£17.50 for fish and chips?!
The blog is back up and running after a brief spell offline. I hit my bandwidth limit rather early last month and it was down for just over a week. How annoying.
But now it’s back, and so am I after spending a couple of days down in Cornwall. Luckily, it just so happens the weather in the first week October was better than it was was throughout the whole of the summer.
Despite only going for three days, we packed quite a lot in, and spent the first afternoon at the Eden Project. Now, I’m not exactly into gardening, so I didn’t really know what to expect before I arrived, but I was pleasantly surprised.
There’s lots to see and learn about in the two large biomes (big greenhouses, pictured), one representing the Mediterranean and one representing the tropical jungle. The time of year meant that the crowds weren’t too big and we just spent a good four or five hours wandering around exploring.
Afterwards, we spent the rest of the day in Padstow, aka Ricksteinville. To say that Stein dominates Padstow would probably be the understatement of the century. As well as three restaurants (his main one is undergoing a major extension by the look of it), he also operates a bistro, a café, a deli, a patisserie, a gift shop and a cookery school.
I mean, sheesh, he’s a good cook and all, and is probably responsible for a large chunk of the local economy, but his sheer omnipresence in every street makes it easier to understand why some of the locals may not like him. And by the way, £17.50 for a plate of cod and chips? I know cod is endangered, but for that price, I’d want the last cod in the entire world.
Padstow was also home to the world’s worst tourist attraction: the National Lobster Hatchery. Now, I know the name should have given me a clue, but it was right there, so we went in. Basically it’s a room smaller than my living room. And it has some lobsters in it. Maybe three, if I had to guess. And you could look through this window and see some baby lobsters. The whole lobstery experience took about thirty seconds and cost 3 quid. Underwhelming.
The next day, we went to the Charlestown Shipwreck & Heritage Centre, a museum dedicated to the many shipwrecks scattered around the Cornish coast (and elsewhere).
Unfortunately, I was feeling pretty ill that morning, so I wasn’t exactly in the mood for history. But when I wasn’t on the verge of throwing up, it did look quite interesting.
Finally, we went to the fishing village of Mevagissey, which I must admit I had never heard of. By that time, I was feeling slightly better, and the glorious sunshine meant I had a nice afternoon rooting through the old curiosity shops and watching the fishermen working in the harbour. And as you can see, it was an extremely picturesque harbour. The ice cream was rather good, too.
All in all, it was a pretty good few days, made better by the unseasonably warm weather. Kinda made up for the summer we never had!
Andrew @ October 6, 2007