Cornwall

Wow. It's been far too long since I have done one of these!

This week saw a trip to Cornwall. Penzance to be exact. Very close to where I was brought up in Camborne.

The drive down to Cornwall was an emotional one to say the least. The last time I drove down that road, I had my mother's ashes in the car with me and we were on the way to "set her free" on Gwithian beach. It was a totally bizarre day. It was raining like a beast with gale force winds all the way down. Carolynne, my sister, was with me and fortunately whenever we are faced with something difficult like this, our default position is to laugh at everything. We kept pointing out that it was brightening up on the skyline, but it never really was. It was also on that particular journey that she noticed some sheep in a field with coloured markings on their heads, instead of by their tails and commented that the ram had really got his act together with this lot...... think about it.

Anyway, due to how she died, I never had a conversation with my Mum about whether or not that was the right thing for us to do for her. I can only hope that we got it right, and that she is not up there somewhere with her lips going thin and a frown on her face.

There were so many other memories on that drive, all crowding in and popping up out of nowhere. Amazing what your brain stores for years and years that can suddenly surface when triggered. Things that I've not thought of for years and years. I went past a lay by near Okehampton and it brought to mind the time that a group of us that all used to drink together in the Royal Oak in Nadderwater went horse riding at Widecombe-on-the-Moor and my clutch on my little old Datsun Stanza gave up the ghost. This in turn reminded me of our good friend, Scooby, getting on a horse for the very first time and ending up upside down hanging off it's neck. None of us could ever work out quite how he managed it.

Every time I see signs for Polyphant and Ventongimps I remember camping trips with Caroline and Max and how much Ellie and I laughed at the place names on the way to the camp site. I think Ventongimps is our all time favourite. As well as the place names, there are other trigger points on the way down too. The group of trees on the top of the hill that are so beautiful, the cattle wagon always parked on the bridge over the A30 that the farmer put there to stop people going onto his land - all these things make me smile because I know when I see them I am back in Cornwall and I am home.

I took a bit of a drive around whilst I was down there last week - as I always do. One of the places I wanted to look at was Strawberry Gardens, the riding stables where Carolynne and I learned to ride. It still looked exactly the same. Same long drive with a path in the grass running parallel to it where the horses go; same little sand school ring at the top of the field; and the same silhouette of a witch on her broomstick on the end of the stable wall. It's so very comforting when these things remain the same. Like having a childhood hug. Woodcutter's Lane, where my Mum and I used to go walking, was also still there, running along the bottom of the fields, although like everything, it was so much smaller than I remembered.

Cornwall always instils an odd feeling in me. Something wierdly melancholy, and yet I love it there so much. I get properly morose about leaving. I don't know whether it is just nostalgia and knowing that you can't go back and do it all again. Sadness for people that were with you throughout that time that are now gone. It also makes me a little sad that Ellie hasn't been able to spend more time down there. She loved it when she was very small, playing "international snail rescue" down at Cape Cornwall [a game involving putting every single whelk in the whole place back into a rock pool in case they dried out].

I guess this is why we say that you only live once so you need to live your life the way that you truly want to. It's one shot only. You can't decide to have a do-over when you realise you've not quite done it the way that you would have most liked to.