Monday 20 April 2009

A Cornish Adventure Part 1

12 April

Bernard and Sleepy Bear and I are in Cornwall, staying in a tiny, tiny cottage surrounded by horses. The horses are very friendly. There are also very friendly dogs and the most friendly cat in the whole Universe. He’s huge. And very friendly!


Sleepy Bear has found a snuggle cushion. We’ve hardly been able to get him off it since we got here. But Bernard and I have been being quite adventurous. We went with the human's mother and The Builder yesterday to look for a supermarket. We didn’t find one in St Austell but we did find one in Truro. We also found a cathedral. And we found a huge river of mud. It did eventually fill up with water but the first time we went past it looked as though it would be a great place for two hippos to stop and play. Alas, Frannie and The Builder seemed to think the mud might be a bit deep for two very small hippos and took us to play in Mevagissey instead. We would like to go back to Mevagissey - there were lots of beaches and rocks and things to play with and we only had a couple of hours. There were also lots of pubs which all served Cornish beer and Cornish cider. Frannie said we couldn’t have lots to sample because Holy Saturday is supposed to be a day of restraint. Can’t say we noticed her being restrained. She had lots and lots of fresh scallops AND some rattler cider!

But today is Easter Sunday and Chocolate Day.

The sun is shining. While Frannie is organising our festive breakfast, we might try and wake up Sleepy Bear and take him out to talk to the horses. We might see if we can find that cat again too.

Happy Easter Everyone!

SH
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13 April

Well now. Chocolate Day turned out to be very exciting, especially for me!


Sleepy Hippo and I went out to talk to the horses. We found nice, still horses for us to ride. It was so exciting being outside in the warm sunshine on a huge tall (but still) horse that we ran back inside and forced Sleepy Bear to wake up and come out to play too.

Then we came inside to explore our chocolate options.

Then - an Alsatian puppy came in to say hello. He was very charming. Except for when he tried to pick me up in his mouth and Take Me Away!!!! Frannie had to step in sharply to rescue me. Heaven only knows where I might have ended up! The Sleepies dozed through all that excitement.

It was such a beautiful day that we made Sleepy Bear wake up and come with us for the day. The human's mother said that we were going out in search of some lost gardens. And we had to travel along many very narrow, very winding roads to find them. Although, it has to be said that they were quite well sign posted when we got very close to them. I don’t really think they are lost anymore, although it seems that they were very lost indeed for nearly 70 years and were only found again by some sort of accident. We had a lovely time exploring and had scones and elderflower presse for lunch sat enjoying the sunshine. We went for a woodland walk. We found two giants and another giant who was a bit hard to see - but will be wonderful when her foliage grows properly. We admired the sea views.

Then we came back to the cottage for a well deserved rest. Our kitty friend Cookie came for a rest too. Kitty friends are much less boisterous than puppy ones. At least they don’t try to kidnap you!!

Overcast and very windy today. Frannie and The Builder are lazing abed and drinking coffee. They say we are going out and doing History today. We’re ready!!

B
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14 April

It was an extremely wet day yesterday. Sleepy Bear decided to take the day off. At least, that’s what we assumed he had done. When we asked if he was coming out with us, he curled up on his fluffy sleeping pillow and put his paw over his eyes. We took that to be a no!


But Bernard, Frannie, The Builder and I are made of sterner stuff than that. We went out in search of an iron age village. We went up, up, up a hill and found the village at the top. The houses were round and made of very solid stones. You could see that they would have been very cosy. If they had had roofs! The human's mother says that they did have roofs but that the thatch hasn’t survived. She may be right!

We tried to convince her that we were hippos and quite enjoyed wet and windy conditions. But she said that we are fluffy hippos and need to keep dry and made us stay in our new travelling basket. She keeps thwarting us when we find lovely muddy pace to play!

She also wouldn’t let us go to Land’s End, even though neither we nor The Builder have ever been. She says that she’s been and that it is a particularly Not Nice theme park and that once was enough, thank you very much. So we went to a place called Sennen Cove which is just along a bit from Land’s End and had lunch in a pub where we all dried out and had a potter about - and then drove across country and along the windy, picturesque coast road back to the cottage. It was a very pretty drive.

We got back and found Sleepy Bear still sleeping. We woke him up for our magnificent dinner which we had gathered in farm shops and restorative wine which we had got in a Co-op out in the middle of nowhere. And then we all went to bed.

It’s not actually raining today. I think we might be going out again soon. I wonder if Sleepy Bear will come too. I wonder where Cookie is. We haven’t seen him since we went out yesterday morning. At breakfast time yesterday he was knocking at the door to be let in!!

SH.


More to come

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