We have been back in Cornwall for 17 years and today celebrated a few days late by having lunch at The Blue Bar in Porthtowan, just about our favourite place!
View from the cafe
Reflection of the clouds in one of the tidal pools
I love watching the waves and listening to them crashing onto the beach.
There were some beautiful stones as we walked down to the edge of the water.
Our Christmas morning walk took us to Porthtowan where we love to watch the crazy Santa swimmers!
Preparing – and a Christmas Tree
Towards the water
In the water!
A lantern parade, Christmas carols, another outing for our special Story-coat, crowds of jolly people and then the switch on – a splendid evening for Redruth.
Max, our young Town Crier, wearing the storycoat. Thanks to Sue for the photo.
Just in from a brilliant evening……
Today is International Repair Day, which is the bread and butter of our lovely Make A Mends shop in Redruth.
and it’s also World Earthworm Day. You may remember the cardigan that I posted about last week – as the rhyme suggests worms are vital for soil health and consequently, our health. 
I won a worm!
We are so lucky to have Make A Mends in town.
It should have been the Mining and Pasty Festival today but some of the day had to be cancelled and the rest moved indoors as there was the most tremendous storm turning our main street into a river. There was thunder and lightning throughout Cornwall and a local photographer gave me permission to show you his amazing photo taken looking over St Ives.
Photo by Gary Phelps – who managed to get this picture this morning 😁 St Ives, Cornwall, UK 21st September 2024
Our ancient Butter Market is undergoing renovation and should be opening next month. We were allowed a walk around today and it is looking very good indeed.
Our Town Crier Max was about town doing his thing and kindly stopped for me to get some photos.
Max, our young Town Crier wearing the Story coat, showing my patch of Gracey Briney
We said goodbye to our Dear Friend Ti, whom many of you have come to know through these posts. She celebrated her 105th birthday in May, met her Great Grandson in early July (the one for whom I made special SallyBoots) and died on July 21st.
We have shared so many lovely times with her, taken numerous garden posies and shared so many laughs and so much wonderful poetry with her. We were always amazed at her being able to remember poems from her childhood.. If you put Ti into the search on the right hand side of this post, you’ll find many lovely memories of our time with Ti.
It was a beautiful celebration of her life, full of love and warmth and my choir singing. I was asked to read one of her favourite poems which I did with love and pride.
Locally grown flowers, beautifully arranged and scented
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
and twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
tossing their heads in sprightly dance.The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
in such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
what wealth the show to me had brought:For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
Victoria Sponge, one of Ti’s favourites and my contribution to the tea and cakes served afterwards.
I have just finished reading one of the most enjoyable and pleasing novels I’ve read in a long time. Someone on our Italian trip was reading it and recommended it. She was right.
“The Dictionary of Lost Words” is an imaginative and engrossing story about words, language, love and loss all tied up in the life of a growing-up narrator who is five years old at the start in 1886 and helping her “Da’ in the Scriptorium. The novel ends in the 1920s as the Oxford English Dictionary is published. 
The evening sun makes lovely shadows above the mantlepiece – here of a beautiful piece of Esther Smith’s work, an automaton of a Hare and a flower.
We have had a torrid three weeks with a medical problem hanging over me. Today, it has been resolved and all is well, much to our enormous relief.
Regular readers know that I like cooking and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed making lovely meals to share with our visiting friends.
Asparagus Quiche
Cornish Cream Tea
Confit Duck and lentil Salad with pomegranate seed.
Three leaf salad with olives, peppers, avocado and flowers
What a day we’ve had!
First was the Saturday Brunch debate, all about food and food production in Cornwall. The Breakfast in a Bap from The GrowBox was delicious and followed by an excellent debate with really knowledgeable people – a very young food writer, Fliss Freeborn , Graham Harvey, the agricultural story editor for the Radio 4 serial The Archers and the author of books including The Killing of the Countryside and The Carbon Fields, and one of The Bearded Farmers, local food producers. The debate, both enjoyable and informative, became quite lively. It was chaired by Orlando Murrin, a very experienced cookery writer and a semi-finalist on MasterChef some years ago. .
I loved the afternoon session too and before the last talk had already bought myself a cookery book (I have well over a hundred but can’t resist another good one!) This one is Two’s Company by Orlando Murrin and I have already marked a good number of recipes that I plan on trying. 
After Orlando Murrin’s conversation with Tim Hubbard, the last session of the day, I was also won over by his first novel , a culinary crime story. I’ve read the first chapter while the FA semi final was playing and I’m loving it! (One for you to borrow, H?) It includes recipes too!
Signed copy 🙂
And there’s more tomorrow! We are so lucky to live in Redruth.
A day for all mothers, all those who care with love for others.
I have been truly spoiled today! Daughter no 1 came for the day and we went out for lunch and had a lovely walk on the beach at Porthtowan.
A beautifully presented bouquet arrived from Daughter no 2 before I had showered this morning, delivered with a lovely message and all in purple, white and green, a reminder, if any of us need it, of our pride in our treasured history, my Great Granny being a suffragette.
Thanks KJ
And in a card that I opened at breakfast, some stunning earrings, in the same precious colours, that Daughter no 3 had had specially made for me!
Beautifully handmade by Tina
What perfectly lovely people our daughters are.
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