Hayle-luiah

Tuesday 23 December 2008 Torcross - Hayle, England
Woke up at 1am in the van peering out the window to aliens. That's what it appeared to be. There was a light hovering over the ocean about 10m from the shore line and about 10m in the air. The light kept bobbing up and down and moving about. Then the light came towards the van, closer and closer, then out it went. Then a car started up, headlights on, and the car drove off. So don't know what people were doing out there at that time of the night but it was enough to wake me up, and continue with a restless nights sleep. Waking up to the ocean is always lovely, and particularly when the whole beach is yours. Hit the road and our SatNav, we have nicknamed Gertrude, starting taking us on some serious backroads and we ended up having to turn her off, as we seemed to be bypassing some nice safe roads that could actually allow 2 cars to pass each other safely. Was going to stop in Plymouth, but really, at this time of the year it was impossible to find a car space just to stop and have a look around. I will say that the entrance to the city is rather grand with the ruins of a church backed by some modern architecture of shops actually works and complements each other. Turned Gertie back on to get us out of Plymouth and on our way to Hayle, but then it looked like she was trying to take us the long way round so once again turned her off, and navigated ourselves.

We got into Hayle around 2pm and then tried to find where we had to go. My cousins live here, and we were able to give them a call to navigate our way to their place. The Bucket of Blood was our reference point. This is a pub who's name was founded by the fact there was a well on the site and in pulling up a pale of water one morning they found blood in it ... along with a dead body at the bottom. Rather morbid, but classic name, as are a lot of these great little English pubs.

We settled in for a cuppa, and long chats, then for a drive down to St Ives, where we met a man with 7 wives.... no, only joking, but we did go to St Ives to this lovely restaurant where Gerard recommended the Monk Fish. It was fantastic. It was served wrapped in thinly sliced ham on mashed potato with asparagus. Devine. Afterwards we went through a lovely walk through the streets of St Ives, peering through the windows of quaint little shops, filled with village charm.