Wednesday 18th October – King Arthur but no round table

 

 

Today I awoke before my parents and went into their room, and on their bed, to see what they were doing. Funnily enough, I’d only been bouncing on their bed for 3 minutes and they too got up. Today we got ready and were out the door just as quickly as the other days.

 

As dad drove off, he looked worried. I looked outside my window and could see a small amount of rain fall from the sky. This grew as our journey north continued. At one point the wind had picked up and it seemed like a small hurricane was blowing outside. I could see that my dad was wondering whether to turn around or not. He persevered.

 

My dad’s perseverance paid off. As we reached the car park at Tintagel the sun was shining and it almost seemed as though we were in a different country as to that of this morning. As mum and dad got me into my pushchair I could feel that the wind was very strong indeed. Once strapped in, my dad pushed my pushchair with some vigour towards a place called Tintagel castle. I decided not to talk and listen to my parents have a discussion. The reason for the haste was that, a local had said that the weather was due to turn midday. We therefore had around 2 hours of good, but windy, weather to see the castle (as it turned out; it stayed nice in this area of Cornwall all day).

 

It was expensive to enter the castle, but my dad was sure it would be worth it. Tintagel Castle was the home of someone called ‘King Arthur’ … or so legend said. We raced down a very steep hill and I was confronted by a few ruins of a gate house. I had no idea who King Arthur was; but there wasn’t much left of his castle! Next up was a beautiful wide bridge which led to a small island where the castle was situated. Apparently beneath the castle there was ‘Merlin’s cave’ though, as the tide was in, we couldn’t go and see. I didn’t think that this King Arthur was a very nice guy if he left his friend Merlin in a cave.

 

The view from the bridge was stunning. My dad took quite a few photos and I was quite happy just to stop here and look around. Still, we pressed into what was left of the courtyard. The wind had picked up once more and the path led up a steep set of steps and onto the top of the island itself. Where we currently were was shaded a little from the wind however, you could tell that it was pretty strong (apparently the castle has been closed yesterday due to high winds). Dad therefore went on his own to have a look around and I sat with mum and ate snacks. Dad wasn’t too long – meaning the island could not have been that big – and so mum went off and I ate more snacks with dad watching me. Fond memories of the Minack theatre came flooding back.

 

Mum wasn’t too long and soon we were heading back. You could go down a driveway to the sea however, it was a very long and steep road therefore we decided against it and headed back up to the car. Both my mum and dad had been very impressed with the views from Tintagel Castle. My dad very much liked the King Arthur statue – whatever that was – and almost bought a replica from the shop. I remembered the hill when we came. I decided to walk up it as I remembered how difficult it was for dad to push me up the hill in St Ives.

 

I wish I hadn’t bothered walking up the hill! As soon as I got to the top, I was feeling sleepy. It only took a shop or two before I fell asleep. For the third time this holiday, my parents decided to eat lovely food while I was sleeping. My mum had an excellent sandwich and my dad had a proper Cornish Pastry. Apparently their ‘tick list’ of food was almost complete … mine hadn’t even started!

 

We spent five hours in Tintagel. The amount on offer surprised mum. We all even went into a National Trust Post office which was incredibly old. This turned out to be good because our next destination, Port Issac, didn’t have a lot to see at all.

 

It took only 30 minutes to reach Port Issac. We almost had an accident with a speeding car down a very small country road. All was well however and we soon parked within Port Issac’s visitor carpark. As we walked into town, I soon realised why we had come. My grandma and grandad like a programme called ‘Doc Martin’. I have watched tonnes of episodes and I recognised the place instantly. I wanted to visit the surgery however, I was told that the Doc wasn’t in. I instead played on Port Issac’s small beach. I loved playing in the sand and I could have been there all day. Sadly, we did have to go.

 

Both mum and dad wanted to visit a café for scones however it was full. We therefore drove home, back through the terrible weather which seemed to had stagnated within the middle of Cornwall all day and back to the M&S closest to our chalet. Dad wanted to try a cake which he had seen yesterday however, today, there were none to be found. We therefore purchased Chinese food and went back to cook it.

 

After yesterday, I wasn’t allowed to sit anywhere near the chalet’s white walls. Dinner was lovely and soon eaten. It had been another full day therefore, I watched most of ‘Three men and a baby’ before I fell asleep.

 

Tomorrow was our final day in Cornwall and I was pretty sad. I had enjoyed the beach at Port Issac therefore, I hoped we would go back tomorrow.