Cornwall, UK (Part 1)

Allow me to start by apologizing to my blog. Ermagerd blog, I am so sorry. I cast you aside for weeks on end, neglected you, didn’t feed or water you but here you are my faithful companion. I resolve never to treat you this way ever again. Accept my apology?

Okay, now that THAT is out of the way, I can move forward.  So, hey ya’ll – how ya doin’? It’s been a long time and a lot of you have asked me how our trip was and you are so nice for asking because I kinda sorta forgot about telling ya’ll about our trip. See, we went to the UK as a family and Kurt stayed for the first week while we were in Cornwall but then had to come home due to lack of vacation days. So, I stayed on in London for another week with the kids. This was a great situation but here are the things I learned about blogging while traveling alone, internationally, with young kids.

1. It’s really hard to take good pictures, or really any pictures at all, when you are traveling with the under 9 set. With a map in one hand and Stella’s hand in the other, Piper and pictures are SOL.
2. When staying at the home of your very gracious friends who let you use their flat while they stay in Cornwall (saving you tons of money), you have to do things like cook and clean and take care of their cat and stuff. This means after walking around all day seeing amazing things, when you finally sit down at 9:30 to watch the sun set, you are too dang tired to blog about all those places you  didn’t photograph!
3. It was H-O-T! As in crazy, once in a lifetime hot. We went to the UK during probably one of the longest stretches of sunshine and heat they had ever experienced (this is totally my interpretation and likely a gross exaggeration but just go with it). It was seriously shorts and tank top weather everyday and we didn’t see a single drop of rain. And like a good little traveler, I took my friend’s advice and packed long pants and layers. I seriously brought ONE pair of shorts. Which I wore every day! It’s not their fault and I’m not complaining…just sayin’.
4. I’m lazy. There, I said it.

Another thing leading to blog neglect was my J-O-B – you know the one who funded this whole trip? Yeah, I jumped right back into it when I got home and it was kind of a nightmare for a couple of weeks but it’s over now and I can BLOG!

So, let’s get started. In my last blog post, we had taken the train from London to Truro in Cornwall. The trip was super fun and the kids were AMAZINGLY well behaved! So, we get to the holiday house we were ‘letting’ (renting) and let me tell you show you how beautiful it was.

This is Chatham cottage which is part of the larger Bosloe House located just outside Mawan Smith on the Helford River which leads to the Atlantic Ocean.

Seriously, we LIVED here for a week. Okay, so we didn’t have the whole house we had the wing on the far left of the picture. But, in just one fraction of this house, two families of 4 had PLENTY of room.  It was amazing, perfect and wonderful. Our friends did a superb job picking out this house! Thanks guys! See those windows at the top of the left most front of the house? Those were the windows from our room.  Want to see the view from those windows? Here it is!

The Helford River Passage

Not a bad view to wake up to, huh?! It was absolutely stunning.

The Atlantic Ocean is what you see at the horizon of this photo.

I couldn’t stop taking photos of this view…there were probably about 100 photos just like this one on my camera.

After admiring the house and its grounds, we sat down for a cup of tea.  One of many we would have in the grand sitting room.

Tea service left for us by the caretakers.

This is a panoramic view of the sitting room in the center of the house. It featured old portraits and landscape paintings. It was especially haunting at night.

Being the coastal area that it is, we were excited to see what the beach was like.  Having traveled to most of the major beach areas in the states, including Hawaii, we knew just how different beaches could be! This one was no exception!

The beach was very rocky with very large stones quickly turning into much smaller rocks and pebbles as you get closer to the water.  Most of the stones are a beautiful dark gray/black but some feature beautiful striations of color and come in a variety of shapes.  Lots of the smaller stones are very flat making them excellent for skipping. Reminded me a lot of the stones I used to find and skip growing up as a kid in Alabama and Louisiana!  Glad to know some things are universal…

The older girls quickly took to searching for unique rocks. Many hours were spent looking like this:

We spent the week walking along coastal footpaths taking in all sorts of beautiful views.  The children spent HOURS running and playing in the garden just in front of and surrounding the house. There were two small children staying in the center portion of the house who became fast friends with our kids so our group of 4 quickly became a gang of 6.  It was truly an idyllic experience for us all.

One of many races that took place in the garden.

The kids walking along a coastal footpath toward Glendurgen.

They have no clue of the beauty behind them. They are too busy building memories with each other!

Helford River Passage leading to the Atlantic Ocean.

You would be walking along a heavily wooded footpath and little views like this would greet you.

Another view which snuck up on me!

The coastal footpaths often had little obstructions like this one to prevent cows from straying too far from their field.

 Next time on the blog, I will share some of the other places we visited while in Cornwall. Until then, I will leave you with a few, final shots of the amazing views we enjoyed for the week.