To Land’s End… and beyond!

It’s been so busy here with orders and commissions, and as a result I know I’ve been neglectful of my blogging friends – taking an age to reply to comments and not keeping up with my blog reading.  I wish I could say this slovenly state of affairs will improve but in fact they’ll be taking a nosedive as of tomorrow – because I’m going away for three weeks and will have absolutely no internet access in that time. I can’t deny it, I’m thrilled skinny!

First off R and I will be going to Cornwall, camping near St Just on the Land’s End Peninsula. There are many rare wild flowers and insects to be found in the area as well as some great walking and beaches as good as you’ll find anywhere.

After a couple of days exploring this lovely place we’ll be catching the Scillonian III from Penzance to The Isles of Scilly (pronounced “silly”) where we’ll be camping on the beautiful Island of St Agnes, by far and away my favourite of these enchanted islands. A haunt of rare migratory birds (though we’ll be too early for most of those) and carpeted with wildflowers, St Agnes also has the best snorkelling and rockpooling I’ve ever done in the UK – here’s hoping that the sea will be calm and the water clear! And not least because that ferry journey is never anything less than rough… although it’s worth it for the sightings of dolphins, basking sharks and the heart stopping flight of hunting gannets. You can fly across to the islands, but watching dolphins play on the bow wave of the ship and rare birds gliding alongside it is a lot more fun.

So I’m dragging out the field guides, polishing up the binoculars and getting all nerdy at the thought of all that wildlife. I need to take a notebook too, because there will be a lot to remember. And a lot of shells to collect for jewellery making purposes. Oh, and there will be a lot of cream teas to eat, but that’s another story.

Then it’s back home on the ferry and the sleeper train – arriving in London at 7.00 am – and a day in which to unpack, do laundry and make a fancy dress astronaut costume, repack and then catch another train and another ferry to Bestival on the Isle Of Wight! I have to admit I’m a little bit daunted by that bit, but I’ve never failed to have fun at Bestival so it has got to be worth it.

For the Cornish part of my travels I might be able to Twitter, but as we get further from the mainland on the ferry journey to Scilly the phone signal will start to fade out and I probably won’t have any reception at all once we reach the islands. So it will be a genuine break for me – in a place where technology cannot follow. I can hardly wait.

PS:- It’s possible that if you leave comments after Friday morning they will not show up for a very long time, as I will not have a chance to moderate them. I do love geting comments though, so if you leave some for me anyway it will be a lovely thing for me to come home to.

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St Agnes Sunset

Welcome skywatchers! Ready for a glorious sunset? My first Skywatch Friday was such fun that I knew at last I’d have a chance to share one of my favourite views of all time, and here it is. This was taken from the camp site on St Agnes, a tiny island off the southwest coast of Britain. R and I holiday there most summers, staying in our little tent on a camp site that looks directly out onto the Atlantic, with seals and seabirds as our neighbours and the best sunsets I have ever seen anywhere, bar none. The crashing waves are our lullaby and I would sooner not go at all than swap this little piece of heaven for the comfort of a hotel.

This is the exact view that we get as we are cooking dinner.  The ocean is studded with the silhouettes of jagged uninhabited islands, and far away on the horizon is the sweeping light of Bishop’s rock lighthouse. Seabirds call to one another as they fly to their roosts, and eventually, if the air is not too damp, the sky will be crammed with stars.

Look at skies from around the world with Skywatch Friday!

PS: To those of you using Blogger:- Some of you have your comment settings in such a way that I can’t come and say hi and thank you for your visits or tell you how fantastic your latest shot is; I don’t have a blogger or open ID account. I just wanted to say thank you for your kind comments as I don’t want you to think I’m being rude and ignoring you!

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