CHOUGHS HAVE RETURNED TO PENWITH THEIR SPIRITUAL HOME.

Saturday was a glorious day following a fine week when spring well and truly sprang, to have actually had two definitive seasons in their due time since last years appalling summer seems to have reset the  growth clocks of plants, so that for the first time in many years they actuallly know where they are. A couple of weeks ago much of the countryside was brown and dreary blasted by wind and frost during the long harsh winter months we are now emerging from.

Suddenly the long period of enforced dormancy has exploded into a riot of growth with at least forty shades of green systematically snuffing out the drab uniform beige of winter. Have the incredible magnolias or camelias or for that matter gorse and celandines that thrive in our part of the world ever looked better?

What a great pity that humanity cannot experience a similar rapid change of  season allowing new growth to displace the incredible amount of deadwood our often vexatious species seems to accumulate. This  is particularly relevant in the political spectrum given the impending election which, tragically, singularly fails to inspire any great degree of confidence or indeed optimism. Its more a matter of  holding ones nose while trying to decide who willl be the least bad choice to deal with the immense problems that have manifested themselves in the recent past.

Enough of that, this is timeless Cornwall, its spring and a time for optimsm, however bad things are or might get its all been seen before, we are still hanging in there albeit in reduced numbers as inward migration swells Cornwalls overall population in tune with Government imposed targets and housing quotas.

I had a particularly rewarding mission pencilled in to keep a promise made on St Pirans day to my Father in Law who at eighty five on that auspicious day is not as well as he was until recently. He wanted to see, possibly for the final time, the Cot Valley at St Just where in the 1920’s his Father, the renowned Captain John Gribbin, managed the small Wheal Hermon mine at the foot of the valley close by Porth Nanvan which is famous for its distinctive rounded granite boulders. Incidentally Capn John also managed the much larger Killifreth mine at Chacewater, of which Hawkes Shaft is considered the queen of engine houses on account of its graceful tall and slender chimney. As well as this he worked in India and Ashanti in Ghana, now the biggest gold mine in the world with in excess of 120 shafts of which he was involved in the sinking of the first.

HAWKES SHAFT ENGINE HOUSE AT KILLIFRETH WITH ITS GRACEFUL TALL STACK.

We got there by the scenic route from Marazion to Newlyn where even though frail he managed a portion of Jewells lemon sole and chips along with a tub of Jelberts ice cream topped with proper cream as we watched the world go by from the end of Newlyn’s New Pier. On through Mousehole to Lamorna by the backroad through Castallack to rejoin the main road at Lamorna Gate and on to Penberth Valley. There are always roadside flower stalls in the valley, that  in spring, sell the most amazing varieties of daffodil, of the type rarely seen in supermarkets, they are picked later in fuller bud so that they last longer in the vase. Having purchased a few bunches payment was made into the honesty box which is now securely fastened down to deter potential tea leaves who would have the lot away otherwise (what a sad reflection on current times).

A quick detour to the Minack at Porthcurno to look at the beautiful bay in the warm spring sunshine lifted our spirits even further for the final leg to St Just via Lands End and Sennen. I love entering St Just which can at first sight seem grey and dismal but which in reality is vibrant and surprisingly large, a real town rather than a village that boasts a mighty mining legacy which is now part of the World Heritage site.

At the top of Cot Valley, freshly turned out, up to their guts in lush new grass we passed the younger part of a beautiful herd of ruby red Devon cattle owned by the Thomas Family whose stock usually sweep the board at agricultural shows and produce the finest traditional beef from an amazing landscape on the ridge that straddles the Cot and Kenidjack Valleys. Next port of call was Botallack to take the unmade coastal by-way past the Crowns to Levant. In a  verysmall bare field between the track and the cliff I spotted a “crow” probing the soil with its beak, closer approach revealed this to be no ordinary crow, for the first time in my life I was face to face with a wild Chough, Cornwalls fabled National Bird. It eventually flew inland flapping its wings and undulating in the manner of a large butterfly, then suddenly from the opposite direction a flock of five or six appeared flying in front of us towards the fearsome drop at the cliff edge. To say that this made our day was an understatement, it was something I was not expecting, a real symbol of renewal perhaps an omen of better things to come?

The rest was an anticlimax after that show, the coastroad to St Ives via Zennor is never dreary but we were homeward bound, in St Day I drove the Old Man into the graveyard so he could watch me putting the flowers on the graves of his Wife who passed away recently and two Sons who died in tragic circumstances over twenty years ago. This was a fitting end to a memorable day made up of all the right ingredients to bring some little pleasure to the Old Mans restricted life since he was forced to give up his car.

LONG MAY OUR ICONIC NATIONAL BIRD SOAR ABOVE THE CORNISH CLIFFS.