lost4good

Truro, Cornwall, UK one-month house exchange

Our length of stay equals the length of Trump’s war. It started mid-way between Adelaide and London…30 days later we are leaving the UK and the war continues.

01 March Sunday
arrived in London fourish – train to Paddington – Balmoral House – out to dinner

What a journey from Adelaide to London – see last blog https://neuage.me/war So good to sit down at the first café we saw – in the airport and have a cuppa. Finding our way to Paddington was easy. After going down a few wrong hallways and passages we followed the sign to the Paddington train, which we should have followed from the start of course. We got to the train just as the doors were closing and squeezed in and lucky us we  found two seats by the door. Paddington Station is the best. Only a five-minute walk to the Balmoral House Hotel which we had stayed at before. Obviously, business has been good for them as we were sent across the street to their second house-hotel. It was on the first floor, and the room was larger than the first place across the street. We went to dinner a block away and that was our day. The next morning, we were the first across the street for breakfast. It looks like the  Faulty Towers setup, but it is run much better. Our plate of two eggs and a large serve of toast and jam was on the table within minutes.

After breakfast we went for a couple of hours walk in the Paddington area then got the train to Truro. The train is about two hours before changing to a bus for a couple of more hours as there is work on the tracks blah blah blah – this is slightly boring…then the last train to the Truro Station. As we had not gotten a sim card yet and it was night we could not figure how to get to our house-exchange. It is only a five-minute walk from the station, but we grabbed a taxi for five pounds. The home is great. Two full floors, with the bedrooms upstairs and another flight up to an attic which we took some photos of the Truro Cathedral from.

Two full floors, with the bedrooms upstairs and another flight up to an attic which we took some photos of the Truro Cathedral from.

03 March Tuesday
The first thing to know about the lovely town of Truro is that there are a lot of hills. Each steeper than the one before it. The nearest grocery stores are only seven or eight minutes away – but one direction is going up to get to Sainsbury or Lidl, and the opposite direction is down a long hill to the central of town, meaning carrying things back home up the hill.

As we were walking the very steep road, cars way to close to the narrow footpath we nervously navigated wedged between the rock cliff on the right & vehicles with no regards for elderly tourists we were passed by a young lad and pushing his two- or three-year-old in a pram. He said Lidl was cheaper, but Sainsbury was closer. He also said Truro was divided between high town and low town. The people in low town “bought paintings” with some indication that they were the toffee ones and the high town folks the working class. We happily are living midpoint between the two making us just regular people who will look at art but not spend money on it.

We chose going up the hill to Sainsbury believing coming home would be easier. It wasn’t really as we bought almost more than we could carry.

Feeling clever – as we are from the clever country, we bought the Sainsbury sim card and had a couple of the staff get it into our phone. Of course, it did not work because we only bought the card and not the data plan. So off we go to Vodafone …that story becomes toxic then successful, sort of.

04 March Wednesday

We did our first walk to town, down the hill a good seven-minute hike. What a great village, Truro is. Our first stop was to Vodaphone. New person on the job. I paid my ten pounds for seven gig for 30 days with messages and phone calls tossed in. The dude said it will be working in an hour. Meantime Narda realised she forgot to bring enough of a simple pill, if there is such a thing that she takes for thyroid stuff, so we went to the pharmacy and said “help”.  This is the UK. We remember this from years ago, Narda had a flu or something and we went to the doctor which was no charge then to the pharmacy to get some meds and that was no charge. We were directed to the local medical centre which unfortunately was up a very steep hill for about 8 blocks or more. We registered and were told we would get a phone call when to rock up to see the doc. An hour later my phone did not work, and we had already lumbered down the steep (very steep) hill. I stopped in at Vodafone, and they said my sim card should be active shortly. We went back up the very steep hill and after much convincing them of the difficulty we were having getting a phone call, they checked their files and found Narda from her years ago visit. Bottom line, they got a doctor to sign off on her meds, we went to the pharmacy, and they gave us a couple months’ supply to last until we get back to Australia. No charge.

05 March Thursday
We walked back to the centre of town to Vodafone and said the sim card still was not working. They said I needed to purchase another plan, a top up. I said I had already paid ten pounds, and I was not going to do it again. A short girl who was dealing with us said we had to leave the store because she felt intimated by us because we were so tall. OMG I couldn’t believe that.

Meanwhile there was this cool parade happening in town, so we got caught up in that and forgot about our phone problems. It was St. Piran’s day. March 5 every year. Watch our video to
Saint Piran is the National Day of Cornwall. Saint Piran, who is also the patron saint of tin miners.

Piran’s origins are not certain, it is generally accepted that he was Irish, that he spent time in Wales and later was expelled from Ireland because of his powerful preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Having been thrown into the sea tied to a mill stone, he miraculously arrived on the shores of Cornwall where he built his tiny oratory and continued his work of evangelism, founding communities.
His first disciples are said to have been a badger, a fox, and a boar. (which in the era of fake news is true I read it on the internet)
Piran ‘rediscovered’ tin-smelting (tin had been smelted in Cornwall since before the Romans’ arrival, but the methods had since been lost) when the tin in his black hearthstone, which was evidently a slab of tin-bearing ore, was smelted out of it and rose to the top in the form of a white cross (thus the image on the flag)
Saint Piran’s Flag, a white cross on a black background, is the county flag of Cornwall.
Piran was reportedly executed by Theodoric or Tador, King of Cornwall in 480.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Piran

See our Video https://youtu.be/wYKmSK4i9OQ

06 March Friday
We went to our local shopping grocery place of Lidl which became second home for us even walking up a gruelling hill except for days when we drove because stuff was too heavy to carry. i think groceries are cheaper than Australia.

07 March Saturday

What is beyond groovy is that we are a five minute – down the hill walk to the train station. We had taken a taxi from the train station when we first arrived because it was night and we couldn’t find how to get to our home. The taxi took 2-3 minutes.

After watching a YouTube clip on the value of walking for old people and doing our 20-minute core exercises, for the first time in a year, there was little to do but walk.

Having been here for four days, it was time to see Cornwall. Our first adventure was a random first double-decker bus to come along which was Penzance.

Penzance.

We walked the four minutes to the train station to catch a bus into central Truro where we would walk alongside the river if we could find it. The next bus into town (which we walked to every day after as it is a ten-minute hike) wasn’t there for another twenty minutes so we crossed the street and bus #18 to Penzance stopped. The driver suggested that we get a day pass for nine pounds ($12 USD/ $17.35 AUS) each, which at the time sounded cheap. Penzance was two and a half hours ride away. It was 9 am. Lucky us. No one else was on the bus and we grabbed the front seats on the top. Like flying through Cornwall. See our video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gWacjd-CWw

Narda had directed the Pirates of Penzance at her school back in Adelaide long ago so if we knew what we were looking for there it would have been interesting.

 Narda lost our all-day ticket which was eleven pounds, but we were able to purchase a 3-pound ticket each back & were home at 5 pm. Vodaphone of Truro said they would make my phone work – still no data

Penzance is worth the visit – lots of hilly streets, bunch of old shit, good views of the sea – see our video.

Of course, they have their footy team named Cornish Pirates, who happened to be playing a game when we walked past and there were lots of footy fans. Not sure if that stole the win or not. What I have discovered is that on March 7, 2026: Cornish Pirates 22 – 61 Harlequins. Oops!

One of the oldest drinking houses in Penzance, The Admiral Benbow (pub) has been around since the 17th Century. Legend has it Robert Louis Stevenson visited Penzance in 1880 after travelling in America. He had formulated an idea for a book he wanted to call Treasure Island but had yet to settle on the starting point for the story. A visit to the Benbow, which was at that time an illegal drinking den and home to numerous smugglers, is said to have inspired him further and as a nod to the pub, he included the name in his story, Treasure Island which first appeared in 1881. The pub has been popular with more recent folk, playing host to many famous visitors, including Gregory Peck, the Rolling Stones and recently, celebrity chef Rick Stein who filmed a segment for something…sorry lost where I copied off the internet this paragraph from. the internet
check out their groovy homepage @ https://www.thebenbow.com/

08 March Sunday

First drive of the car to Lidl – $108 pounds ($145 USD/$208 AUS) of groceries hoping that would last for a week which it didn’t.  We used the car a few times for the local shop and only one road trip; to Port Ives to see our mate (if he knew who we were) Doc Martin. Because of the little war with Iran, prices of diesel have doubled and we prefer buses and trains anyway and neither of us are comfortable with driving in a foreign country and Truro has very narrow streets with two way traffic where what is barely one lane is all that is on offer & stopping for approaching vehicles to get by and big hills and sharp corners, narrow footpaths with pedestrians looking terrified with elderly confused people bearing down on them and large double decker buses going much too fast and a manual gear car which neither of us had driven for decades; our cars in Australia are automatic, we have felt as if we could stay in tack longer by staying off the roads.

09 Monday

The King Harry Ferry – a vehicular chain ferry which crosses the Carrick Roads reach of the estuary of the River Fal. origins of the name. One such story is that King Henry VIII spent his honeymoon with Anne Boleyn at St Mawes and signed a charter for the ferry on this site. The King Harry Steam Ferry was initiated in 1888 as a submerged chain ferry Bridge, using a steam engine to pull the ferry along the chains, and replacing a manually propelled barge that was previously used on the route. https://www.falriver.co.uk/ferries/king-harry-ferry bought tickets for driving across. 8 pounds/ten bucks fifty USD $15.35 AUS for a five-minute crossing. Come on people that is a bit expensive. Nevertheless, after complaining half the trip across, I relaxed and enjoyed the last two and half minutes of our grand adventure on a ferry. The drive after was on super narrow roads with lots of curves and mounds on the side of the road making it a lottery for each corner and I think we won because we did not crash into anyone. There is even a ferry-web-cam if you want to see it crossing in realtime https://www.falriver.co.uk/webcams/king-harry-ferry-live

After crossing the King Harry Ferry onto the Roseland Peninsula, at the end of our drive, or the particular road we were on was a really good beach. We had coffee and a chat with the local café owner and got home happy we did not bang up the car or even get a scratch.

10 Tuesday

Walked to town – to Boots for photos – resized photos. Narda would rather handwrite her notes and put in photos into her book, so I am snapping her pages and gluing them onto our blog. Last blog I had AI convert her writings into text maybe will do it maybe won’t. Her handwriting is good for us to read, wouldn’t you agree?

The main claim to fame here is the Truro Cathedral built between 1880 and 1910. It was the first Anglican cathedral constructed on a new site in England since Salisbury Cathedral in 1220. It dominates the village and is rather large. It is a three-spire design. Its central spire stands 250 feet tall, (like 25-stories+) while the two western towers reach approximately 200 feet high.

Because you wondered whether it was true or not…it is. The place is reputedly haunted by a “White Lady”. Staff and visitors have reported seeing a sorrowful, pale, mist-like figure gliding near the nave towards the altar, often accompanied by a sudden drop in temperature. She is believed to be a grieving spirit from the old parish church that previously occupied the site. We know this is true because Google’s primary AI, Gemini, formerly known as Bard, says so and we are told, by ChatGPT & Co-Pilot & many other agents that AI is much smarter than humans.  Here are pictures of the church from many angles taken from many angles during our 30-days in Truro.

11 March Wednesday

Port Isaac

left 8.15 am – arrived 9.30 Port Isaac – tour etc – drove to king Arthur’s castle – closed – home 4 pm

This was the biggie for us. Having watched Doc Martin over the years and the whole ten-seasons again lately we had to do the Doc Martin tour. This was our big drive. We left early and got to Port Isaac before ten am found a parking space near the centre of town.

Another hilly village. Of course, one would see this in the Doc Martin series. We did the Doc Martin tour. The second tour in our past 25 years together of travel. The other was back when I turned 70 when on a cruise in 2017 and we popped into St Petersburg, Russia. We had to be on a guided commie tour to galivant around Russia back then. Now we would probably need a small army and wear a MAGA hat to be safe. Such is the world today.

Our guide was an original Fisherman’s Friend singer and was quite lively. I have him speaking on our video @ https://youtu.be/6uFgqTqtwRI It was really a good day. Very few people in town as this is early March. Apparently in summer it is almost impossible to walk down the street or find a place to park even way out of town. Traver’s tip; purchase your ticket when there. We paid $20 euros each, using getyourguide.com, and to do it on the day in front of the ‘sweets store’ was 12 euros. Maybe it is different in the summer.

I want to see where King Athur started his stuff.

I have great memories of sitting in front of the Honolulu Zoo in 1970-1971 and reading Mary Stewart’s Arthurian Saga – Merlin Trilogy. Funny addition: I was in the cult order Holy Order of MANS 1969 – 1978 and in the Hawaii centre 1969 – 1972 and the Order renamed me to Brother Arthur Adsit (my sur name from when I was adopted in 1950 – to getting married in 1980.) I changed to Neuage in 1980, when I got married to someone whose name I could not pronounce – an Ukraine- Russian (really) and she would not change to my name and my friend Randy Dandurand – the coolest person I have ever met – said you think you are such new age people call yourselves Newage. That sounded stupid and lame, but Neuage had a great numerological number so we became Neuage. Of course, after a messy divorce and me becoming a single parent for the next 20 years in a foreign country, (Australia) it was obvious we were not new age anything. But we both kept our Neuage name which thankfully Narda did not take on but kept her birth name. and it is obvious that I was not akin to King Arthur or that i should continue with the name Brother Arthur, of course, I don’t mind being called Saint Terrell Neuage which only one person in the world ever called me and that is back in 1970s when she was on acid.

But to make a short story long…we drove on these incredibly narrow roads to get to this bloody castle. At one point I had to back up quite aways for a car to get by on a curvy road. Both Narda and I were terrified and found a pub, stopped in to get coffee and were told the castle was closed today because it was Tuesday. Bloody King Arthur – I have lost interest in you. Cheers Saint Terrell!

13 March Friday
Falmouth
train to Falmouth left 9 home 4 pm

Falmouth is known for its deep natural harbour on the Fal Estuary, and beaches like Swanpool and Gyllyngvase. After arriving on the train,

we first went to a great little coffee shop and had pie and coffee and a chat with the owner. Learned a lot about the town, none of which I remember now, a week later.

Narda excitedly found a bookshop across the street and had a nice chat about house exchanges and books that she would like to read but we had no room in our luggage for. Walking through the town – see our images below and the video –

We went down a random street as we do and ended up at a wharf with a ferry going across the Fal to St Mawes, a village on the end of the Roseland Peninsula, in the eastern side of Falmouth harbour. There is a ferry back in forth to Truro from May until about October but since it is March there was no such thing. We got our tickets and hoped on board a little ferry to St Mawes.

Falmouth in Cornwall, UK, is widely recognized as having the third deepest natural harbour in the world. It is also considered the deepest in Western Europe and the third largest natural harbour overall. We spotted a few British warships as we went across – are they loading up to wander over to the Middle East? Falmouth is often home to some of the Royal Navy’s Fleet, particularly the auxiliary ships HMS Mounts Bay, Lyme Bay and Argos shown below or they could have been different ships.

Our ferry…it was very bumpy going across but you would have spotted that in the video above.

our photos after a fifteen minute walk from the ferry across town…

We saw Pendennis Castle from a distance and it was one of the main things I wanted to see but the bloody think was closed. Two castles in a row I didn’t get to see. The other one was where King Arthur could have started his career which I rambled on about above.

In 1540, Henry VIII built Pendennis Castle in Falmouth to defend Carrick Roads. Falmouth was founded in 1613 by the Killigrew family on a site near the existing Pendennis Castle. In the late 16th century, under threat from the Spanish Armada, the defences at Pendennis were strengthened by the building of angled ramparts. During the Civil War, Pendennis Castle was the second to last fort to surrender to the Parliamentary Army. Sir John Killigrew created the town of Falmouth shortly after 1613.
After the Civil War, Sir Peter Killigrew received royal patronage when he gave land for the building of the Church of King Charles the Martyr, dedicated to Charles I, “the Martyr”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falmouth,_Cornwall

A couple of photos of St Mawes – we ended the day with coffee in an old English pub.

In case you wondered…

14 March Saturday

Movie in town – Mother’s Pride –  posted video on Port Isaac

16 March Monday

St Ives

train to St Ives – left 9.35 = there at 10.30 – home 3 pm

St Ives, Cornwall, England, originated as a 5th-century fishing community founded by, 5th-century Irish saint, Ia of Cornwall, who legend says arrived on a leaf which Narda & Terrell, of Australia, have verified as true . later becoming a major medieval port for fishing and mining.

St Ives has great cliff views

I was engaged with extremist views with a few birds on the shore…how can I be correct if anyone else is wrong? was the topic

King Charles III and Queen Camilla visited St Ives on July 13, 2023, as part of their first official visit to Cornwall following the coronation

It is a bit like Truro – narrow streets – buildings hundreds of years old…oh wait! these villages are like this all over the UK

UK or at least Truro is extremely dog friendly. Seems most folks have one or more. At restaurants there are dog menus and the animals are often beneath a table waiting for their meal. In Australia I doubt a dog would be allowed inside of a restaurant. Here is a menu at a place we had lunch. Not sure if there is a vegan friendly dog menu – didn’t see one.

The main church in St Ives, Cornwall, is the Parish Church of St Ia, consecrated in 1434 and known for its 80-foot granite tower and interior resembling a ship’s hull. It is named after the 5th-century Irish missionary who is said to have arrived on a leaf. Unfortunately, my AI go to (I think it is ChatGPT or copilot or grok) could not confirm or deny the validity of what sort of leaf the Irish missionary arrived upon. Probably a marijuana leaf. Anyway, we went in and Narda even put money in their put-money-in-this-box, box.

18 March Wednesday

Newham Trail

Newham Trail is the disused railway line that runs across the Calenick valley on the edge of Truro. See Truro Loops at https://truroloops.co.uk/about-truro-loops/ worth your while though if you have limited time stay here and read our blog.

This became a favourite walk of ours. Usually it took about two hours to get to Tesco to have coffee and hot cross buns at Costa (Easter is in a couple of weeks).

Walked for part of the Newham Trail with a man who volunteered at the Truo Caatherdal and he told us that King Charles III and Queen Camilla met choristers from Truro Cathedral on the harbour, some of whom had sung at the Coronation. 17 March Tuesday (which by the way we watched at Manchester Cathedral see our clip for going there and our month at the grooviest of all villages, Todmorden. https://neuage.me/todmorden/) We told him we knew the bell ringer at Washington Cathedral which is true and we have even done the tour – see our YouTube channel but he didn’t offer to show us the bell tower in Truro.

After an hour or so we saw a bit of a fork in the path and one said it led to the Prince Harry Ferry ferry which we had been on a few days earlier. Thinking it would be a short walk we went for quite some time before seeing a sign pointing and saying four more miles mate. There was some cool looking little village or we are not sure what it is called as there were only five or six very old buildings and a babbling creek. So we took photos and went back up a very long hill to the path we were on to get to our wanting/waiting coffee and hot cross buns.

By the time we got to truro Rivers they were at low tide…

Afternoon walk to shop to get ingredients for tea – drove to the food warehouse for groceries… I found a great shop that sold all my things I make our daily tea with turmeric root, bay leaves, cinnamon sticks, ginger root which l grate the roots and boil for 10-15 minutes and we have with dinner. The downside is that the turmeric stains the pans I do it in, so we bought a pan just for my teas.

18 March Wednesday

Redruth

To Redruth. Everyday for the past two weeks we have been off doing something usually starting in the morning. Today we lounged around, a down day then at 3 pm suddenly decided to walk over to the train station, five minutes away, and hop a bus to somewhere. Bus 18 came along and we got the front seat in the front upstairs. Like flying through the countryside.

To Redruth, a village an hour away by a slow winding bus. Redruth basically consists of a four or five block mall, though locals would believe there is more. We walked the mall – took photos, had coffee – I later made a video see above. What we were really looking for was a place for Narda to print photos for her blog-diary. Boots Pharmacy in Truro had a printer but not the size she wanted but Tesco did and that is the actual reason we went to Redruth. We found it, printed photos and walked to the train station and took the train home. The train costs twice as much as the bus which was three pounds each ($4 USD/ $5.65 AUS). However, Truro is one stop away from Redruth, thirteen minutes, vs the hour we took on the bus and after an exhausting walk of a couple of hours in Redruth we needed the easy way home.

Their local historic church was burnt down a few years ago…

This drawing covered a half-block building…

Our walk through town…

Instead of a dollar shop they have pound shops which is really $1.35 USD or $1.91 Australian or 59 TRY (Turkish Lira) and who cares? Lucky us, we didn’t need anything.

20 March Friday
3+ hours walking – The Newham Trail – bought book Henry James “The Ambassador”. Wow what a slugfest to get through this book. Perhaps my brain has gotten too used to current ways of writing. James, I find difficult his writing in 1800’s abstract stream of consciousness if consciousness was involved imagery/language. But I will plough on – I think he is a bit up himself – a bit of a tosser, but of course that could be just my opinion. One of those books you read a page twice and say what the hell was he saying. And does anyone really care what the Europeans think of Americans in the early 1900’s? I mean do Americans care what Europeans think of them now? Wait! All we hear is not nice lyrics coming out of the cheerful Europeans. But then there is the issue of that little war the Yanks have started and are not sure how wrap up. I guess they never experienced starting something that could not be ended easily or is that the thinking of James a hundred years ago. Personally, I think he was smoking something as his writing according to me sounds like he enjoyed opium. Talk about drifting into nothingness to try and get his characters front and centre in an absorbed pronunciation of misunderstandings. He should learn how to write simple structured thought bubbles for his characters, like I would. Perhaps he should have gotten AI to re-write his stuff. Maybe I should have narda write all of this blog.

21 March Saturday
Plymouth – Guunislake

to Plymouth – Guunislake left 7.45 – 9.10 Plymouth walked around town for an hour – to Gunnislake – walked down long hill to village – bus to Calstock – coffee – train back to Gunnislake – to Plymouth – 15 minute wait train to Truro

We grabbed a train to Plymouth with the ultimate destination being Gunnislake. For no other reason than it is as far as we could go in Cornwall and across to Gunnislake.

Wow I stuffed that up didn’t I? Plymouth is not in Cornwall but we did get a deal on the train with something about travelling in Cornwall.

The literature said Gunnislake was the most scenic place on the planet or at least along the train tracks to Gunnislake it is. It was a couple of hours to Plymouth then another block of time to Gunnislake.

We got off in Plymouth which is quite a large city. As we only had an hour before the train to Gunnislake we just walked a few blocks. Another time we will come back and check out the harbour.

We expected a different experience at our Gunnislake stop. Like that it would be in the middle of the village. We were the only ones getting off there which should have been a clue. Someone pointed to the road that led to the town. It was a long way down a very long hill with barely a footpath to separate us from vehicles going way too fast. I think it was half an hour before we got to what could have been the outskirts of the town of Gunnislake.

Not sure as we sat down and did not go any further.

We saw a bus stop, found out that it not only goes back up the long steep road we were just on but went to a previous stop on the Tamar Valley Line we were on, Calstock.

Narda had a wonderful conversation with a couple of women who have travelled to India. When we got to Calstock they led us to a cozy little coffee shop. Low tide at Calstock – when the tide is up there are boat trips.

Another batch of images of Truro from various walks into town which is a wonderful ten-fifteen minute stroll down hill and a grunting and puffing and oh shit! uphill back home.

Downtown – the river flows through town one of our favourite walks especially at high tide. The primary rivers flowing beneath or through central Truro, Cornwall, are the River Allen and the River Kenwyn. These rivers converge near Truro Quay/Lemon Quay to form the Truro River, often passing underneath city structures and roads in culverts. A third river, the River Tinney or Fal, is sometimes associated with the town’s geography. 

23 March Monday
Enchanted Trail

Walked Enchanted trail – about ten-minute start along a stream from home. There were once a hundred wooden fairy houses created along the wall by John Rowe who made the Enchanted Trail at Coosebean Woods in Truro during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 to “lift morale”. However, it seems recently they were all vandalized, so we didn’t see anything much except a few broken little homes. The walk is well worth it, not as far as the Newham Trail, we did it in half an hour or a bit maybe more, more.

We were out the door at seven am and at the river front at 7:30 with a city covered by a mist and the river at high tide.

24 March Tuesday
Trevaunance Cove
Truo > St Agnes – The village is about five miles north of Redruth and ten miles southwest of Newquay.

The village is about five miles north of Redruth and ten miles southwest of Newquay. It was a prehistoric and modern centre for mining of copper, tin and arsenic until the 1920s. The place is a bit on the old side. The earliest found to date are Mesolithic fragments which are dated from 10,000 to 4,000 BC. According to Wikipedia which was there at the time. The first chapel or church in St Agnes was believed to have been built as an early Celtic church sometime between 410 and 1066 AD. Bottom line St Agnes was and still is a groovy place to hang around.

The bus ride was good as usual. We had the front row top row seat.

St Agnes is like wherever one is in Cornwall – really the UK in general. However, what goes beyond like everyplace else is the great stroll down a very long hill – along a stream – that of course we had to walk back up to go home – to Trevaunance Cove.

Trevaunance Cove Beach
Trevaunance Cove is the main beach near the small village of St Agnes. St Agnes was the hub of tin and copper mining, but discoveries of Mesolithic remains dating to 10,000 BC have been found, as well as evidence of habitation from the Bronze Age, when the tin and copper would have been used for making tools and weapons.

We met women who were going for a swim. They said they do it every day. Whatever the temperature of the water or the weather, forget which, was the amount of time they would stay in the water. Today was ten degrees Celsius (50 Fahrenheit) so they planned to stay in for ten minutes. However, we saw they were still in 20 minutes later. We spoke to them later and they said on Christmas Day at least 125 people do this. It turns out they are not the only ones doing this – our neighbour back in Truro – our age – says she does it every day at a beach near Truro. Narda and I complain when the water is below 26 Celsius when we do our morning Zumba class back in Adelaide.

There is a small town at Trevaunance Cove so stopping for coffee or a meal is doable after the hike down from St Agnes or the hike before going back of the steep climb back to St Agnes. We did not stop at any shop so unable to say whether they are worth it or not.

25 March Wednesday

Went to movies at the little local theatre in Truro.  Saw “If I had Legs, I would kick you” we did not like it. More of a horror flick. The Irish actress won best chick in a flick and she was believable, but we still did not like it.

28 March Saturday

We started the day off fine. Up at six, excited with a plan to take bus #91 or #93 to Newquay. We were almost there a few days ago when we went to St Agnes. If we had stayed on the bus, we would have ended up at Newquay. But as plans go… I went to make my coffee; the machine would not come to the party. I went to the fridge, it was off. As a matter of fact everything was off. This is the thing that when you are living in someone’s home it is temporarily your own home. We could not even find the switchboard, assuming there was a blown fuse, and we opened every door and every cupboard we could find. We rang the owners, who are in our home in Adelaide, and found that if I climbed up a stepladder in the backroom above the cupboard there was the fuse box behind a lift door. Sure enough there was a switch down and every time I pushed it back up it laughed and went back down. The owner said we should unplug everything then one by one…we unplugged everything except the fridge and freeze as I could not pull out the seemingly built into the wall fridge and surely the freezer would not be the bad boy. But…so I pulled the freezer out of its little cubby hole, unplugged it, pushed up the little lever in the switchboard box and sure enough it was the freezer. Bottom line, the owner bought a new freezer – tomorrow’s story and by 9.30 am we were out the door.

We walked fifteen minutes to the bus station in the centre of Truro and saw the #91bus to Newquay would not leave for 20 minutes and the #93 not for later than that. However, suddenly appeared but #87 with Newquay on the front. It was not listed on my google phone map thingy. The bus driver said he was leaving right away, that the bus took two hours instead of one hour as the other ones did. He said it went up the coast. We asked if that was the scenic route to Newquay, that we didn’t care how long it took as we basically wanted a long bus ride.

The ride was great. See our video clip…https://youtu.be/ayOQVNgcvTI

Bus to Newquay stops at St Agnes, Perranporth Beach, Goonhavern in the civil parish of Perranzabuloe, located along the A3075 road, about two miles east of Perranporth.

We did not get off the bus at Perranporth Beach but looked about whilst on the bus…

31 April Tuesday headlines; “The UK is set to receive its last-known shipment of jet fuel from the Middle East this week, according to the Financial Times.” We leave tomorrow for London and Thursday for DC.

We hadn’t had a meal out since arriving 30 days ago except for lunch a few times. Various reasons mainly being that I want control of my food, always have. My diet has not changed a whole lot since the 1960s. Vegetarian, full of sprouts, tofu, organic staying clear of processed foods. I have never really trusted restaurants. I have worked at enough of them long ago (Key West, Florida in 1965 age 18 I was a short order cook; New Orleans in the early 1970s fancy place, Honolulu in the 1970s, Montauk Point out on long Island 1966 or so….right after my little stowaway adventure (https://neuage.org/LeavingAustraliaBeforeTheAfter/stowaway.html) and a lot of places in between) had a tofu business inAdelaide for seven years – see (tofu made me a crazy person @ https://neuage.org/tofu.html)…where was I? oh yes my diet continued almost the same after finding I had diabetes twenty-years ago; staying away from too much carbs, no processed foods no sugars. Anyway, we went out to dinner as we had spent a day cleaning the house and the kitchen was closed.

We spent only a couple of hours in Newquay. Just another UK town. It is much bigger I think than Truro – it was a sunny day and a weekend so there were a lot of tourists about. Apparently, this one of the best surfing beaches in the UK, though the waves were not big when we were there. It was an extremely windy day so we did not walk along the beach in fear of my losing my had which would be a tragedy as I have had since a long time ago when I bought it in Brighton UK.

There were the usual buildings along the bus route…

We went to the William iv pub. I had to look up the dude to find out if he was the sort of person we wanted to be associated with. The dude was the last king and penultimate monarch of the United Kingdom’s House of Hanover. I know everyone else know this but I didn’t “If a kingdom had 12 monarchs before the monarchy ended, the 11th would be the penultimate monarch”. Blimey.

Short answer: William IV had no special association with food, but pubs and restaurants across the UK—including the one in Truro—are commonly named after him because he was a popular early‑19th‑century monarch known as the “Sailor King.” The Truro venue uses his name as a traditional pub title, not because of any culinary link.

Bottom line, the food was good, I had watercress soup, which I have never had before, and it was very good along with mac and cheese croquets. Thanks Willy, your pub is the best. Cheers mate.

01 April left house 11 am

We were up at 6ish with the exact plan to leave home at 11. Believing we had done a splendid job of cleaning the day before suddenly we panicked and started vacuuming and cleaning and changing sheets and cleaning again and barely got out the door on time. Of course, we arrived at the station 45 minutes earlier than the train, but I think the older we get the more carefully or paranoid or worried or stressed. When I was in my twenties I would have packed, cleaned, an hour before leaving. Of course, I won’t mention that Narda began packing what she wanted to take on this trip more than a month before we left.

The train ride was, is terrific (I am writing this on the train to London).

Got to London stayed at an airport hotel which wasn’t really an airport hotel. Why do they say that? We were told the Premiere Inn was at the airport…”just walk out terminal two and there she is…”blimey…there is the bus that we found after asking and walking around (mostly in circles) for an hour and a half. Then they have the nerve to charge 6.5 pounds – like ten bucks USD more in Aussie’s colourful play money, per person, then take 20 minutes to get to the bloody place. Once I was finished complaining and we had a good meal – already forgot what I had and this is the next day on our flight to DC. The Premiere is OK -3-star I suppose. Comfortable. 5 am I am wide awake and we managed to catch the overpriced bus at 7.20 am. Wow getting through the airport was brilliant. We had been hearing all the horror stories of overcrowded airports, long lines for hours, shit like that. We went to a kiosk put in our name and the bloody thing spit out our tickets and tags for our bags, we tossed them (not exactly too heavy and we are too old to toss anything) onto the conveyor belt and off they disappeared. Then the ten-fifteen minutes to checking carry on and that line went quick. Because we use United Credit Card we get a yearly use of the business lounge so that’s great. An hour after we got to the airport, we were having lots to eat and drink in a good environment. Not quite as good as the business lounge at LA but still better than sitting in the waiting bay with the rift raft that are headed for the USA/DC today. And that is it. Two more hours from landing. Cool.

Flying over Goose Bay & Labrador City…my kinds of towns….think I should hop out here and start a new life.

And that is it all. Next blog will be our close to three weeks in DC and a couple of weeks in upstate New York when I get to meet my blood brother for the first time. I said that story last blog. My brother from a different mother, apparently, we had the same father – he contacted – found me a few months ago after New York State released family records after one is 75 or something like that. We will end the USA trip with a few days in NYC when I want to see some of my places I lived back in the 1960s. As I believe this will be my last time in the States due to my age, next time I will be 80, and insurance this time was more than the plane tickets because of so many preexisting things (heart disease, liver disease, diabetes, unable to graduate from the 1960s, stuff like that). After 80 forget it. We will still “do” Europe, especially the eleven countries that have reciprocal medical arrangements with Australia and Asia because medical is affordable there.

After the USA is Pakistan. Before that we have a flight on Qatar to Doha from JFK then to Lahore for a week then to China. Good luck huh?