After a very long sleep (9 hours for me, 12 for Mirinda) we lazed around the apartment, listened to the Archers Omnibus at 10am, and generally chuckled at Mirinda’s attempt to warm up a croissant. She blames the fact on her long absence from the kitchen.
The bath is a disappointment! One of Mirinda’s joys when on holidays is a long leisurely bath of a morning, preparatory to the days rigours. The bath in the apartment looks all very good, the bathroom is long and lovely but it’s all a bit form over function. Expensive bathroom furniture does not necessarily mean it’s going to work. The bath, while deep and long enough, is a stupid shape, which means one can’t keep one’s head above water. The water pressure is pretty dire as well, so the bath takes a day to fill up. And the water isn’t exactly hot either.
Just across the corridor from our bedroom there is a door. This leads into the other top floor apartment (obviously it’s locked this week but the two can be hired as one and be opened up if the group is big enough). In this part of the house, Rudolph Hess was held and interrogated when he arrived in Britain during World War II. Apparently officials moved him around a lot and this was one of the places, it being so nicely secluded.
The morning was drifting away into a slumbery Sunday afternoon as we strolled around our holiday grounds. An old, neglected yew tree lined walk beckoned with its gushes of rhododendrons, so we walked the length of what turned out to be a ‘not-used-in-an-age’ farm track. At one point we chatted amiably with a Shetland pony.
Shetland pony at Castle
At some point, as we wandered along a road that was gradually heading upwards, Mirinda decided we should, maybe, head off somewhere for lunch. We reversed direction, collected Sidney and headed off for Lostwithiel. The name, by the way, means the place at the end of the woodland.
Sunday in Lostwithiel is not very exciting. We wandered along the River Fowey, admiring the Tudor bridge and other buildings attractively lining it, while passing by many a closed eating establishment. To be fair, the burnt out fish and chip shop wasn’t going to open any time soon but it did seem a bit odd for everything to be closed while all available (and some not so available) car spaces were filled. Mind you, a lot of noisy revellers were attending some sort of rock ‘n roll event at the Working Men’s Club so perhaps they owned the cars.
Fortunately, just as Mirinda was starting to get a bit terse, we discovered the Royal Talbot, which served lunch until 4. A roast chicken and ham and eggs later, all was well as we sipped our Cornish ale and cider, overlooking the busy road that sweeps many cars right through Lostwithiel.
We found this amazing sign in the middle of Lostwithiel. At first I thought it said “Ha Ha! Lease for three thousand years…” but, sadly, not. It says “Hath a lease for three thousand years, which had beginning the 29th of September 1652.” So, this means, that the lease (which was given to a chap called Walter Kendall) will run until the year 4652. It gives pause for much thought and many questions arise from this thinking. What was the point, being the one uppermost in our minds. I have found a few references to the assignment of the lease in the National Archives but the facts are a tad dry and not nearly funny enough to repeat here.
Lostwithiel sign
We slowly returned to the car via St Bartholomew’s churchyard – the church closes at 3:30 – and returned to Castle where I was serenaded by Mirinda’s guitar practice.
We had intended to watch Battlestar Galactica (we had brought along our boxed set just for this purpose) but the DVD built into the TV said it wasn’t right. Annoying. Instead we watched an awful Sherlock Holmes thing, which we easily worked out. The most interesting thing was my translating the Italian at the beginning.
Mirinda went to bed while I watched an awful documentary about Silbury Hill and an excellent documentary about Ida, the lemur-like 47 million year old fossil. Then bed.
