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. 

A Prayer for the removal of bitterness

God Save me

From duplicitous christian men

With their self-centred, self serving

Self justification

Their needy validation.

God save me

From my mistaken belief

That their faith would be enough

To save me from my darkness

And their strength would nourish me

In my hour of need

That promises would be reflected in deed.

God save me 

From my foolishness

What a bloody imperfect fool I am

How could I not see that when he spoke

Of wanting to save this broken marriage

He didn’t mean the vows we took at altar

He meant the bricks and mortar.

And when he takes my money, and my home,

To preserve his social status

…And the woman with that shiny ring on her finger

Fresh from a luxury holiday in the Caribbean sun

–God, how that sting still lingers!

God Save me.

And God save him

From those as yet unseen imperfections

Which are bound to emerge, post-dopamine charge.

When he takes on her children -

Please let him not forget mine.

I’m sure her body is perfect

And she bears no scars

And will make a far better life-partner than I,

Whose faith is shattered by lie upon lie

Whose body is ruined

Who has no tears left to cry.

Dear God save him

From waking up lonely, 

Because you can lie to make yourself feel better

And tell everyone what an ogre they are

But she loved and cherished you when in need.

And you behaved like a son, not a lover

Treated her less a wife, and more a mother.

God Save me

From self-deluding christian men

You can keep your charity and good grace

Provide me with sweet, sweet revenge

Give me strength to endure

Soften my bitterness

Just take me away from all this

God Save me.

I've been thinking a lot about things that enrich our lives, alongside what gives us purpose or motivation, and whilst freeing up memory on my cloud storage I came across something I write last summer when my youngest daughter was taking part in her first ever Tall Ships Race. She is just back from Italy and together with a friend from the same school mentioned below, she drove around in a hired Fiat Panda exploring the culture and seeing Pisa, and soaking up the vibes of Florence before returning to crew in her second Tall Ships experience. Both my daughters have lived far more adventurous lives than I have, although my enrichment came from different experiences to theirs. 

There has been a steep rise in youth crime where I live in the South of England, it can be intimidating to witness anti-social behaviour but as our economic state and our out-of-touch government grapples with papering over the cracks and ignores the deepening rifts caused by leaving the European Union, as bills get harder to pay, food costs soar and pressures grow on ordinary people, the disruption caused by all this sees young people left without support or direction and can lead to acts of small aggression, destruction or frustration. This leads me back to enrichment, the extra icing on the cake, the opportunity taken that leads to new horizons, the moment that changes a person's perspective, how they feel or their next decision...

July 2022

I was thinking how great it was to see that we have a local girls' football team and giving some thought to some of the amazing things our young people do that rarely receive attention. Whilst it only takes one young person to drop some litter or, (through boredom mostly) commit small acts of anti-socialism to attract instant condemnation. From charity fund-raising to caring for a parent or sibling, to volunteering in the community, being part of a successful sports team, and even shopping for an elderly neighbour there are so many examples that demonstrate how wonderful young people are. 

During the cursed  'lock-down' we heard of many such acts by young people. I am missing these positive stories. I am sure young people are still doing these things.

My youngest was incredibly lucky to experience an enrichment programme during her time at her secondary school,  Wyvern St Edmunds' the culmination of which was a challenge to climb Mt Toubkal (4167 metres above sea level in the High Atlas Mountains). Encouraged and joined by her then, form teacher Miss Kirkham, a coachful departed from St. Edmunds. What! No toilets !!? the girls exclaimed in horror at the induction tal, "Yep' came the reply, "what goes up the mountain comes down the mountain". It was a life-changing challenge for many of the group who undertook it and I still remember how exhausted they all were when they arrived back at school - exhausted and exhilarated. 

That challenge gave my youngest the courage to successfully apply to become Head Girl, a role she thrived in, and this summer she is undertaking the Tall Ships Challenge 2022 aboard the Jolie Brise, currently somewhere out in the North Sea between Antwerp in Belgium and Aalberg in Denmark (amongst some of the largest cargo and container ships that I wish I'd never looked at on the Marine Traffic Tracker!). 

So thank you St. Edmunds (Wyvern St Edmund's) that inspiring enrichment programme has enabled my youngest to get over the sudden cessation of her known school life (no exams, no prom, suddenly no friends to be with every day) and to start at a sixth form where she knew no-one, where lock-downs yo-yo'd in and out and it has enabled her to see those challenges as possibilities, to look beyond the immediate horizon.

She is not alone, her friends have similar stories of growth and achievement. All different, all positive. My maternal pride has led me to digress a little, and I know that in life we don't all get the same opportunities and we don't all make good choices when opportunities present themselves. I also know, that in the parish that I work in; schools, parish councillors, the scouting and guiding association, churches, housing associations, Wiltshire Council - a whole host of agencies and people, are all working hard to find ways to provide more opportunities for young people to have things to do and places to go, to encourage and inspire their brilliant young minds and channel the phenomenal energy that young people possess. 

Covid took away so much, I hope we can continue to offer challenges and opportunities for our young people so they all have a chance to widen their horizons and discover that to climb a mountain you just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other and eventually you'll get to the top.

If you're going to write then choosing to write about a broken heart is a dangerous gambit. It's passé, it's over-done, done to death, dull, disinteresting - ditch it!

But it happens, right? We've all had our hearts broken haven't we? 

People, in this post-pandemic era talk about social isolation and loneliness emerging as a result of fear of the outside world, fear of getting a terrible illness, mistrust of other humans who like rats become carriers of disease, panic of being in an arena where you have no control. It's not a million miles from the feelings attached to having your heart broken - the tendency to withdraw, isolate, leads to the same sense of loneliness. There's a powerful Ad campaign that was run in the UK in 2016 specifically targeting the elderly, the Loneliness Kills ad campaign was conceived and executed by Superdream, an ad agency based in Birmingham, United Kingdom, for Alone, an organization helping older people in need. It read, "Research shows that loneliness and isolation can be as harmful to someone's health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day." That's a shocking statement aimed at opening people's eyes back in 2016, the baton was picked up by Age UK and in Australia in 2019 they pronounced "Loneliness is a social cancer, every bit as alarming as cancer itself". When Covid19 arrived it became a tangible concern for everybody regardless of age or gender. Others became hyper-independent, hyper vigilant - refusing to rely on anyone but themselves, refusing to open their heart or be generous and giving in order to control the impact of their fellow humans on their own environment, well-being, and sense of self. Surely a negative action leading back to self-isolation and loneliness?

During the pandemic, people were stopped from leaving their homes, once the crisis eased off those habits formed from government-imposed 'isolation' continued for many. As we emerge from the crisis, people are ordering "Just Eat' rather than walking to a nearby restaurant, they're accessing youtube or Netflix or Amazon Prime rather than going to the theatre. We're becoming more like the people on the galactic cruise liner in the Disney/Pixar animated film WALL-E released in 2008, so used to pressing a button to get our needs met that our bodies become irrelevant, gradually unable to walk or dance. Okay. I'm not saying that when your heart is broken you become an obese slug (although that is a stage some broken-hearted people go through if Bridget Jones is to be believed) but there is no doubt that when you experience a huge let-down from someone you loved, or heavily invested in, either through loss and grief, or because someone actively left your life, or ghosted you, or simply could not return the love you felt for them, you have a physical response and often a mental response to accompany it. Something in you breaks... not literally or physically (although pain can definitely be a factor) but something so real in terms of your soul, your spirit - that you were crippled by it, unable to function. Your heart is an animate part of your body, philosophers and artists consider it to be the inherent centre of your being. The chemicals released through love or passion, the endorphins, the adrenalin sparking through your nervous system and cerebral cortex, cause your heart to beat faster, and this fact explains the link to symbolising love through the imagery of the heart; not just an intertwining of two souls in shared experience but also two hearts...beating as one. 

Experiencing a broken heart is a process, from which, some people heal and some people don't, choosing instead to isolate. Not perhaps in quite such a dramatic fashion as Miss Havisham, the reclusive jilted bride in Charles Dicken's story "Great Expectations". But the real and manifest ways in which the mind asks the body to respond to a broken heart are as diverse and unpredictable as the mind itself. In 1966 Jimmy Ruffin asked, "What becomes of the broken-hearted? Who had love that's now departed? I know I've got to find, some kind of peace of mind - Maybe.."

In this new age of self-introspection, self-preservation and insular leisure activities such as 'gaming' and 'online shopping' and the arrival of AI - will the act of 'broken-heartedness" be softened by the removal of face-to-face contact by augmented reality and the invidious growth of computer-generated software? Will love and connection become a thing of the past, an outdated, unrecognised symptom of society from a bygone era? Will Jimmy Ruffin's sought after peace of mind become a dull sense of inertia, a numb fantasy expressed through a third-party tool such as an online game or artificial avatar?