I bought two new books back with me from Cornwall. The Salt Path purchased in the Falmouth Bookshop and Sea Fever bought in the National Maritime Museum Cornwall. I started Sea Fever one stormy evening in Maenporth, even reading bits aloud to my youngest (who probably wasn't listening) as its various accounts, facts and famous fiction about the sea are so brilliantly drawn together, chimed with a more recent re-telling of a sea journey my daughter's friend had made from Norway to Ipswich, which had challenged the crews' wits in survival against the sea. 

The Salt Path is something else, a story of lived experience that is incredible, heart-wrenching, almost impossible to contemplate and yet, it is beautiful and funny and compelling. Ray Winns account of her walk along the south coast path with her husband Moth having lost almost every material thing including their family home through the treachery of a friend, is a rite of passage.  Surviving on barely any money, with Moth's ill health looming large on their horizon Ray captures the geography of the SWC and evokes the wildness and romance of the counties Ray and Moth pass through while facing hardship and homelessness. She broaches the concept of homelessness that challenges preconceptions and asks the reader to consider the morality of a society that still refuses to tackle homelessness with any genuine understanding for its causes, or compassion for its victims. There is a vulnerable faith in the kindness of strangers in this journey, as humour and hazard walk hand in hand in this extraordinary book. And what a gift, to know such an enduring love, that alone is reason enough to read this book.

What is blocking the heart of my country?

I walk in its verdant valleys, that dress the horizon.

I trace the twist and tumble of its streams and its rivers, 

I stumble through its forests, ancient and knowing,

But cannot find the source.

At sea, I crouch in the conning tower as we sweep around this isle

Surveying subterranean roots of majestic cliffs for rock fall, 

The dim sea bed for fault lines.

There is a suffocating malaise, a slimy bloom

It slips through nets refusing to be caught and spreads like fear

And the sun breaks, across the hills and sweeping downlands, solemn granite mountains

Pale marshes and the sandy flats, as the long shadow reaches.

I dream of the wind whining in the oak barn, lifting the loose straw,

And the gale smashing flotsam against the old seawall.

The slowing beat of the earth beneath us, as planets reel in distant galaxies

Has not yet silenced the Robin at my window, or the hum of bees on the lavender bush

But the sluggish pulse that chills the sun, and gathers cloud, is rattling bones

In the ivy covered churchyard, and causing the earth to moan.

I found this book in a second-hand bookshop. Despite its publishing date of 1937 (second revised edition), it is full of sage advice and advertisements for 'must have' gadgets including the Hamble Line Passer - still a useful tool for hitching a line to a stable object from a distance. The author W. Eric Wilson, D.S.O with assistance from Admiralty Chart Agent J.D. Potter based in the Minories in London and their neighbours Imray, Laurie, Norie & Wilson Ltd., the oldest Nautical Publishers in the world (or so they claimed) who published this hefty tome in their printing works in Hackney, all conspired to produce this detailed guide for the serious sailor.

Guides, in all forms, are there to assist in times of trouble, need, or in expectation of either. A firm hand on the forearm, a gentle nudge in the desired direction from the 'you don't have to do this the hard way, allow me to enlighten you' folk who have gone before. We navigate our lives making good, bad, and indifferent choices. Guidance is always worth listening to, in navigational terms experienced guidance is essential. Like sea shanties and folk songs, handed down by word of mouth for centuries, changing with the times but doggedly true to its original form. The Pilot's Guide is a sensible practical tome on the vagaries of the English Channel, of necessity it must be trustworthy and reliable, lives depended on it. 

W.E.W could surely not conceive of a modern-day Channel full of super-tankers and people in barely sea-worthy inflatables, and the seasonal influx of top-heavy gin-palaces, and I wonder if he, or J.D. Potter or Messrs Imray, Laurie, Norie & Wilson, gave thought or conversation to a time when printed maps would be digitised, along with instruments so that maps became less important and computer screens plotted courses and pinged against satellites to guide sailors around the English Channel. 

There is a reason why sailors for the most part are easygoing. they've learnt to make and read signals, to predict the weather, how best to make an approach, judge depth, understand the tides, and perhaps most useful of all how to use a compass including variation and deviation, and having absorbed all that understood, practised and reflected on that wealth of seafaring knowledge, a good sailor might also digest that cautionary truth as expressed thus by W.E.W "Discretion must be duly exercised in the use of all Sailing Directions as aids to navigation, and they should not be regarded as infallible, as a little consideration will show. A chart or a book may be accurate at the time of publication, but it may become unreliable in some particulars owing to the changes in shoals and their constant and numerous alterations in Lights, Buoyage, etc." In effect, guidance is just that, the sum of someone else's experience but the world is not constant, it is ever changing. For the Pilot amongst us, it pays to be humble in plotting a course, to stay calm and prepared, and to meet the unexpected with the same assurance in which you meet all challenges, with a weather eye to the horizon and a quick arrival at the most practical solution.

Today we ambled around the Helford, starting at Glendurgan Gardens, the Fox family's coastal playground for their numerous children. And neighbour to Trebah Gardens. The highlight of the three steep, lush, tropical valleys plunging down to the Helford is the cherry laurel 'maze' - a delightful distraction from giant rhubarb, tree palms and ferns, magnolias, camellias, and a historic collection of plants from the Foxes travels around the world. Durgan beach is a pretty, pebbled, rock-pooled stretch of beach with boats moored on the Helford and the remnants of the pilchard fishing industry that dominated Cornwall. Best cheese scones ever were to be found in the glass and oak framed tea shop back at the top, plus a rootle through the second-hand bookshop (a genius idea by the National Trust for all its properties) which at Glendurgan included a donation from (I would surmise) a very interesting and well-read gentleman's collection of many rare and interesting books. 

Traveling around the Helford offers so many wonderful views, a feast for the photographer, a delight for the walker, a challenge for the cyclist and a draw for canoeists, kayakers and paddleboarders. I should be evoking the richness of this part of Cornwalls coastline, the green cathedral-like lanes, the emerald ria (flooded valley) of the Helford (Dowyr Mahonyer) and its seven creeks from west to east. These are Ponsontuel Creek, Mawgan Creek, Polpenwith Creek, Polwheveral Creek, Frenchman's Creek, Port Naval Creek, and Gillan Creek. I should be talking of Daphne Du Maurier, or of conservation, field crickets from Spain, or even of mystery and smuggling but the sun was shining and I was beginning to remember how-to-holiday, so all romanticism was pushed aside in favour of beach-hopping.

The Helford deserves not to be skimped over, given the wild and vivid landscapes of Cornwall, its myth and legend-evoking history. The Helford holds it own against the rugged, fishing coves of the Roseland peninsula and the bustling commerce of Truro, the piratical romance of Falmouth and the Lizard Peninsula, a plateau surrounded by sea cliffs, here and there providing a safe haven for a small harbour, fishing village and sandy cove. The Helford starts from its wide estuary mouth continuing inland to the muddy creeks upstream. With its sheltered, wooded valleys it is a haven for sailors and in good weather, it is scenically beautiful and serene. All seven of its coves are cornish gems.

I've been reading 'Sea Fever' by Meg and Chris Clothier. If you're going to be beside the seaside, then this book will set you right. From the shipping forecast to flora and fauna, to resorts, tides, distress signals, and all things coastal including that evocative poem by John Masefield that begins "I must go down to the seas again..." and concludes "and all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover, and quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over."

I wanted to get to Helston, we diverted to Mullion after a brief glimpse of RNAS Culdrose drawn by the sun and promise of a dip, but the tide was in and the stocky, battered sea defenses undergoing repair, so after a sunbathe on the sea wall we headed off to the chocolate factory where iced coffee was cooling and mobile signal restored, revealing a plea for fresh clothes from the youngest, who was off to a Captains Dinner in Falmouth as part of the Tall Ships event. I had an emotional moment or two, stuck in traffic at end-of-shift-time passing by Culdrose again. Happy memories and some sadness for times and people - gone. Unable to re-visit the blackberry lane down to Mounts Bay with my daughter as planned, we sped back to Falmouth on the A394.

It's been three years since I left the shire for more than a day and the journey, or the descent into Cornwall was full of joy and some sadness as familiar roads reminded me of past holidays, places we might stop, views we all marvelled at. In particular, I felt the absence of our dog, our brown lab Morti who died at the start of the Covid pandemic. All that long journey it was as if he was with me, dogs came up to me tails wagging and I could sense his nose pressed to the car window as the air changed from chalk dusted seed filled Wiltshire through Dorset -  old fossils, heathland and London Clay through to Devon - the greensand of the Blackdowns, heathy grassland and shale, a tang of iron from the red oxidising sandstone, to the greying granite of Dartmoor where the air has settled from the collision of tectonic plates leaving an acidic taste on the palate. We holidayed in South Devon nearly every year and these smells and traces on the tongue resonate the most, along with the sense of lush greens and folding in of hill and valley from the more open plains and valleys of Wiltshire. The rich geological patchwork is largely untouched by the ice age scouring of the spiny ribs of Wiltshire and Dorset. We are unhurriedly heading towards the Tamar having decided to dip into Plymouth where copper and arsenic were once shipped from the Devon mines and now, this ocean city sings of Navy, culture, and a wealth that papers over poverty, aspiring to create a grand gateway to Cornwall.

And so we cross the Tamar duly heading towards Bodmin and the swept, granite moors of Jamaica Inn before dipping down to St Austell in search of sea glimpses and that wet, loamy fern-filled, tree-arching comfort of cornish coast roads. We weave between coast and sub-coast before diving down the zig-zagged roads to Mevagissy (Lannvorek) an ancient fishing harbour, where the houses and cottages cling to the hills like limpets and the fifteenth-century Fountain Inn snuggles under the cliff, and a maze of streets wind around the harbour guarded by a small lighthouse. A boat trip from here might afford you a glimpse of dolphin. We ate at the street food van beside the harbour, salt and pepper squid with frites - freshly cooked and delicious. Then having been on-track in terms of our planned three hours to Cornwall - typically, our schedule fell apart as Cornish time and tides crept like a sea-mist upon us and having chatted with the man in the Yarn shop (aptly named) mourned the retirement of the Potter over the road whose lovely mugs and pots and plates seemed to sadly display themselves in the shop window we then meandered to the Lost Gardens of Heligan to subject our calves and feet to the constant delight of beautifully rescued vistas of planting, landscapes, woodlands and jungle! It was too much for one visit and the Burma Rope bridge finished off my travel-weary feet, so it was time to go. My senses overloaded with scents floral and more exotic we headed out through the shop (as is the way of all things) via the Farm shop and set our course for Falmouth.

I am an adventurer and the eldest is an excellent navigator, so it was only a short while before we found ourselves 'off the main track' again in search of those uplifting sea-vistas and weaving along single-track lanes, submerged in sunken clay and stone, tumbled barns and leafy ferns creating magical secret ways to hidden kingdoms. I have learnt from my Devonian adventures that there is no shame in reversing, don't moan, don't panic - if you meet another car (or tractor), reverse to the nearest passing place. Hence, as I drove and marveled at the old roads, the valleys and old farms, my inner monkey frequently cried "passing place!' as we circumnavigated a small stretch of coast passing Gorran, Caerhayes and Veryan before heading through Tregony and onwards to Truro, the southernmost City. Cornwall's only City. A glossy, traffic-congested centre of commerce and leisure where two rivers merge into one.Truro always seems like a sausage mixer, you are squeezed through it and emerge the other side, forever changed. Our progression to Falmouth and then Maenporth was mercifully direct and straightforward. The sandy beach at Maenporth after a typically wide-then-narrow-wide-then-sharp-bend-narrow-then-narrower was a welcome sight, and my Sea Fever instantly becalmed by the gentle rolling surf and the open aspect of this once important harbour turned hang-out beach. After locating Wave Watchers (our apartment on the rising hill, leading out of Maenporth towards Glendurgan) we finally stopped, and settled in for the night, the waves lulling our travel-weary selves into a state of expectant sleep, where pirates marauded and miners mined and fishermen set sail, ever hopeful of a 'good catch'.

I have had, for some years now, a sense of approaching my Finisterre, I have withdrawn from the misery imposed by the UK's post-Brexit dysfunctional dystopia and contemplated (too much probably) what the 'end of my earth' might look like. I have drenched myself in lush English countryside, rolling Wiltshire downlands, and ancient woods. I have perambulated chalk hills and admired undulating valleys, paused alongside crisply mown cricket greens and village football pitches, lent against oak gates, and waded through bramble and nettle trying to regain a sense of place and failed. I've lingered in the shadow of church towers and strangely angled gravestones attempting to re-connect with this once magic isle. My ancestry which traces back to the Norsemen, the ancient Priories of the south and across to northern France, speaks of people of the land, and travellers - it rattles loosely in my bones, a sense of knowing when I'm in certain places, an occasional calling to follow a certain road, drink in a certain view. All this is why, like a Pirate, I like to go adventuring. 

I have to admit I'm a romantic, the bookworm in me sees mystery and magic in alleyways and castles. I believe in secret tunnels and treasure, and I eternally hope for the chance to play my part in solving a crime, or coming across a blue Police telephone box and stepping inside... In my youth my days were full of possibility, that I might find myself riding home in a helicopter or witnessing a pod of dolphins on my drive to the coast, or that the sudden appearance of a mysterious gate, or doorway might herald a wonderful adventure. I have fought to retain these wild expectations but somehow imagination becomes less a thing of wonder and more a fear of insanity, as the hope of magic starts to recede under the weight of worry, anxiety for the future, and the stronger desire for security and the bigger fear of the loss of it. Mundane concerns over ones physical body, the wear and tear that begins to show, all play their part in the diminishing of joy and the struggle to retain a belief in the endless creativity of life.

I have left the river valleys of my home, and descended down to the Cornish seas, where folk will tell you if you've a mind to listen, that the sea was never mans friend. It may feed you but it can kill you. The pernicious addiction that man has to conquer this beautiful, iridescent, moon-led kingdom continues to drive people across it, seeking freedom, adventure, challenge and a living. In a small shop in a popular fishing village, I was told tales of cornish fishermen who riding the highs and lows of modern-day fishing, grow bitter and old. I heard how greed and a desire to make it big and leave the hardship behind, drove one young fisherman to his death. He was found dead on his boat having overdosed from despair or drugs or both. The sea, at the end of the earth where the land stops is a beautiful and cruel mistress. 

As I sat with my daughter alongside a cornish harbour eating freshly cooked squid and chilli with frites (very European), it all looked festive and idyllic but the locals look wearily on, as the grockles* noisily overconsume food, vistas, space and time. It's a sensitive balance between an economic influx of welcome income and an overindulgence. I see and hear all this but I too, look to the sea and am lost in dreams of pirates, adventurers, sea mists and smugglers. I find myself, craving a cottage where the gulls wheel and I beach-comb sandy bays with the salty winds curling my hair, as I live my days in the romance novels of the forties. All a wonderful escapism and not the reality of coastal living for most people.

When I found the blue door today, down some steps and along an alley where once, I was certain an Italian restaurant serving indifferent pizza used to be found, I was transported to the pages of Moonfleet and Treasure Island. This ancient door opposite the sail-makers loft, with it's tiny grille and studded planking, just by the harbour below the pier - what tales, what stories did it have to tell? What lay behind it? Should I knock? If I came back a day later, would it still be there? How I envied it the fascination it carried, I should be so lucky to age in such a way that when people came across me they were mesmerized so! As I stood there wondering, I could hear the strains of Elvis singing..."behind the blue door...'** and darker rum soaked baritones and basses thumping out lost sea-shanties with their battered tankards. 

What delighted me most was the faint glimmer of that lost child-like wonder that the sea had gifted me, that in a door I had found a shard of my buried imagination. What a treasure to be found down a harbourside alley.

*grokkel/grockle - interloper, incomer, foreigner, tourist.

**Yes, yes I know Elvis actually sang a song entitled The Green Door but interestingly it involves similar

"The Green Door" (or "Green Door") is a 1956 popular song, with music composed by Bob "Hutch" Davieand lyrics by Marvin J. Moore. It was first recorded by Jim Lowe, which reached number one on the US chart in 1956. The song has been covered by a number of artists. The lyrics describe the allure of a mysterious private club with a green door, behind which "a happy crowd" play piano, smoke and "laugh a lot", and inside which the singer is not allowed.