The day before getting to St Ives we stayed at Judy & Ivan’s. I went for a long walk in the morning around the Lanner area. It is very good walking country with hills and flat bits , great views and lots to look at.
Some of the paths are getting a bit overgrown so I had a bit of a detour at the start and had to walk on the roads, but it is all good exercise!
I even found a new pond that I had never seen before , just down a secluded little track. I think the youth go there as there were a few cans and signs of bbqs.
On the return portion of the route, going down Rough Lane, I met the pigs. They were very inquisitive and almost friendly and it was a big suprise to see them trotting up the hill. There was a lady further down the hill and I thought they might be with her. After a brief discussion she said she wanted to make sure they were safe, so we ushered them into a driveway and knocked on the door of a house to enquire. Luckily they were the pig’s owners and we had quite a chat with them about the pigs and what they were planning to do with them and their other animals. Keep an eye out for Treehuggers pre-school, coming to Lanner soon.
After my walk, we packed at our leisure and surprisingly, everything fitted in the boot quite comfortably. We had a very smooth journey to St Ives, as expected the unloading and parking was slightly more problematic. We stopped by The Sloop, unpacked the luggage and Judy looked after it. We couldn’t find the house! It was tucked back behind the shops on the front. It looked a bit like the photos on the website but the bins had been editted out. Then, I couldn’t get the key code to work. Then, Sue got lost ending up miles away looking for the house, not so clever with a duff ankle. Eventually I got in and we transferred all the luggage to the house. Then, where was the garage key? (The cottage has a private garage, up the hill). Lots of other keys, but not one that said garage. So after ringing the agents, with no further information forthcoming we took all the keys that were not door or window keys. Ivan had driven off and I had to wait for him to come back and so I suffered by having an ice cream. When he arrived back at the ice cream shop we headed off up the hill to the garage, which proved very hard to access as two rows of garages were set too close together, so Dave helped to guide Ivan into our garage.
Once we had walked back down the hill to the house (about 20 minutes) Ivan played online bridge and the ladies watched the Strictly Come Dancing first show and drank a bottle of Bucks Fizz. I meanwhile went to the St Ives September food festival with stalls and a ticketed live music event on an outdoor stage on Porthmister Beach. I nearly didnt get in as I needed to show a negative test or double vaccination. I had to reload the NHS app on 3G! The last 2 bands – The Roustabouts and something collective were pretty good. The main problem with being somewhere like that on your own is that one has a drink in ones hand and no one to talk to so you drink your drink. So I was pretty merry when I got back
