The best beginning

Trebarwith Strand, near Tintagel

This year was probably the best start to a New Year I can remember for a long time.  Kim and I were invited to stay with friends for a couple of nights in Tintagel, a sleepy village (in winter) on the north Cornish coast.  In summer it’s riddled with emmets stuffing pasties and ice cream and naff tourist shops (thankfully closed for the winter season), and should be avoided at all costs.  It’s famous for being the supposed birth place of King Arthur, his supposed castle (in ruins), and a medieval ‘post office’, but the real treasure is the spectacular coastline.  I could splatter my sentences with hackneyed superlatives to describe it to you; suffice it to say it’s rugged, exposed, windswept, awe-inspiring, beautiful, elemental… Ahem, pass the gin and tonic – before I’m recruited to the Cornish Tourist Board.

Kim and I drove east on New Year’s Day and arrived after dark to meet up with Hilary, one of my oldest friends.  She was down from ‘up country’ and staying with other friends in a rented holiday home in the village.  From the outside the Edwardian house looks like a dilapidated, dull, unremarkable abode with a hideous double-glazed front door and a front garden that gave way to concrete some decades ago.  On the inside it was wonderfully warm and pleasantly furnished, in a minimal, leather kind of way.  We spent the evening sat around the large dining table catching up over red wine and pasta before heading to bed in the wee small hours.  Kim, of course, being only 10 years of age, was not allowed to imbibe, so took to swapping trading cards with a new friend until it was time for his bed.

Kim rock-pooling

On Friday we woke up to crystal clear skies and a sprinkling of frost and knew we had to head to the beach: it would be criminal to waste such a rare and perfect winter’s day.  Rather than Tintagel itself though, we got in the car and headed down the road to Trebarwith Strand.  This act was in itself criminal: we should have walked the two miles.  Not so easy though when you’re with friends that can’t wait to go scrambling on the rocks and skimming stones across the quiet tide (‘cos they don’t have any where they live), and who spent much of the previous day walking before you even got there…  I’m not complaining though.  No, seriously, I’m not!   It was wonderful to sit in the sun and poke my fingers in to the soft, unsuspecting sea anemones so that I could feel their tenticles stick to my skin.  It was wonderful to explore the rocks and watch my footprints disappear into the wet sand.  It was especially wonderful to sit quietly and watch Kim run along the shore line, dodging the waves, pretending to be who I can only guess was Luke Sky Walker.

Is that Luke?

Low tide

This really was the best start to 2009 I could hope for, and I had only three regrets about the day:

1. that I don’t have a better camera;
2. that the photos I took with my phone really don’t do the place any justice and
3. that I didn’t draw instead.

By the time we’d got to the Mason’s Arms in Camelford for dinner though, I’d forgotten them entirely.

Happy New Year.

(Click on the images to see larger versions.)

And just in case you did think this was a page for the Cornwall Tourist Board, here’s something you might find interesting…

Links to pictures and information about Tintagel and nearby areas:

• The Cornwall Tourist Board Visit Cornwall
• Tintagel Old Post Office National Trust
• Tintagel Castle English Heritage
• Trebarwith Strand beach guide