A Trip To Cornwall - V

Tuesday morning, and our last few hours in Cornwall. We have yet another delicious, substantial breakfast before taking our leave of a very welcoming hostess and heading off for Newquay airport. We are not in any particular hurry as our flight is not until well after midday, and we guess that 11:30 would be time enough to arrive, and all we have to do en route is to refuel the hire car.

So we stop off in Pentewan, which I just knew would appeal to BondWoman, it is quite a picturesque little village, but not in a twee or quaint sort of way. We park in the little “free” car park and walk out onto the sands where there used to be a dock, the remains of which are still visible although now silted up. The weather, as for the last couple of days, is absolutely glorious, and in itself makes me loathed to leave Cornwall; but leave we must.

Back into the car and I navigate BW through the clay country beyond St. Austell, rather than taking the most direct route, thinking that we would find petrol in St. Columb Major; I had forgotten just how many filling stations in Cornwall had closed down, even before I left. Eventually we found the one that we had been told, on picking up the car, was close to the airport only to find that it had no petrol, only diesel. By now, having pootled through the clay country, we were beginning to run out of time.

The only thing left was to head off down the main road into Newquay some four or five miles distant and hope to find a filling station on the outskirts; getting caught in the centre of the town was simply not an option. Luckily we found such a place right on the fringe of the town and refuelled the car. If time was getting tight before, it was fast running out by now; and I have to say that the trip out to the airport was something of an experience, as this is the first time that I have ever seen BW drive like a maniac; and she is always accusing me of “driving like a loon”!

Finally we arrive - in one piece - and drop off the car with Europcar, who I have to say were absolutely brilliant; as soon as BW said we were running late the guy just took the keys rushed the paperwork through in about three minutes, not even bothering to check the car. Although I guess if there had been any problems the resulting cost would have shown up on the credit card eventually. I would highly recommend them to anyone.

So we get checked in with time to spare, all we can do now is wait, which is something I am not good at; but the opportunities for people watching make it a little more bearable. The flight is called, and BW chooses just this moment to lose an earring, and we spend quite some time looking for it, eventually having to abandon it in favour of not missing the plane. The plane is another affair completely, one of these tiny things powered by pedals and rubber bands I think; I actually hate them with a passion, there is never enough headroom for me to stand up straight.

I have to say that the flight back to Edinburgh has to go down as one of the most uncomfortable that I have ever endured. The plane itself was noisy, smelly, and uncomfortably hot, the journey was pretty bumpy all of the way back, the landing at Edinburgh, well I can’t even begin to describe that. All in all by the time I got off of the plane in Edinburgh I was feeling extremely nauseous, and have never more welcomed a cold wind in my face before.

With hindsight, although it was a great long weekend, and Cornwall is a very beautiful place, it was really good to be back home in Auld Reekie. The Bonds are off to Berlin on the last week of May, so watch this space…

All pictures from the trip can be found here.