The Surprise Trip To Kernow

The second of June brought my 3Nth birthday (where 196N - 4 is the year I was born :-) and with it a surprise break. I had known I was going somewhere for the Jubilee weekend but had no idea where. Shola had booked the trip in February and amazingly kept it a secret! :-) On the Saturday morning she showed me an e-mail from my boss who had agreed for me to take the whole week off - so it was going to be a week long holiday not just the weekend :-) I was convinced that Shola would have made sure that the England world cup matches would be catered for and to his credit my boss gave her a reminder too! :-D

With the bags packed and the car loaded up with bikes and a few other bits and pieces we headed off leaving the rest of the people in Brackenbury preparing for the Queen's Golden Jubilee - they were out putting up bunting as we left the close.

We took the A14 west bound and stayed with it until the M6 which we took north bound -I still had no idea where we could be going. We then took the M42 towards Birmingham and I started to have an idea that we might be heading to the south west. This might seem a strange way to go but it is in theory the fastest. My ideas were confirmed when we joined the M5. Cornwall has it's own language - Kernowek and the Kernowek for Cornwall is Kernow but I suppose you've worked that out for yourself by now. For more information on Cornwall see this Cornish FAQ after you've finished reading this page of course!

The St Piran Flag Of Kernow

Shola gave me the details. We were going to be staying in Cornwall - our first trip to that part of the country and the whole point of the visit :-). The cottage looked beautiful and the views were amazing.

The Bowling Green	The cottage	View from the garden

The M5 was a nightmare and virtually a car park for the whole journey. It seemed that everyone thought it was a great idea to go away for the Jubilee Bank Holiday. We finally arrived at 7:30 pm: a journey time of 9 hours and 30 minutes aaarrrgggghhh! We met farmer Bill and his wife Kaye who showed us around the place. Bill was enormous around 6'6" and built to go with it. When we shook hands I got the impression he could have crushed mine quite easily and gave me a little tweak to let me know as much! He was smiling as he did it though :-)

The cottage is a recent conversion from a barn and is perfect for a peaceful get away holiday. It is part of Coldrinnick Farm which is between Liskeard and Looe, just west of Plymouth.

The garden has its own bowling green and putting green which was good when the weather was up to it. There was also a gravel patch to play Boules on - and we had ours with us :-)

Textbook technique...	Struggling to stay in the game ;-)

On Sunday morning it was England's first game of the 2002 World Cup, versus Sweden. I was pretty nervous and excited and just hoped that they didn't let us down. At half time things were looking good as England had had the better of the game and were leading 1-0.

Campbell and Owen celebrate 1-0!	Beckham tangles with Ljundgerg

In the second half Sweden were far better and England were lucky to come out the game with a draw following Sweden's early equaliser. Still - it was a point from their first game - definitely better than a defeat.Pressure was on to get a result against Argentina in the next match on Friday.

In the meantime back to the holiday... After the match we stocked up on food and wine for the week and had the first of our Barbeques :-) We also had some chocolate fudge birthday cake - it was my birthday after all! Then it was down to the serious matter of eating drinking and relaxing :-) The view from the cottage was fantastic and really there was no need to leave the place what with the boules, bowls and golf tournaments lined up, but we picked a couple of places to visit during the week. One was The Lizard or Lizard Point and the other was the Eden Project, both carefully scheduled around vital world cup matches :-)

Happy Birthday To Me!

A Tight Fit...

First off to Lizard point then. Any journey out involved negotiating the long narrow lanes leading to the farm. This was something of a nightmare and each time involved praying that we did not meet anyone coming the other way. The lanes were so narrow there was almost zero room to pass a person stood at the side (as we discovered during a walk one day). There were occasional passing points but nowhere near as many as you would like. Eventually we met someone and had to reverse several hundred yards which was not much fun! Fortunately it was only the once. Lizard point was 60 or so miles away - this part of England covers more area than you would think. It was good to be somewhere which up until now had just been a dot on a map that I had looked at many times and thought about visiting. That having been said there was not much to keep us there apart from the Apple Pie Ice Cream and we left after about an hour.

We were lucky with the weather that day and had a fair amount of sunshine. On the way back we called at Falmouth and had a wander around. This involved the obvious shopping spree by the Queen of Shopping herself! :-) but we also got to see the harbour and bay.

I was there...	Falmouth

Wednesday involved the Ireland match against Germany where they got a creditable draw. This was followed by the world Bowls tournament on our bowling green. It was open to all-comers but no surprise that there were only Shola and I competing. It was a close fought affair which errupted into a dispute when we both disagreed about the score. In the absence of a referee the match was abandonned with the score at 18-17 to me or 17-17 depending on who you listen to :-)

The next day we set off to St Austell to visit the Eden Project. First though we needed to get some famous Cornish Pasties down us! Of course you can get them all over the country but I have to say these were the best and biggest we have had.

Hmmmmmm pasty!

We had heard about the Eden project on TV, mostly, and were looking forward to finding out what it was all about. According to the leaflet it is busiest during the week but unfortunately we had no option. When we passed signs saying it was full we knew that we had to expect long traffic queues and this proved to be the case. We sat in bumper to bumper cars for the last mile but once we arrived the parking was efficient and we were soon able to see the famous "biomes", the large bubble greenhouses.

First View Of The Eden Project

I dont' know if Shola and I have been spoiled by being lucky enough to be able to travel to some pretty nice places but the Eden Project was something of a let down for us. Between us we have seen better natural parks in Malaysia and Florida. We had expected it to be more educational and spectacular than it was. The Biomes "the largest geodesic lean-to conservatories in the world" were not as big as we expected - call us fussy! The larger of the two can be wandered around easily in 40 minutes and the other we spent at most 10 minutes in. I was impressed to read that the two structures weigh only slightly more than the air they contain.

Inside The Humid Tropics Biome

It seems they were well geared up to the consumer with their restaurant, shop and ice cream/pasty stands as well as story telling entertainment for the kids. The guide book puts it as follows : "if this place becomes no more than an upmarket theme park it will have been the most gigantic waste of money". If you are visiting this part of the country then you should visit and make up your own mind...

Friday saw the attention back on the world cup with England playing Argentina in a game which probably meant more to us than it did to them. The news reported the Argies in relaxed and confident mood but England focused on the job ahead. The earlier match ended in a win for Sweden and meant that Nigeria would be going home after the group phase. The build up to the England match was very tense for me but Shola was not too bothered! England started well and looked to be well up for the game - they were working hard and concentrating well. After about 20 mins Trevor Sinclair was brought on to replace Owen Hargreaves who was injured early on. The side looked much more balanced and continued to play well. In the 44th minute Owen earned a penalty and Beckham scored to put England 1-0 ahead. With around 15 minutes remaining Argentina started to apply pressure but couldn't break England down. It finished 1-0!!! YESSSSS!!!! Come on England!! :-D

Owen Fouled for the Penalty	The Boys Celebrate Going Ahead

On Saturday we made our way back to Cambridge taking about 7 hours all in. The M5 was marginally better than the week before. After a quick shower and a change we went into Cambridge for a curry before watching a preview screening of the Spider-Man movie!!

A great way to end the week. Thanks to Shola for a great birthday surprise and an enjoyable week all round. What with Lewis thashing Tyson, we just need the England boys to finish the job they have started... oh and the replay to settle the Bowls match ;-)