Chris and Katy say "I Do" at the Seaside

 We were invited to Chris and Katy's wedding at the Wedding Hut, Carbis Bay Hotel in Cornwall.  (Postponed for three years due to Covid and two babies later they finally said I Do).

We left on Friday morning with Gemma and met Alun for lunch at The Holt, 178 High Street in Honiton. A great pitstop on the A30.  

Suddenly driving into Carbis Bay the view opened out and we were gazing down at the almost- Mediterranean shores of Carbis Bay.  Fabulous.   

We were staying at Luna Beach a luxury Carbis Bay Apartment on Boskerris Road with Alun and Gemma.  An excellent location right next door to the Carbis Bay Hotel.

Friday evening we walked along the stunning coastal path from Carbis Bay to Porthminster Beach in St. Ives.  As you leave Carbis Bay, head west, picking up the path in front of the hotel.  This is the steepest section but its paved and easy to walk along.  A gentle stroll with spectacular views over St. Ives Bay, it took us about 30mins.  We caught the train home. (£1 - 3 mins).

Once in St. Ives we met John and Julia for a delicious meal at Porthminster Kitchen.  The setting was lovely.  We had a window table looking out over the harbour.  The service was good and the food delicious. St. Ives deserves its reputation as a food-lovers destination.  Cornwall has an incredible local larder, not least its abundant seafood.

Warning:  On the way to the railway station we decided to stop for an ice cream. Watch out for the seagulls, the herring gulls are exceptional for their savagery, they attacked Gemma from behind for her ice cream and Gemma has a serious phobia about birds.  Reminded me of Daphne du Maurier's horror story "The Birds" - set in Cornwall.  And they left proof of their awful diet sprayed all over our  freshly cleaned car.

The wedding day dawned. The weather was perfect.  We started the day with a bacon buttie and a glass of bubbles on the lawn with a beautiful view. 

Wow what a wedding.  The scenery, staff, food, drink, absolutely everything was amazing.

Katy looked like a princess in her gorgeous gown and Chris was so proud.  It was the perfect venue in a breath-taking setting and with the fabulous weather to enjoy the dazzling coastline.

I even went for a paddle in sea with Julia.

On Sunday we visited Godrevy Point. We parked right out at the headland on the National Trust car park which is found by driving to the right of the first car park up a single track road, it follows the coast for a while; toilets are also located at the car park.

The beach here is stunning with great rockpools and shallow safe water for the children to swim and play in.  We walked from the beach to Godrevy Point overlooking the lighthouse. Look down into the bay and you might see seals resting on the sand like we did.

We then returned to St.  Ives.  It was ridiculously busy this time unlike Friday evening - people and cars everywhere! Way too busy to be enjoyable.  Maybe due to the fact it was a very hot sunny bank holiday weekend.  There were waaaay too many people (yes, I do realise I'm one of them).  St. Ives is cursed and confused by its raging beauty.  It used to be a fishing village, now it is a tourist resort.  Pilchards have given way to tourism as the main industry.

I suddenly remembered this nursery rhyme.

As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives, Each wife had seven sacks, Each sack had seven cats, Each cat had seven kits:  Kits, cats, sacks, and wives, How many were there going to St. Ives?

We returned to the beautiful sandy Carbis Bay.

May Birthdays

 My boy is another year older.  The best son a family could ask for.

Happy Birthday wishes.  Love you so much.

And

Happy Birthday also to our darling granddaughter who turned 12 this month.

Being 12 is a great age.  You're sitting on the fence between who you once were and the beautiful young woman that you are becoming.

It's interesting, definitely unpredictable and a special year of discovery.

It's a time where you can still play with dolls but also get dolled-up in more grown-up clothes and it's perfectly acceptable.

It's a time to raise your voice in order to find it.

It's a time to indulge in a few extra sweets as you work your way through waves of emotions.

It's a time like no other, so enjoy it.

Live it up.

Say I'm sorry when you're mean (never).  Cuddle with your parents when you're sad.  Don't fight 12, but embrace it - and all the ups and downs that come with it.  12 looks good on you.  You take my breath away with your beauty and  grace.

Happy Birthday Darling.

And  finally, Grandad's birthday.

 And celebrating with "the swimmers".

                                                         Happy Birthday

God Save the King

 As the soft drizzle in London gave way to a downpour, Charles was crowned king in Westminster Abbey, and the feeling came over many of us, if not all, that some things are the more marvellous for being a bit silly and unfathomable.  The republicans did not celebrate; they took their placards and yellow T-shirts to Trafalgar Square.  The coronation was ludicrous but also magnificent with the sound of the South African soprano, Pretty Yende, in a daffodil-yellow dress with shoulders the size of sails, singing Sacred Fire. 

A drum horse called Apollo would not behave, skittering sideways determinedly.  But in the diamond jubilee state coach - this one comes with both suspension and air conditioning - the majesties looked cosy together.

At the abbey, there was too much to take in.  Colour, pomp and crazy jewellery.  My dear, the outfits!  

There was a beadle and a Unicorn Pursuivant, a Chester Herald and a representative of the Knights Bachelor.  Floella Benjamin, the Play School presenter who my children grew up with, carried the Rod of Equity and Mercy (otherwise known as the King's sceptre).  The Ascension Choir's male singers wore tight white trousers, and the kind of infectious smiles only gospel music and sincere belief can induce.  Bryn Terfel sang beautifully in Welsh, such formidable power in is voice, even if his folded arms did make him look like a bouncer at a Merthyr Tydfil nightclub.  Princess Anne, who bears the fantastical title "Gold Stick in Waiting", wore a hat that will, in due course, almost certainly feature in the paperback edition of her nephew Harry's book.  Spare; he was a few rows back, as predicted, and behind her red feather throughout.  Most of all, though, there was Penny Mordaunt, the Lord President of the Council.  Mordaunt will probably never be prime minister now, but she has written her way into the history books with her extraordinary performance in the abbey, an hours-long show of strength.  Somewhere along the line, she dispensed with the notion of wearing the black and gold court dress of the privy council, commissioning instead a new and utterly regal outfit for herself.  The whole thing - save for the court shoes, which looked comfortable enough to be from the Portsmouth Marks & Spencer - was very Game of Thrones, an impression only added to by the fact that in front of her she carried the sword of state, which is 4ft long and weighs eight pounds.  She never wobbled for a moment.  

None of this, though, could detract from the heart of the ceremony; its symbolism and its glory had even the arch cynics of social media straining for superlatives.  Only a stone-hearted person could fail to have been moved by the multifaith parts of the service, and if you felt nothing when the choir sang Handel's Zadok the Priest at the King's anointment, you are either an algorithm or half dead.

Charles left the smiles to Camilla, and in so doing, made the moment when his son kissed him a fully sentimental one, his quiet "Thank you, William" his only real display of emotion.

The archbishop spoke of the king being "set apart" for the service of his people, and the coronation makes this manifest.  Already, we think of him differently; he used to be plain Charles.  He is King Charles III now.

The past and the future, history woven through him.  Even the most ardent republican must find it astonishing, in its way, that the coronation chair, commissioned by Edward I, has been the centrepiece of this ceremony for 700 years; that the St. Edward's crown was made for Charles II; that the imperial state crown (the second that the king wore) contains a ruby that Henry V is supposed to have worn at Agincourt.

After the abbey, there was a procession a mile long.  Four thousand members of the armed forces.  Princess Anne on horseback.  Charles and Camilla in their golden pumpkin.  Precision that was unbelievable in a country where nothing works.

We then took the opportunity to drive to Stuart and Tina's for a Coronation Tea arriving just in time to watch the family appear on the balcony.

There had been no hitches.  The crowd below was swollen.  I was glad.

And on Sunday the sun shone and we enjoyed a delightful Street Party in Caroline's road.

Bunting, wine and music.

Alun had to work over the Coronation weekend but he joined in.