip to see a seal colony. I now account for the rest of that day after the trip. Don’t forget that a more local view of St Ives is available from The Cornish Maid.
BACK ON TERRA FIRMA
I was back in St Ives at 1:15PM as scheduled, and had two definite targets for the remainder of my time there – find a cash machine and find somewhere not too extortionate for lunch. By this stage the town was packed, and far as I was able to locate there was a but a single cashpoint there, so I had a bit of a wait. Still I eventually got my money and found a place to have lunch.
This building may once have been a non-conformist chapel.
THE RETURN JOURNEY
I was back at the station in good time for my three stage journey back to St Germans (changes at St Erth and Liskeard, and longish waits at both). My father collected me from St Germans and we headed to Cawsand to meet my mother, sister and nephew at a pub there before heading to Fort Picklecombe together. My camera battery just made it to St Germans before giving out for the day after one more picture en route for Cawsand.
I suspected (rightly as it turned out) that I had only one shot left by this stage, and this view, from the heights above Cawsand, seemed a worthy way to finish my photography for the day.
The second post in my series about my visit to Cornwall, in which I cover the journey from St Germans to St Ives.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the second post in my series about my recent vsiit to Cornwall. As mentioned in the opening piece in this series I am breaking my coverage of my day out in St Ives into several posts. This post deals with the journey there (for the record, a day return from St Germans to St Ives costs £10.80), which is very scenic. For a Cornish perspective on St Ives check out this offering from the Cornish Maid.
ST GERMANS TO ST ERTH
The railway element of the journey to St Ives consists of two parts – a journey west along the main line as far as St Erth (penultimate stop on that route), and then a short journey north along a branch line which terminates at St Ives. St Germans to St Erth is a scenic journey in its own right:
I was particularly glad to note this tribute to the great Richard Trevithick.
ST ERTH TO ST IVES
Though the route from St Germans to St Erth is scenic by any normal reckoning it is as nothing compared to the branch line from St Erth to St Ives. Although the route lists several intermediate stops the only one still in regular use is Lelant Saltings. I secured a window seat, although it turned out that I was not on the best side of the train and settled down to see what I could capture in the course of this journey.
The stop at Lelant Saltings enabled to me to zoom in on this heron.The next few pictures feature mhy attempts to capture the beauty of Carbis Bay from a moving train.
A SNEAK PREVIEW OF THE MAIN FEATURE OF MY NEXT POST
A few minutes after my arrival at St Ives the decision about my main activity while there was settled. It will be the subject of my next post – for the moment here is a clue to whet your appetite:
This is the final post I shall be producing about my first visit to my parent’s new home in Cornwall. There will be photographs of all the publicity materials that I picked up while down there, captioned where appropriate with links to the posts that they relate to, except for one section where I am following the route of my journey to Penzance and flag that at the start of the entire section. Thus, this post will contain links to every other post I have produced about the visit.
THE PUBLICITY MATERIALS
We start with…
THE RAME PENINSULA OFFICIAL LEAFLET
This is the particular area in which my parents new home is located, so in one sense it relates to all of the previous posts in this series…
The posts that relate most closely to this are those relating to Thursday,Friday and Sunday.
Next we have…
A DOUBLE SIDED RAILWAY MAP
This features the Great Western Railway network map on one side and the whole national railway network on the other:
This map particularly relates to the posts for Wednesday, the first of the Saturdayposts and Monday.
Our next port of call is…
A SOUTH DEVON GUIDE
This is a stout little booklet, with a pictorial map as a centrepiece:
Next we come to…
A SELECTION OF RAILWAYANA
These are all unrelated to anything I blogged about, but represent things to consider for future visits…
We are now going to cover…
CORNISH TRAIN JOURNEYS
For most of this section we will be following the route of my journey to Penzance, but first a couple of pics to set the scene…
Now starting our survey of stuff that relates closely to my Saturday journey we begin with the St Germans Walk…
Our next staging post is Bodmin Parkway, for the Bodmin & Wenford Railway:
Continuing our westward journey our next diversion is at St Austell where those so minded can catch a 101 bus to The Eden Project (the officially recommended way of visiting that great attraction – they are not great admirers of the motor car).
Before arriving at the destination for our next section we give a passing wave to Camborne Town:
These maps relate to my post about my day in Penzance. The first two pictures are of the only item in this collection that had to be bought, for a whopping £1!
We have almost reached the end of this post, which we do with…
A FEW LAST PICTURES
These are the last few bits…
The official mainline timetableI will not be able to make use of this, but some of you might.
An account of the journey to Penzance, setting the scene for my next post, about Penzance itself.
INTRODUCTION
This is continuing my account of my visit to Cornwall. We have reached Saturday, which for me featured a trip to England’s westernmost commercial railway station (note England not Britain – Arisaig on the Glasgow-Mallaig line in Scotland is further west), Penzance. The closest station in time terms to my parent’s new home is St Germans, and that is where my train journey started.
ST GERMANS
St Germans is completely unstaffed, and therefore, since there is no one to maintain it, has no ticket machines either. Tickets are purchased from the conductor once you are on the train. You are only allowed to do this at unstaffed stations – boarding without a ticket at a station where you can purchase one renders you liable to a penalty fare of £20 (I heard another passenger who had done this escaping with a warning not to do it again).
I had a bit of time at St Germans (given that the next train to call at St Germans was two hours later this was indubitably the sensible position to be in. Here are some photographs from the station…
The ticket issued by the onboard conductor is much bigger than a standard train ticket.Â
THE JOURNEY TO PENZANCE
Taking pictures through the windows of a moving train is not especially easy, although I did at least have a window seat for the entire journey, so was never shooting across people. After leaving St Germans the train called at Liskeard (change for the Looe branch line), Bodmin Parkway, Lostwithiel (although the name might suggets otherwise as far as I am aware no elves live here!), Par (trains to Newquay depart from here), St Austell, Truro (Falmouth services diverge here), Redruth, Camborne, Hayle, St Erth (branch line to St Ives from here) and Penzance. Here are the pictures from this journey…
PENZANCE STATION
These pictures were taken both on arrival at Penzance, and towards the end of my time in Penzance.
This was my first effort at capturing this tile picture……and this, later in the day, was my second and final effort.
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