The Boathouse

Boathouse, Trevarno, originally uploaded by Wurzel.

Sometimes a photo comes out even better than you hoped.
This is The Boathouse at Trevarno.
Definitely one of my better efforts.
2 days later the camera broke - I hope the replacement will achieve comparable results

The Curse Of The Apostrophe

SPOT THE  DIFFERENCE

St Mary's Stadium, Southampton.

Where Southampton were playing local rivals Portsmouth last Saturday.

Attendance at the match (including  a good many of my friends) 31,385

Atmosphere on the day: Red hot & volatile

St Marys, Isles of Scilly

Where my wife took me for a surprise birthday helicopter trip on the day of the above mentioned match.

Population of whole Island 1,666

Atmosphere on the day : Sleepy to comatose.

What a difference an apostrophe can make.

(To be fair it  was a wonderful trip and we spent a lovely day wandering around the island, sampling the local hostelries etc)

Gone West

Our place near St Ives is not booked for the bank holiday so we made a late decision to spend a couple of days in Cornwall . Drove down after work yesterday and woke this morning to the seemingly now traditional grey sky and drizzle . No worries , a cider farm and the Newlyn Fish Festival sound like fun alternatives to the beach . (posted from my mobile just to see if it works )

The Emperor's New Clothes

We had a lovely 2 day break down in Cornwall last weekend. Monday was not quite beach weather, so we decided to pay a visit to the Tate St Ives art gallery. I came out feeling that we had been totally ripped off by a collection of the most pretentious load of rubbish I have ever paid to see (and remember, I am a Southampton fan ).

Here is my honest, open minded, review

A beautiful, impressive building that cleverly blends in with it’s surroundings. Ok, that’s the good bit over with.It is split into several sections with separate exhibitions in each room. When we visited these were –in no particular order - as follows, along with my own reviews.

Alfred Wallis: I’ve heard of this guy before. A famous St Ives painter, he recorded images of ships out at sea, and other local scenes, as he saw them in his head, on random scraps of card. Sorry, but the world is not 2 dimensional; boats do not travel vertically up the sea. These were no better quality than you would expect to find in an infant school, with no unique feature or style to set them apart from work by children of that age. One picture I thought summed up the work. It’s title alongside it was “St Michaels Mount (or Gibraltar?)”, note the question mark. I have been to both, this was definitely neither.

Bojan Sarcevic: A room divided by a few sheets of clear thick perspex that you had to take care not to bump into in the dull light, with a projector playing a flickering cine film of various bits of “sculpture”. I think we endured this one for the length of time it took to cross the room and get out the other end.

Lawrence Weiner: An empty room with 10 pieces of text painted onto the wall. These had the appearance of large car number plates, at an angle of 45 degrees, with three word phrases such as “cobblers eat cheese” (I doubt that was really one of them, but they were all that forgettable) spelt out on blue backgrounds. Attention span in here was as long as it took to read ten three word meaningless phrases.

Lucie Rie: Some pots.

Barbara Hepworth: Sculptures that were at least pleasing on the eye. Basically random shapes nicely proportioned in a variety of textures. At least they had titles like “oval form”, not claiming to be something they weren’t. Ticket also included entry to the Barbara Hepworth Sculpture Garden and Museum, 5 minutes walk away where more of her work set in a garden actually seemed worth looking at.

Carol Bove: What seemed to me to be random items. What is artistic about an approximately 4” cube of what appeared to be coal placed on a plinth with a few bits of dust and black crumbs around it? (not sure if the dust and crumbs were intentional or had simply dropped off). My favourite piece here, and something I wouldn’t mind having in a living room if I had one big enough was a large piece of driftwood about 7ft long displayed vertically . She hadn’t made this, simply picked it up and decided it looked good. Is that art, or nature? Or simply being in the right place at the right time?

.

Katy Moran: Quite frankly – a mess. A room full of "pictures"(?) consisting of scribble, some with the artistic touch of a few bits of scrap paper stuck on them. Meaningless rubbish given meaningless titles- what is the point?

I am not against art – I know what Ilike and am also open minded enough to appreciate things that don’t particularly appeal to me when I can understand what the artist is trying to create or represent. I have been to the Saatchi gallery in London and stood in awe at some of the things I saw there. I also appreciate that not everyone likes the same thing, and some people will dislike things I like and vice versa.But my overwhelming impression of the whole experience here was "Why?"

I think the people in charge at St Ives are relying on the Emperor New Clothes Syndrome, if we claim to be an authority on the subject and tell the masses it is good, then they will believe it is good. Sorry, not me, as I commented to a friendly member of staff “I don’t get it, it’s just a mess”. She did try to explain the thinking behind some of the “work” but I noticed that she didn’t try to contradict my original statement

Tellingly, an hour later we were wandering around one of St Ives numerous retail galleries admiring some (I guess they would be called ) modern landscapes. “Now that’s art, not like that other rubbish” commented my wife. The guy running the place looked up with a knowing grin and said “You’ve been to the Tate haven’t you, we here that sort of comment a lot”.

Go West

Just about to head down to our place in Cornwall for a quick 48 hour flying visit. Weather forecast is looking good so looking forward to some sun, sea, sand and a few alliteration spoiling pints of Doom Bar.

It's what Bank Holidays are made for.

Greetings from Goonhilly

A quick posting from Future World at
Goonhilly in Cornwall, using reputedly, the world's fastest internet connection.

Blow Away The Cobwebs

We spent New Year down in Cornwall, sharing a "quiet night in" on New Years Eve.

New Years Day was spent taking a walk around the hills and beaches of Penwith, at various points along the B3306, my favourite stretch of road in the whole wide world. What better way to blow away the cobwebs of the old year and clear your head for the year to come.

Click any image to enlarge

Alfie the Seal - Update 3

Further to previous posts about "Alfie" the seal I've now received a new update from Sue.

Thought you'd like an update on this seal - he was hauled out on a wild seal haul out beach today fast asleep. He has had a busy October, for a few weeks he was beachmaster (dominant male) on a local breedng beach, but he soon got ousted by a bigger stronger male! So he has earned his rest. Good to know that he is looking fit and well, as the wound he has in the photo continued to bleed until 22/08/07, when he was photographed by Clive at the Carracks west of St Ives. I couldn't tell today whether it had healed, but I assume it has!

Nice to know he's doing Ok

Alfie The Seal - A Further (Not So Happy) Update

One of the best things about the internet is the interaction between total strangers, and the way it makes it possible to obtain and/or pass on information between people that would otherwise have no way of contacting each other.

Following my story about "Alfie" the seal and it's subsequent update a lady called Sue has spotted my pictures of the seal on my Flickr photos and passed on the following messages.

Hi Wurzel
Just thought you'd like to know, this is definitely not one of the Sanctuary released seals. Neither is his name Alfie - all St Ives seals seem to be called Alfie! He is a seal known to the Cornwall Seal Group (http://www.cornwallsealgroup.co.uk/) as DP144 White Propeller. He was first identified on 17/02/04 and has been seen 36 times since. He is seen on the east side of the bay in the early and late part of the year. The only time he has been seen in the Summer months is at the Carracks - which is where you saw him I think? We don't know where he spends the rest of his year. He is a young adult male seal with a big appetite! Unfortunately he has learned that he can get easy meals from boats - after being fed by people in St Ives harbour. Associating boats with food can have disasterous consequences for seals, so his behaviour is very worrying. Thanks so much for posting your excellent photos and videos. I will add your sighting to our seal database.

Hi Wurzel - just posted a comment on your other photo of 'Alfie' and realised that it looks like he has already suffered as a result of his interactions with people and boats in the harbour. This photo seems to show a small wound that has been bleeding recently on the right side of his neck. I have seen this sort of injury before caused by mackerel line hooks. We really need to try to persuade people that feeding wild seals in harbours encourages the seals to change their behaviour. This so often results in the seal becoming injured. It is a sad story for such a beautiful photo!

So it seems like "Alfie" and maybe others like him could be suffering through the boat trip organisers exploiting their behaviour to make their trips more popular with no regard for the seal's wellbeing. No doubt we aren't the only gullible tourists unaware of the consequences, I feel quite sad that we had not realised at the time.

Alfie Update

Simon from www.cornishseals.co.uk has kindly contacted me regarding my previous post . He has heard about Alfie before and has passed me the details, the full story can be found HERE.

No Sign Of The Shark

We had a great week down in Cornwall, luckily picking the best week of the year so far weather-wise.

We packed loads into our seven days. Probably our favourite "day out" was a boat trip from St. Ives harbour to Seal Island a few miles down the coast. Just getting aboard was an adventure in itself, with the tide going out we had to be rowed out to meet our boat in a small rowing boat. Twelve of us finally clambered aboard to join the skipper and off we went . There was plenty of bravado regarding the media's favourite summer silly story beforehand, but strangely things went rather quiet as we crossed the bay where the great white had allegedly been filmed. Suddenly a large fin was spotted in the water about 20yards from our boat. Whatever it was was huge, about 4ft between dorsal fin and tail, but it soon became obvious it was no shark, the fin was far too floppy. The skipper later confirmed it to be a sunfish.

Advertised as a "see the seals" trip I fully expected a few indistinct blobs in the distance. I was happy to be proved wrong. Approaching the island a large seal (I'd guess at 8-9ft long) was spotted basking on a rock. As we came closer it soon became apparent that it wasn't alone, around 30 or 40 huge seals (I had no idea they were so big) were serenely sunning themselves only 20 ft or so from our boat. Then, to everyone's surprise , out swam Alfie. Alfie is the only one of the group (what is the collective noun for seals ?) happy to approach the boats . It is thought he may have been injured and looked after at one of the local seal sanctuaries before being released back into the wild, hence his lack of fear of humans. He swam right out to our boat and one by one stared each and everyone of us in the eye. He clearly knew that there would be a few fish coming his way and all the kids aboard took turns throwing them out for him to dive for and basically show off to his latest audience.

This was definitely one of the highlights of our holiday - the boat trip itself was well worth the money, but seeing such a creature up close in it's natural habitat was a sight we''ll never forget. If you fancy meeting Alfie look out for the touts around St. Ives harbour - we went with Sea Horse boat trips but there may well be others. Apparently the best time to view the seals is as the tide is on it's way out exposing the rocks. We were lucky, we timed it right purely by chance but it may be worth checking the tide times to avoid disappointment.

My video of Alfie

Off to St Ives

So it's off to St Ives tomorrow morning, just getting myself into Cornwall-mood

Step 1. Check the local weather (see previous post) - looking good :-)

Step 2. Listening to Atlantic Fm online whilst a work today - that's it I'm almost there :-)

Step 3. Check out the local news - oh bollix :-(

Now if I can just find a bottle of Doom Bar in a local off licence ......

Summer Starts Tomorrow

Tomorrow - Sunday 29th July 2007 - at 8 a.m. we're heading off to Cornwall for a weeks holiday. Hopefully we'll arrive at Noon. I've had a word with him upstairs ( you know the score, kneeling at the end of my bed, hands together, eyes closed) and I've arranged for summer to start at that very moment

Having written this completely tongue in cheek I've just checked the 5 day forecast for St. Ives courtesy of the Met Office (and they should know, the own the weather) . Lo and behold ...

Today 19°c rain (don't care about today)

Sunday 18°c 3 a.m. Rain
6 a.m. showers
9 a.m Light cloud (on our way)
Noon Sunny Intervals (arriving about now)
3 p.m. Sunny Intervals (lunch/unpacking)
6 p.m. SUN (Beach)

Monday 21°c SUN !

Tuesday 22°c SUN !!

Wednesday 20°c SUN !!!

I am NOT making it up . Maybe there's something in this praying lark after all !

Cornwall Get's A Bit Closer

The 222 mile trip from Bursledon to St Ives is becoming a regular trip for me, I reckon the car will soon be able to do it on it's own. Usually I allow five hours for the journey and am then pleased to do it in four and a half. But this weekend saw the journey time drop considerably.

My Dad had gone down to our holiday home alone and was taken ill necessitating an unexpected trip for me and my brothers to collect both him and his car. Leaving at the unusual time of 2pm on a Sunday afternoon we were pleasantly suprised at the lack of traffic on the M27 and around Wareham, giving us a much better start than usual. Later in the journey came even better news, the long awaited Bodmin - Indian Queens Bypass across Goss Moor was finally open. We arrived, with sensible driving throughout, including a very slow stretch due to thick fog on Bodmin Moor, just 3 hours 45 minutes after leaving home. Returning home shaved another 5 minutes off.

Admittedly the time of day was in our favour, virtually no traffic the entire journey to delay us. But new record time's like that almost bring St Ives into the day-trip category. And records are made to be broken.

Cornwall

Just returned from another "get away from it all" weekend. (Details here).

There's something about the place I just love. It's worth every minute of the 9 hours in the driving seat there and back.

Next planned visit is end of July this time a whole week with the kids. Can't wait. :-)

Cornwall is better than Devon

We - that's Mrs W. and I - spent New Year in then West Country. And having visited a few times now we have to agree, Cornwall definitely beats Devon hands down.

Last time we went down there was for a weeks camping in the summer. Unfortunately our journey was delayed slightly when the car engine simply blew up on the A30 just outside Exeter. Our best memories of Devon on that trip were sunbathing on a grass verge at the side of a busy dual carriageway for around 3 hours waiting for the tow truck to get us to our camp-site. The rest of the holiday, once we reached Cornwall, was great, great weather and beautiful scenery. As far as I know the car could still be there, certainly the helpful man at the garage in Perranporth phoned me several months later as it was still on his forecourt (legally it was no longer mine by then but I was as helpful as I could be).

We liked Cornwall so much that along with the rest of my family we have bought a holiday bungalow near St Ives, which meant we had somewhere to stay on New Years Eve. So we packed our overnight bags and had an easy traffic free journey down there, arriving mid-afternoon on the 31st. As we drove through Devon along the A30 the weather was awful, and passing the point where the previous car expired I had my fingers crossed. The radio was already tuned into Atlantic FM which was reporting high winds and heavy rain down in St Agnes. Yet almost as soon as we crossed the Cornish border the winds dropped, the rain ceased and (small) patches of blue sky appeared.


We arrived at our holiday home, unpacked and then had a pleasant drive around St Ives and the neighbourhood before having dinner, getting into our fancy dress costumes (schoolboy and schoolgirl if you must know, sorry, no pics) and drove up to St Agnes for a party at the St Agnes Hotel. Mrs W was a bit worried we'd been stitched up on the fancy dress but merely driving through the village she was immediately re-assured by the sight of fairies cowboys and pirates (not sure if the latter were actually fancy dress or off to work, do pirates still operate in those parts?) wandering the streets. We had a great night. It was advertised as a School Disco and it sounded like the DJ must have been at school with me, I think it was well past 11pm before he played a record I hadn't bought when it was released. And how refreshing to reach midnight without the dreary Auld Lang Syne, instead the roof was raised with a rousing rendition of Bohemian Raphsody (not exactly traditional but it so seemed to fit the spirit of the evening). It turns out NYE is not an exception down that way, clearly the locals need little excuse at anytime to get into fancy dress ( as a quick look at a friends blog here will prove). I couldn't help thinking how different it was to a night out back home. Here we were, in a packed pub miles from home knowing only a few people there yet feeling totally at ease. At home, any evening spent in a town centre pub involves checking one's back at regular intervals.


Next day, I woke to broken cloud and had a pleasant walk through the woods nearby after breakfast before popping back to St Agnes to pick up friends. For on New Years Day we were heading back to dreaded Devon, as Saints were playing away at Plymouth. Literally, as we crossed the Tamar bridge into Devon, on came the wipers as the rain started to pour. We parked up 2 minutes walk away from a pub in Mutley Plain (the name alone sounds dodgy) where I had arranged to meet others to give out match tickets. In that 2 minute walk were probably the two loudest claps of thunder I have ever heard, and the heavens opened. Just making it into the pub before being totally soaked, we were still trying to buy drinks when yet another thunder clap shook the whole building to it's foundations. The barmaid literally took off, landing about 2ft behind where she had been standing. For a second I thought she had been electrocuted by the pump she was pouring my drink from but it turned out she had literally jumped in fright. With glasses and bottles still rattling everyone went straight to the windows and looked out, within a couple of minutes we were surrounded by 2 inches of hailstones.

Now I'm not sure whether it was an effect the weather or simply a reflection the average Plymothian (I had to look that one up to check) but first Mrs W, and then, one by one the rest of our group, started feeling rather ill at ease. Being away fans in any strange pub generally has a certain edge to it, but despite being recommended as "away fan friendly" by a local, this one had a feeling of The Slaughtered Lamb from American Werewolf in London about it. In keeping with the werewolf theme, when one of the locals started barking uncontrollably despite attempts by his friends to stop him, we decided that a different pub may be the better option. So we quickly drunk up and slipped and slid through the hailstones back to the car, then parked at the ground and after a 5 minute shivering stroll we arrived wet through and totally frozen at the second pub. Immediately we felt at home, everywhere we turned were faces we recognised and not a single woof to be heard. We found more of our friends, all nice and warm, lucky for them they had been in there ages. The big debate was whether or not the match, due to start in 90 minutes, would even be played. Looking outside, pulling faces at the local Janner Chavs "snowballing" our window with handfuls of hail it looked very very unlikely. But on it was, and off we reluctantly trudged to the ground, stopping only to buy a (vastly inferior) Devon pasty from the back of a van. We spent the whole game shivering in the back row trying to raise some enthusiasm as our team, playing rubbish as they seem to do every time I watch them away, struggled to a one all draw. The most memorable incidents of the whole game were Mrs W discovering that her seat number was 666 (very appropriate) and then the same young lady taking her gloves out of her pocket only to discover she had brought a pair of my socks instead. It was so cold she put them on anyway !

Finally came the long awaited full-time whistle and it was time to leave. Trying to keep warm with an undercooked burger as we waited about half an hour to get out of the car park, we finally started the long drive home in the rain. Which, by the way, stopped as if by magic immediately we entered Dorset.

So, I'm afraid to say I can only speak as I find, from personal experience Cornwall is better than Devon by a mile. If only it was possible to get to the former without having to pass through the latter.