A Table For Two With A Sea View

Watergate Bay, Cornwall - A Lone Cyclist - 2/2/2012

I always forget that our wedding anniversary falls on ‘ Groundhog Day.’ If you’re not familiar with this annual celebration where a groundhog’s behavior is supposed to determine how much winter is left, you can read about it here.

There’s also a film called ‘Groundhog Day’ where a TV weatherman has to report on the Groundhog Day festivities and finds himself stuck repeating the same day over and over. He’s fairly self-centered and repeating the same day causes him to reevaluate his life and priorities. I never cared much for it, but it is hugely popular with many people.

All that said, John and I did a sort of Groundhog Day yesterday when we went back to the restaurant Fifteen, at Watergate Bay in Cornwall. It’s a gorgeous location and the third year that we’ve celebrated our wedding anniversary with a tasty meal there and a walk on the beach afterward.

Fifteen - A Table For Two With A Sea View

We arrived for a 1:15 reservation to an almost full house and not long after we were seated, the table next to us finished and I was able to snap this photo before the next couple arrived.

I took this without leaving my chair. It was the kind of day that reminds you of why Cornwall is one of Britain’s top holiday destinations. I love living this close to the sea.

Fifteen has a special menu at times that you can choose from along with other more pricey selections. Today’s special included a 3-course meal for 19.95 BPS each. John started with mussels which I never eat, but he enjoyed. I had a had delicious butternut squash soup that was slightly sweet and very filling leaving me struggling a bit to find room for the main course.

He moved on to roast lamb with a potato something underneath and a spinach topping. I should have snapped a photo of the menu so I could review this properly. I’m sorry I can’t be more detailed, but most of what you need to know can be found in the sentence below.

Four words could easily describe our experience, ‘ Great Service, Great Food.’

Speaking of service, our waiter Nick, who I mentioned last year, recognized us right away even though it had been twelve months since our last visit. He said something cute when he asked about my apple/walnut risotto with gorgonzola cheese choice which was a lovely combination of taste and texture.

Nick said his granny Masie liked to say that ‘ An apple without cheese was like a kiss without a squeeze.’ This appears to be a variation of a popular old saying here that I had not heard before and I have to thank Nick for sharing it with me. I’m sure I’ll hear it in my head the next time I reach for an apple.

I wanted a quick photo of John holding my dessert before I dug into it below. Sorry about the woman growing out of his ear. I couldn’t discreetly avoid her and I didn’t want my ice cream to melt. Even a good photographer can have a shift in their priorities when there’s ice cream involved.

The service was excellent with the special message at the end making my sticky toffee pudding even more delightful. Nick is still teaching surfing and appears to doing a bit of modeling as well now. Click here to see him in a surfer shirt from the Fifteen shop.

I caught a quick snap of these surfers in the parking lot when I was changing my shoes for our beach walk. They were rubbing something on their boards which I assume was surf wax, but I’m sure I’ll find out when I take a few lessons this summer. I only have a three-quarter length wet suit not one of these full body ones and after our winter day at the beach, I’m content to wait for warmer weather.

I thought this family made for a cute photo. This appeared to be an outing to see dad surf complete with a sand crazed dog who was clearly happy to be running on the beach.

You can double-click on these to get a closer look. There were loads of surfers out which was brave considering the weather temperature and the amount of ice on the beach.

John took these four photos of me. I took loads of pictures of the ice from different angles never realizing most of the time that he was snapping photos of me. I managed to get some images that pleased me like the first one at the very top of this post with the beach cyclist riding into the sunlight and last two below.

Pieces of ice were breaking off while I was trying to get the shots I wanted and several times I had jump back to avoid being hit. John took this one of me the one below and I like the way the water droplets are blowing through the shot.

He shot this one after I climbed up on an icy rock to get underneath the hanging ice for a the last two images below.

He disappeared through the place in the rock above and I followed him later to see what he’d discovered on the other side.

There are loads of caves and carved out places on this beach and it’s a fun one to explore.

John on the other side.

Here’s a look at what I saw when I climbed up and shot under the shelf with the ice. Notice the water drop in the bottom right. Drops of water were falling constantly while I was shooting and it was fairly surreal having ice framing a beach shot with surfers and dog walkers in the background.

Having the sun sliding down towards the end of its day made for a nice close to another sweet celebration.

Thanks for all the good wishes on Facebook and for those on yesterday’s anniversary post.

It’s always fun to share special days with you.

 

 

18 thoughts on “A Table For Two With A Sea View

  1. For carrot cake (it looks like) and ice cream, I’d excuse TWO people sticking out of John’s head! What great pics, of and by the both of you. The cyclist is amazing as s/he l;ooks so ghostly, and the droplet off the icicles I also noticed and admired. Such wonderful light! Truly a golden day.

  2. The air temperature was about -5c – sea about +10c, but you still have that shock of the cold water entering your wetsuit when you get in !
    Great meal, lovely walk and as always, wonderful company

  3. I’m looking out my window at a grea parking lot! I want to be by the sea! Focusing on your pictures, I could almost imagine me there! Beautiful pictures!

  4. Absolutely love those last couple of shots of the icicles. I’m off to Argentina on Monday – thank goodness for summer and a chance to get away from Copenhagen a.k.a. Siberia!

  5. Beautiful words and fantastic photo’s . How I envy you being able to walk on the beach so close to home. Miss you and John just too much x x x

  6. Absolutely gorgeous post and the photographs are breathtaking (last few would look stunning on a wall!). Sounds like a very, very wonderful anniversary. Every happiness to you both and wishing you many, many more sun-filled days walking on the beach x

  7. @ Mikesadventuresinpictures ~ Thanks for stopping by and leaving your kind comment, The sticky toffee pudding was great, I’d rather have three desserts than a real meal most days. Sugar’s my weakness.

    @ Mariellen ~ It looks like carrot cake which is one of my fav’s, but it’s an English treat that I’m sure you are familiar with. I had mine with ice cream rather than clotted cream. I don’t like CC. I love the cyclist photo too, M. It was really my favorite on of the day. She went translucent and magical looking in the light, afterwards she was just a helmeted rider struggling though the sand.

    @ John ~ You, my darling are always the best company … thanks so much for all the joy you add to my life. xx

    @ Broadsideblog ~ Thanks for the good wishes, it was a perfect day!

    @ Judy ~ Good to see you again, Judy. Glad I could offer another view. Thanks for your kind comment.

    @ Suzanne ~ Thanks for sharing another year with us. I’m always so pleased to see your comments and love seeing your gorgeous pics too.

    I’ll be back to follow up with more in a bit.

  8. Dear Elizabeth, Happy Anniversary to you and your wonderful man! Thank you for sharing your day with all of us out here in cyberspace. What a lovely contrast to the beach day we spent in So. Cal on Saturday…driving Coast Hwy through from San Juan Capistrano to Newport Beach, and marvelling at the glorious flowers and plants blooming everywhere, pristine clear with glorious views of Santa Catalina Island, and also up the coast to a stunning view of Palos Verdes with the blue, blue Pacific and large white crested waves. We had surfers too…galore. And even in the mid 70’s were wearing wetsuits! I’m a So. Cal native, and that drive never ceases to inspire me, just like the elegant photos of your winter day at Cornwall shore. Love the one especially with the ice and waterdrops magnification. You must have kept one of your professional cameras to capture that!

  9. What a lovely place to live! Happy Anniversary. Your restaurant and beach sound like a wonderful anniversary tradition–much better than the movie Groundhog Day (not a fan).

    It’s neat to have John’s pictures that reveal the lengths you’ll go to to get the shot. I do like the last two pictures very much.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s