Me Again

Another incredibly beautiful day, starting out at 8am from Penzance and ending up at Porthleven, 14 miles and over 2000 feet climbing. The coast is superb, the vast chimneys of granite blocks packed together in fantastical shapes now beginning to interface with the compressed slate that runs up into Devon from here.

The morning was cool and cloudy and then the sun has come out for the afternoon. We legged it round to Marazion and the majestic St Michael’s Mount and onwards to Perranuthnoe in the early part of the day, taking advantage of the low temperature to eat up 6 miles of relatively flat but still tiring sand and cliff walks.
Here’s St Mickey’s in the morning.

We had the best breakfast in the world at Perranuthnoe on a terrace hanging over the beach with two huge pots of tea.

Then onwards up cliff and down to coves in the heat of the day until we finally arrived at Porthleven. The town is lovely, particularly on a Sunday when there’s raft racing and local wet-suited youths jumping off high points into the harbour. I know I’m getting old because I didn’t want to copy them!

This is a happy time when I’m doing good mileages in good, dry weather. But I’m still not half way. On my own with a wet arse and gale force winds battering my bivvy to Kingdom Come, smelling like a trout because I can’t get a site with a shower and aching like a geriatric ……. then my friends reality will bite and bite hard. That will separate the men from the boys.
Who wants to play at cowboys and Indians?

This path is so varied. One minute you’re climbing over boulders on a beach and the next you’re under a canopy of short trees which is like walking through a cave with elven orientation.

‘Certainly the children have seen them, in quiet places where the moss grows green’ – who else but the Incredible String Band. It’s the next few lines that worry me.
‘Coloured shells jangle together, the wind is cold and the year is old and the trees whisper together, and bent in the wind they lean’.
Bent in the wind I will lean too.

Oh for God’s sake Smithy think bloody positive.

I’m going to make it to Poole and walk past that monument at the finish line with my head held high. There – begone you darkened thoughts of doom and let there be light. And there was light. And the monster in my head was banished forever. Hurray!!!!