The last month!!! Part 2

After spending the weekend and the first part of the week in Ealing and London with Dad, Aunt Lynda and Unkie Mike, Dad took us on a 5 day excursion to Cornwall, south England. It was so fun to get out of the city and explore places I had never been before and it was quite an adventure for Orson as well. We started out in Penzance and ended up in driving home through the moors. Below are pictures from the first two days of our trip, Penzance, St. Micheal's Mount, the Lost Gardens of Heligan and St. Ives.

In Penzance we stayed at a wonderful B&B with views of the harbor and St. Micheal's Mount. When we first arrived we went straight out to walk around and follow the old sea wall. So many of the houses had amazing little gardens (making mine at home seem quite shabby) and it was so lovely to smell the sea.

Have you ever seen an ocean going swan before? Well now I have!

Every house seemed to have a garden and each was more flower laden then the last.

The next day we woke up and went to St. Micheal's Mount. There were both gardens and the old fort/church/castle to explore. When the tide is out you can walk from the mainland out to the island but we were there when the tide was coming in, so Orson got to take his first boat ride to and from the island. The gardens were really amazing (the tropical look of all the flowers just shocked me every time I saw them) built into the cliff side as they were and it was also very interesting going through the castle (still lived in by the same family that had owned it for centuries now).

These orange flowers were all over Cornwall, I would love to plant some in my garden

A view of the gardens from the castle wall....even more amazing when viewed from above

The next day was just magical for some reason. We woke up and went first to the Lost Gardens of Heligan and then to the romantical (as Anne of Green Gables would say) and stunningly beautiful sea town of St. Ives (they have actually tested the water there and found its color to be more saturated and true then anywhere else in England).

The Lost Gardens are thus called because, after existing since the 1700's, they were "lost" in during the first world war because all of the gardeners were called up to serve and most did not return. Sometime in the 1990s, they were remembered and a small team went to work uncovering and restoring them. There are the formal gardens, the vegetable garden and the outstanding star of the show, the jungle. In the jungle are so many overgrown and amazing plants....it was just over whelming.

In the vegetable garden they had trained the apple trees to grow in as an arbor and hedge! It made it so very tempting to reach out and pick one.

and then into the jungle....

Can you believe that this is rhubarb? Its leaves were up to 7 ft across and one of the Rhododendrons was so old that its base sprawled across 75 ft! I wish we could have seen it in bloom.

St. Ives was such an amazing way to wind down the day. It was covered in history, art and beauty. We wondered the town, sat down to the best meal I have had in ages, bought some art and then regretfully headed back to our new room in Newquay.

Orson puts his feet in the ocean for the first time in St. Ives, now he is truly on his way to being a water baby.

You can't see it but the inn below dates from the 1390s!

Not even the best camera could capture the colors of St. Ives but that doesn't mean we didn't try.


When asked about the day later on, all I could say was the it was one of those magical, perfect days that sometimes come out of nowhere and will stay forever in your memory....