Cornwall Day 2: 365 Doodles Day 275

Monday - Up with the lark (or the fecking crows anyway). No more live flies. Plenty more corpses to pick up though. I reckon I'm heading for my century now. It's a lovely morning. The sun is shining and I can see clear across the valley as far as Lamorna Cove and St Buryan church tower. Today I decided to visit Falmouth.

When I was a teenager living in Helston, I used to quite often hop on my trusty Mobylette moped and wobble the ten miles to Falmouth as it had the very best book shop in my part of Cornwall. In particular it had a great art section where the latest stuff by people like Roger Dean, Rodney Matthews and Chris Foss was on sale. I've hardly been to Falmouth since those days as I have no family living over that way so it was nice to go back and see what's changed.

Falmouth was always a busy port but the first noticeable big change is that there are a lot more yachts than fishing boats these days. Falmouth harbour is more of a marina nowadays and a millionaire's playground. That said, like so many towns in this poorest of British counties, Falmouth does look a little run-down. I was sad to see that.

I popped in on my friend, the artist Sophi Beharrell at her gallery (see my last visit here) and then checked out the various art galleries and studios in the town. I was delighted to discover the quirky animal portraits of Valerie Davide and Simon Clarke's fun paintings. You can see many more of Simon's paintings by clicking on this e-book below:



I enjoyed a very nice bacon sarnie in the olde worlde splendour of De Wynn's tea rooms, while enjoying earwigging an older lady trying to explain the Rocky Horror Picture Show to her friend. The phrases I remember that made me smile the most were 'Poofy Frankenstein' and 'Like a Hammer Horror but more sexy'.

I could see bad weather rolling in so I left Falmouth and headed up towards the North coast to see if things were any better up there. They were. I soon found myself walking along the beach at Portreath, eating a Cornish ice cream smothered in clotted cream and finding all kinds of creatures in the rock pools.

Finding an exceptionally large and pretty red sea anemone led to Monday's (Day 275) doodle for my 365 Doodles project:

'I think I might have discovered a new species!'

I then drove along the North Penwith coast road towards Hayle to visit my mother and her many dogs but stopped off en route at the North Cliffs and the colourfully named Hell's Mouth where you get these spectacular clifftop views.

I spent several very pleasant hours with mum and then rounded the day off with a very nice Italian mezze. To my delight - no flies to be seen in the cottage.

I seem to be winning.