Cornwall Autumn 2021

Today was the first day of my improptue week off in October. I had accrued a tonne of annual leave this year thanks to a very busy rotation in children's oncology during Oct 2020 to Sept 2021. I had a busy start to Saturday. First business was sorting out Chevin Forest parkrun as run director this week. This was the second time I have done the role. And it was much easier this time. Last time was event number 3, and it was very busy with around 300 runners. This time, event number 8 was only just under 200. So, everything seemed a bit more calm. I was at the park early again for the pre-event course check, and was greeted with a beautiful brilliant burning sunrise. A nice part was bumping into a couple of colleagues from work. The megaphone was broken this week so I had to shout very loud at the time. This is a copy from my the run report posted on the parkrun website: Autumn was well underway for Event #8 at Chevin Forest parkrun. The mornings are getting noticeably colder and dar...

It was a beautiful day for my first day in Cornwall. It was nice a warm, very blue skies and very light winds. We went out for a bike ride late morning. The traffic was pretty quiet so it was a nice ride. There was a bit of southerly wind, but we rode south on the way out, and so we had the tailwind on the way back. We had a stop about halfway at a reservoir. The return journey felt a bit long for me. The total ride was about two and a half hours. Although we had a break, I don't think I had enough food with me. We did have that tailwind on the way back, but I was very relieved to get home. In the afternoon, I sat outside and read the paper. Once the sun was beginning to set, we drove down to the beach to walk onto the cliff to admire the views. The sun was fairly low in the sky now that it is October. This made for some nice shadows across the landscape. It was still pretty warm though, and I couldn't resist getting my feet wet!  

Today the weather changed for the worse, which was a stark comparison to yesterday. It was misty and grey for most of the morning, and although we left late, it didn't improve much when we went out for a walk. Dad thought it best that we walk at Bude. We drove down and parked up close to the beach. It was a short walk up onto the headland. The panoramic views were really good, despite the dull weather. Although as we walked further, the visibility did get quite a bit worse. The circular walk takes you down to the canal which you then walk back to complete the circle back into Bude. We stopped off at a bird hide to take shelter from the rain. I took a quick tour around Bude at the end of the walk. I did a bit of window shopping but didn't see anything worth buying. I did managed to get a couple of local beers to have with dinner. We picked up pasties to have for dinner.  

Today the weather was pretty awful. Once the rain had eased off a bit we headed to Boscastle. We did a nice walk up through the valley. This offered shelter from the rain. And then over onto the headland. Unfortunately, the wind was really strong over the coast. Still, the views were still very nice. We had to walk all the way down to find a place that was sheltered to have our hot drinks. I had a coffee that I put in my flask. Whilst we were drinking our drinks, we spotted a seal which had come into the habour. It only stayed briefly before disappearing. But it was still exciting to look at for a moment. We came straight back, and we when got back I went to sleep for a little bit. I think the cold from the wind had got to me a bit. Later on in the evening, my parents took me for a nice dinner a the local pub. I was very excited to see chilli on the menu. It was delicious!

During the night we had a terrific thunderstorm. It woke me up about 4am, and I am usually a very heavy sleep! You can see from the weather reports how much lightening we had and the torrential rain that accompanied it.   However, when I got up later in the morning, there was a beautiful blue sky and the rising sun was making the clouds glow a very subtle orange. Today, we stayed local to my parents' house. We drove down and parked in the Haven car park. We went for a walk up one of the valleys and then over the headland and cliffs back to the start. Pretty similar in fact to the walk the previous day. This time the weather was much better, occasional sunshine and warmer. However, the wind was still noticably strong. At least it was behind us on the way back. For lunch, my parents treated me to eating out at Boscastle farm shop. This was a coverted farm building, which had recently been renovated. It was very nice and I had a huge slice of salmon quiche for my lunch! I also managed...