1   On a  Monday evening my choir rehearses in Troon Primary School. These delightful 4″ high models of some of engine houses, ubiquitous around Cornwall, were on display.

Engine houses, found all over Cornwall from the tin mining era

2   We discovered a lovely new café in Truro today where the coffee was excellent, the homemade Lemon Drizzle Cake even better than my own and lovely friendly service. It’s Oscar’s on the ground floor of Lemon Street Market. Try it if you are nearby. It really is a gem. We will certainly become regulars!

A gem of a cafe

3   The lovely Mr S was shopping for a shirt and we went into a long established store in Truro, Trevails and he came out with an excellent winter jacket! The shop has actually been there and run by generations of the same family for 95 years!   I remember shopping for my school uniform for Truro Girls’ Grammar School there and I was so proud to be wearing it!  The beautiful things in there today were very special indeed. Have a look and I will tell you the story which the lovely owners told us ……….

Very small football boots

These beautiful little leather boots with nailed-in leather studs were made especially for the current owner’s father about eighty years ago. The boy was still in Primary School in St Agnes and was such a talented little footballer that the secondary boys wanted him to play in a match for them. His mother went to the shoemakers in St Agnes and had these little boots, child size 10, made for him. They are in such pristine condition because the match was cancelled and the next time he was invited to play with that team, he had grown out of them!
Somehow, they ended up on display with dozens of other shoes in a pub in St Agnes where one day, on a family Sunday outing, Mr Trevail’s mother told him, “Those boots were made for your Dad!”  It took the pub changing hands twice before the newest owner decided that the boots ought to go back to the family where they belonged  and so they are now proudly on display in this splendid and last family owned shop in the city, Trevails.  Go in and have a look if you are in Truro. Go on! You now have two destinations in this beautiful Cathedral city where I grew up!