Stalking The Great Beast Of North Cornwall

March 12, 2010 by Elizabeth Harper

Saturday was so light and bright that John and I packed a couple of sandwiches and took off for a coast path walk. With all the cold winter weather we have had this year, I was dying to feel the sun on my face. After noting what time John hoped to leave, I grabbed my backpack and camera, filled up a water bottle and headed for the car. It is rare that I am in the car waiting for John, but I was so ready see the ocean and stretch my legs that I slapped together my standard lunch of peanut butter & jelly on toasted wheat bread and took my place in the passenger seat. Yes, you heard that right … my place in the passenger seat.

Although I do drive here from time to time, I don’t generally (read, never) drive when we travel together. This type of control would have been hard to relinquish a few years ago. The truth is, there is an art to backing up in the narrow lanes here especially in a car with a clutch and a gear shift on the left hand side of the car, oh yeah … and add to that, the fact that the steering wheel is on the right where I am used to having my passengers sit. John doesn’t insist on driving and would certainly be fine with my taking the wheel, but for some reason I am okay with just enjoying the ride.

I drove a great deal in my earlier life. It went with the job. I was always in traffic rushing to the next sales call, trying to look composed and put together as I dashed in and out of hospital parking garages while struggling under the weight of giant bags filled to overflowing with medical literature, drug samples, and company freebies. These days, I am content to move a bit slower and last Saturday was one of those days. We started our walk in a new place, one known for having had Thomas Hardy walk across its sandy pebble beaches during his courting days with Emma Gifford, the woman would become his wife. I did not know that bit of history when I asked John if it was named Strangles Beach for any sinister reasons.

There were a few unusual things we saw on our walk. John is trying to show you something we see in places at times along the coast path. Can you guess what it is used for …

If you answered, ” So dogs can get through the stile, silly ” then you would be right! Okay, maybe silly was not a required part of the answer.

When we went to step up and over the stile, we discovered someone had left some pretty deep foot prints. We spent the next few minutes of our walk trying to decide how it was done.

As we were heading up the path, John nodded in the direction of the hill above and said, ” Look at that ” So I closed my left eye and squinted in the direction he had indicated. I only wear one contact to adjust a distance vision deficit. Simply put, I am short-sighted and if something is more than 8 to 10 feet from me and I’m not wearing glasses or contacts, it’s a big blur. I have yet to experience the long-arm syndrome that seems to begin to plague many people in their late forties, so I just wear one contact for distance in my dominant eye and nothing in the left one leaving me able to see close up without the reading specs I would need if I had a contact for distance in each eye. I have had no problem with my squinty eye method until lately.

As I near my next big birthday decade this fall, I may soon have to concede that two contacts are better than one especially if I want to be able to distinguish things like the blobby shapes on the hillside from a distance.

After realizing that I could not tell what he was seeing that was so fascinating, I crept up to the side of the hill, approaching from behind to get a better look at what John assured me were not just sheep.

Climbing into the bracken and prickly gorse bushes, I saw something curvy sticking up that looked like a horn of unusual size for animals found in the fields here where we’ve walked. (Can you see it? ) Right … well I barely could, so deeper down the side of the hill ( mountain cliff ) I went until I was able to see a bit more. I will be back a little later today to show you what I saw.

The Last Walk – Measured Steps

February 19, 2010 by Elizabeth Harper

Our friend MIJ is desperately ill. She won’t get any better and it is really bad now. That knowledge sits so uneasily with me that it stays with me in the back of everything lately. I pester John for answers he doesn’t have and ask him to call her partner Ray for updates when I know there is not going to be any good news.

Twenty years ago, MIJ had breast cancer with a reoccurrence five years later, but with good medical intervention and diligent followups it seemed unlikely that this would reenter her life, at least not in this way. In November, she turned sixty with the kind of energy you would expect to see in an athletic forty year old. As active as I am, I always felt pleasantly tired after one of our five hour walks around Dartmoor, while MIJ never showed any signs of fatigue.

She has been in so much pain that Ray said she has given up and her doctors are now focused on just keeping her as comfortable as possible. Already a tiny slip of a woman, her weight loss is shocking when friends stop by to see her and it has been difficult to find the right dosage between controlling the pain and allowing her some lucidity in the short time she has left.

From everything we hear, she is receiving wonderful care from a compassionate medical team who spent weeks searching diligently through symptoms that were so unusual that they thought she might have something they could treat … something with a different outcome than the one she has now, a terminal diagnosis.

Mid November was the last time we saw her. I wish I had known it would be our last walk, I might have talked of other things. From all appearances, everything in her life was fine. She’d just had her sixtieth birthday becoming eligible for her state pension and we discussed the ways a bit of extra cash would be useful to her travel plans. After retiring at 58, she and Ray would often go off for six weeks at a time, walking and camping in conditions that while beautiful, would have left me grumbling. When we saw them in November, they were planning a trip to Nepal with a departure date of next month, and I listened to her explanation of why they were going there and putting off the New Zealand trip I knew she had been dreaming about.

She also told me in great detail of the new kitchen installation she had decided to go ahead with. MIJ has a doll house of a cottage and had wanted to make changes for some time, but had put it off, concerned as are most people on the edge of retirement, about money. The kitchen was finished about a week after MIJ went into the hospital. She never even had a chance to use it. My mind fixates on things like that. I tend to get stuck on thoughts such how she won’t ever cook a meal or wash a dish in the new space. I think about how she will never see New Zealand or swim again with her grandchildren. I keep thinking about how sad it all is and what she will miss.

I have been getting stuck there lately thinking about the twenty years she won’t have, but John encourages me to shift my thinking by gently reminding me of the twenty years of living she has been able to have since her first cancer diagnosis. In those years, MIJ has seen her son marry and have children of his own and she has been able build memorable relationships with her grandchildren who are old enough now to remember her when she is gone. Having twenty more years meant she had time to meet and fall in love with Ray eighteen years ago and travel to places she might never have seen had she been traveling alone.

When I came back from America early in December, I anticipated we would see Ray and MIJ for New Year’s Eve like we did last year, but around the time I began to think we should call them to make a plan, Ray called us to share the bad news. They were with us on our wedding day and I thought we would have more time. That’s often the way it is. You plan for a future that may not come and put off the things you might do or say differently if you only knew that this moment might be all you would have.

It is so natural to say, ” When I retire, I shall do ____ or when I get a new ___, I’ll be peaceful and happy,” but if anything ever illustrated the point that we should not wait to do the things that matter, the finality of death does in it in an unmistakable way. It is that period at the end of the sentence, the full on stop that says, ” Your time is up.”

As Ray watches over MIJ in the hospital, I find my focus shifting to what we can do to help him. MIJ is getting all she needs now and is barely able to communicate more than a few words a day. He is at her side, all hours of the day, staying late into the night to keep her company as she gets ready for the final part of her journey.

Looking back over my photographs from our last walk together, I saved this one although I wasn’t really sure why at the time. It is not particularly pretty like many of the others that day, but in looking at it now I can see a future that was not apparent to any of us three short months ago.

MIJ, as you can see, walks on ahead while Ray waits, looking off in another direction. She is getting closer to the end now and I feel such sorrow thinking of her dying in a hospital bed. A still and quiet MIJ is so unfamiliar that I can’t quite get my head around it and my mind looks for something more comforting. I find it by picturing her walking, looking as I remember her best and thinking of these last days as measured steps, where MIJ is only going on before us, on a last walk alone.

Remembering The Day We Met – Valentine’s Day 2008

February 14, 2010 by Elizabeth Harper

I took this picture last February when John and I were in Paris on our honeymoon and I’ve been saving it for just the right time. Today is the third Valentine’s Day we will spend together and the anniversary of the first time we met face to face.

Yesterday evening, John called out to me from his study and I went in to find him rereading a series of short emails that passed back and forth between us on February 13, 2008. We were emailing each other right until they closed the airplane door, documenting our thoughts and excitement as I was getting on the plane to fly over to meet him for the first time. He’s that kind of man, tender, romantic, and permanently etched on my heart. I am grateful everyday for him and I love how he remembers the details of our romance. Well loved, every day is what I am, but on Valentine’s Day it is especially nice to remember how we began.

If you don’t know our story yet and you’d like to know more, you can read about our first meeting below. After I take him a little breakfast in bed, we’re going back to Bedruthan Steps to recreate that first walk. We didn’t manage a photo the first time, but we took one a year ago and if you come back later you will be able to see a photograph from today’s walk posted underneath the one from last year at the bottom of the page.

Will You Stay With Me, Will You Be My Love

February 14, 2009

Today is the anniversary of the day I first stepped off a plane in England and into John’s arms. We’d spent the previous six weeks first emailing and later talking on Skype so we’d seen each other online for quite some time, but had never touched. Very quickly, I developed a huge crush on the darling Englishman who is now my husband. That we met for the first time in person on Valentine’s Day was more because it suited my work and travel arrangements than by romantic design. Because I had so many frequent flyer miles and a keen interest in seeing John in his own space, I suggested the idea that I come to him. I came with an open mind and a tender heart, but no expectations beyond the idea of getting to know him as only one can when actually in the same physical space.

As I write this, I have just been reminded by John that one year ago today, exactly 30 minutes from now, my plane touched down in a tiny airport in Newquay. It is a vivid memory for us both and it’s funny now to look back and remember the thoughts and feelings I was having as I walked down the steps of the commuter flight across the tarmac and into his warm embrace that morning.

Any of you who’ve been reading my old blog at (giftsofthejourney.com) for long are aware of how this first meeting progressed from friendship and mutual attraction to the sweet ceremony we went through not quite two weeks ago. It seems appropriate to share our buttercup story and why these tiny yellow flowers have such meaning for me now.

When I arrived on that chilly day February 14, John asked me if I felt up to a little walk along the ocean on the coast path at a place called Bedruthan Steps. It was on the way back to the tiny village where he made his home and he was exited to show me a bit of the Cornish coast that he’d been telling me about for weeks. Despite having been too excited to sleep on the plane, I was definitely interested in seeing any of the places I had heard him refer to during the hours of talks we’d had using Skype.

We gradually worked our way back to the village and after putting on wellies we took a walk though a beautiful wood that opened into what I now refer to as the buttercup field. Of course, in February there were no buttercups, but I was intrigued as John described how by May the field would be covered in gold as the buttercups competed with the constant green of the grassy space. As he told me this I thought how lovely that would be, but it was only after having spent the better part of two weeks with him that I knew with absolute certainty that I needed to come back to this field and stand in the middle of the buttercups that he said would come with the month of May.

Jumping ahead here and skipping over the activities that happened in order to bring me back, I arrived back in England on May 13th. As I got closer to my travel date, I kept asking John, “ Have the buttercups bloomed yet? “ I was so worried that I would miss them.

Below are some of the images from the day I arrived in May last year. Few things in life are just as we imagine they will be, but this day was special and it was better than I could have imagined. When I first saw the field of gold, I could almost hear Eva Cassidy’s voice singing in my head providing a romantic soundtrack to accompany the images that filled my eyes. The song I heard was Fields Of Gold and I now think of this as our song. Take a minute and listen to it here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3YVil3Ajjs

I love the part of the song where she sings, ” Will you stay with me, will you be my love…” These words were embroidered on a special linen tablecloth by my new friend Tina to use on our table for our wedding reception. The flowers you see are the two buttercups I picked that day in May. I tucked them in a pocket on the side of my pants and played in the buttercup field with them where they stayed until we returned home. I forgot they were there and when I noticed them again, I took them out and pressed them in a book. They dried twined together having fallen into the position that you see in the picture. I took a photograph of them and Tina created a sketch from it and the tablecloth design is a now a lasting memory of the day I came back to John and saw the buttercups for the first time.

I’m off now to climb Bedruthan Steps with John as we go back to the place we walked one year ago today. Today we’ll celebrate old memories and look forward to making new ones…and soon we’ll be walking in fields of gold again.

Bedruthan Steps – February 14, 2009

Bedruthan Steps – February 14, 2010

The Dance Of Life

January 13, 2010 by Elizabeth Harper

John lifted this image from a 1953 movie that his cousin Mary mentioned when she was here a few weeks ago. She is only in Will Any Gentleman for a few minutes, but you can’t miss the Cancan scene where Mary who was a professional dancer for more than twenty years is kicking up her heels. During her career, she danced with the Ballet Rambert, which is the UK’s oldest established dance company and still considered one of the world’s most renowned.

Take a look at the six women above and see if you can pick Mary out of the chorus line. (I’ll tell you which one is her at the end of this post) John found the movie online and ordered it almost as quickly as he heard Mary’s story when she was here for Christmas. We had a great time figuring out which one was Mary after it arrived. She would have been about 29 or 30 when this film was made and having just turned 87 we thought it might be a bit of a challenge to pick her out of the group based on how she looks now.

By slowing the movie down and viewing the scene frame by frame, it was very easy to see which woman is Mary. Despite the fact that her high kicking days are long past, Mary’s graceful movements as an 87 year old are still very similar to her much younger self.

It’s there in the angle of her head when she is listening to a conversation and you see it in the fluid rhythm of her hand gestures when she is telling a story. The lovely posture you see on her wedding day below is still very evident today.

David Levack & Mary Bench 1948

In addition to aging with grace and intelligence, Mary has not lost her taste for adventure as you can see by her decision to get close to the water’s edge on a blustery day when the sea at Trebarwith Strand was really rough.

I was a bit nervous thinking that as tiny as she is she might blow over, but John persuaded me not to hover and Mary was just fine.

I climbed up these rocks to catch the view of the ocean from a higher location and to my surprise …

I turned around to see John (no surprise there) coming up the rocks with Mary close behind him.

Remember what I said about adventure … she didn’t even need help going back down. My idea of what 87 looks like went through some major shifts during Mary’s visit.

This view waits for those who climb the path.

I saved this one for the last because of how absolutely beautiful Mary looks here. On Boxing Day, the day after Christmas, John and Mary went to Falmouth to go sailing with his brother David and his family. I stayed behind for some rest and missed all the fun, but John came home with some video so I could see how the day went and then created this still image of Mary from it. (The Cancan dancer second from the right is Mary, John’s adventurous, still stepping cousin.)

A Friday Field Trip- Brownsham To Hartland Quay

October 30, 2009 by Elizabeth Harper

I know I haven’t been around for the last couple of days, but we’ve had a visitor from London and have been out to the places everyone wants to see when they say they’re coming to see us. I put together a little photo tour to show you what we saw on our field trip.

I have to have frequent stops to record images like this…

or this…

It’s difficult to get lost when there are signs along the way like this one.

Sometimes you meet up with wooly animals like the one above.

Dylan the dog, waits for his dog walkers.

As I went to the edge for the shot, John snapped this one of me.

Okay…I know this looks funny, but look at the view. I was taking a picture not a nap.

This was not the only hill we climbed.

We walked this valley. It reminded me of Scotland.

Pheasant…we walked up them on and I got off a couple of shots. This was the best one.

The two dark spots on the path are John and his eldest daughter.

The yellow flowers are called Gorse…they grow everywhere and smell like coconut.

The walk was well worth the dramatic views.

More hills…

and even more hills….

Follow the arrow and go out about an inch and then down to see the woman swimming in the freezing cold water.

See what I mean…

If you look over to the far right, there is a wooden bench for watching the waves.

John was walking past this remains of an old building when the moon came out.

Elizabeth & John

We started our coast path walk at Brownsham and walked past Hartland Point where you can take a helicopter to Lundy, an island John loves to visit (we’re going in January ) and we finished at Hartland Quay.

Coast Path Walking In October- Port Quin To Port Isaac

October 19, 2009 by Elizabeth Harper

The weather here was stunning on Saturday so John and I set out to do a little coast path walking. I sometimes forget how close we are to the sea and I’m still a little surprised when I hear seagulls right outside our door. One of the closest coastal locations is Port Quin, which is about ten miles from us. I thought you might like a Monday distraction to go with your coffee or tea break depending on the part of the world you call home. These appear in the order of our journey. I hope you enjoy the walk.

This sign tells us that we are close, but we’re not driving to Port Isaac, we are walking in, so we veer to the left and head down to a parking spot in Port Quin.

Taking the left towards Port Quin.

Port Quin as you see above is tiny. There’s not much there anymore, but what is still there is lovely. It used to be a thriving fishing village until something happened that changed everything. It’s worth going here to find out why.

You pick up the path to Port Isaac here going between the old cottages leading up and out of Port Quin.

Almost immediately you begin to see amazing views.

A shot of me wearing my Tilley hiking hat and carrying my Canon Powershot G9.

I’m dragging along behind John taking pictures of almost everything. Can you see me down there? All along the fence, there were spiderwebs with no spiders. I must have passed 30 or 40 empty webs like the one below.

In the photos above and below you can see a series of steps that go straight up or down if you’re lucky.

I was amazed to see how many flowers were still blooming along the path.

John takes a break so I can snag a photo.

This was the view he was seeing from where he was sitting in the photo above.

More flowers in October…growing wild.

Our approach to Port Isaac as seen from above.

This bee impressed me with his pollen boots.

Viewing the harbor from Port Isaac.

John heading back to Port Quin.

Again…honeysuckle flowers in October. I always thought of these as a flower for spring.

Returning to Port Quin…coming back by what I think of as the back way.

Remember to stop by tomorrow for Tell Me A Story Tuesday. If you’d like to participate in TMAST, go here to see the pictures and choose a topic sentence. Post your story on your blog and let me know so I can link it here.

The Color Of Joy

October 1, 2009 by Elizabeth Harper

The color of joy….yellow, green, and blue and a field full of sunny delight.

We’re away for a few days having been spirited off by ferry to one of our favorite islands to spend a little time with family. Yesterday my eyes went wide with surprise to see this field of my favorite flowers still full of color on the last day of September. John’s daughter graciously pulled the car over so I could get a few quick shots and there was even a tiny visitor on one of the petals. I have an affinity for these little winged creatures. If you want to know why, you can go here to read about it.

We’re off to do a coast path walk this morning. The sky is blue, the fields are green, and from the window I can see a spot of yellow sunshine… all the colors necessary of the right shade of joy.

Share a bit below if you’d like…. about what’s making your world brighter today.

Walking The Coast Path With Cows And Caution-No Bullies Allowed

June 12, 2009 by Elizabeth Harper

The title for this post takes its name in part from an email I received from a coast path walker who found my blog through some of my previous posts about walking the Cornish coast path. I hope she won’t mind my ” borrowing” a part of her email subject heading for my post today.

Yesterday John and I headed out to find a bit of adventure along with some fresh air and exercise. I’ve been doing a lot of computer work lately (editing wedding pictures) and the weather was too nice to stay inside. Additionally, even though I’ve been back since May 25, it was our first walk along the coast since I’d gone back to America in late April. John suggested a short walk from Port Quin to Port Isaac both of which are about ten miles from where we live. After packing up a P B & J for me and some fruit for him…we were off.

It was beautiful as it always is and I promise I’ll include a few pictures near the water, but my main reason for this post is to have a little talk about the cows and bullocks we encountered so walk with me now….

Sometimes on our walks we have to walk through fields that are already occupied.

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Me saying hello…this one was quite happy to let me touch him on the nose before moving along with his buddies.

The question came up from one of my readers as to the safety in crossing though these places where the public footpath herds (sorry, I couldn’t help myself) you right in with the big animals. I told her I’d never encountered any problems and then she recounted how she and her family had a bunch of cows come charging across the field startling her, her husband, and their children. In the past I naively thought cows and bullocks were just happy to see me whenever I saw a herd of them shift direction and move in mass at a clip towards me.

John said if they ever look scary to just say boo and throw your arms out at them. He demonstrated this technique below without warning me so you can’t see the hand motions. ( I missed it)

A couple of guys trying to look tough…”Whadaya mean you want to pass through us?”

John approaching the bad boy brothers just moments before saying BOO!

After they’d scattered …giving him some sulky looks.

This one did not look amused either.

This brown one was pretty interested in me however… deciding that I might be worth investigating further.

Right! Now I’m usually okay with a nudge but I think I really must draw the line when it comes to taste testing. John was getting his camera out here while I was trying to capture this beastie licking my arm.

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For the record…cow tongues are rough, slimy and strong.

All joking aside, when I mentioned to John what my reader Sarah had said in an email to me about cows and safety on the path he said…people are usually quite safe and that cows are more curious as you can see above than dangerous. He did go on to say that they will get angry when dogs are around especially if they have calves with them. An incident was in the news here recently that illustrated this when David Blunkett, a prominent politician in the UK who is blind was out walking with his guide dog and was trampled by a cow who was trying to get to the dog. So I’d say caution is key when passing by these gentle seeming two ton Toms and Tessies. ( Okay maybe one ton not two, but it worked better).

Wrapping up the walk from yesterday…as I was taking this picture.

John was climbing up and over here.

Then while I was trying to get a decent closeup of these drying flower heads below….

John slipped back and stuck his head through a gap in the wall and began to make woo woo scary moaning sounds as I approached the fence and started to climb over. Going back I saw this….

On the other side…you can actually walk down to the water…no one’s stopping you.

Back on the path

Port Isaac

Port Isaac from above. We had a little pub stop for a pint and a coffee and walked back to Port Quin totally ignored by the cows who’d lost all interest in us by late afternoon.

NEXT TIME: Celebrity spotting in Cornwall.

I’ll be back with my experience with celebrity spotting yesterday in the supermarket. We were actually side by side scanning the parking lot for our cars after stepping out of the store at the same time.

Here’s a hint…there’s a TV show that uses Port Isaac as its location, but with a name change. The man I almost bumped into is a regular character on the show although not the male lead. He’s associated with a trade profession in the show…anybody want to venture a guess?

The Long Walk From Mevagissey To Gorran Haven & Back

March 15, 2009 by Elizabeth Harper

Yesterday John and I took a long walk along the south coast path of Cornwall. We began in the village of Mevagissey and picked up the path just past the harbor where colorful boats rocked gently and seagulls battled loudly for bits of dead fish floating near the boats in the low tide water that edged the harbor.

With a fish that big you’d think they could share it, but most of time, the strongest one wants to take it all. Take a look in the two gulls over at the right in the picture above…don’t they look like they’re planning something.

Meanwhile, I think there may be more fish in the ( gulp) sea…

Leaving the seagulls to battle over brunch, we climbed up out of the village and onto the path going towards Gorran Haven. The day could not have been more perfect, blue sky, a light wind, and everything blooming and greening up for spring. People in the village had paintbrushes out touching up for the season of tourists that come for summer holidays and school breaks. The coast path though was mostly empty with only a few people passing us fro the opposite direction.

This green space with sheep was what we could see when we looked to the right and below is what we saw on our left….

It’s a remarkable contrast…it reminds me of both Scotland and the California coast.

You have to mind where you go as sometimes the path takes you right along the edge.

These forget-me-not flowers almost don’t look real. John said they were a bit early for this time of year and then he reminded me of how when I came to Cornwall to see him the first time, I brought him a packet of forget-me-not seeds. He planted them after I left and they didn’t do well here in Cornwall. He has the nicest green thumb, but only one tiny flower survived. Of course, one can be enough…if it’s the right one.

Walking The Saints Way – When Living Your Life Gets In The Way Of Writing About It

February 22, 2009 by Elizabeth Harper

Three guesses as to what I’ve been doing instead of writing. John and I like to spend a fair amount of time walking the coast path here in Cornwall. We went out for a little walk on Friday and it wasn’t until four hours later that we headed for home. Additionally, I had a few projects drop into my lap that have required my creative attention and life has just gotten in the way of my blogging. I want to take a minute to share some photographs from our walk along the south coast path toward Polkerris and The Gribbin a few days ago so you can see a bit more of my world through my eyes.

After leaving our car in the car park we set off in the direction of Pokerris and the Gribbin, with part of our walk taking us along The Saint’s Way which is clearly marked with signs like the one below.

Marker For The Saint's Way

As you can see above we hiked for most of the time with a heavy sea mist all around us.

Warning!

Danger In The Mist

Sea Loving Dog Walking The Wall

The Saint's Way Footpath

Not all paths along the way are scenic…some pass right through farms right near the cows and through the muck.

Mind Your Step!

The Newlyweds 2009

This last photo below is taken around the same time last year in the same location as the one above.

John & Elizabeth 2008

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Category Archives: Coast Path