Home of the Ashes

No matter where I end up, England is still home and nowhere else can I so scarily slip back into an episode of Eastenders with a cup of tea and a jam doughnut in hand. The last couple of weeks have found me criss-crossing this country, simultaneously catching up and saying goodbyes, and every now and then coming up with some deep and meaningful musing on England in 2009. Like there is nowhere else in the world with such a great array of cakes and desserts. And that chav kids are actually kind of amusing to observe. And why oh why do they persist in serving gigantic mugs of horrid coffee?! And despite being a crowded little isle, there are green fields and narrow country lanes round every corner, sights which cannot help but bring a satisfied little smile to one’s pasty white complexion with each glimpse through ten foot high hedgerows.

England was all sunshine and smiles as I arrived in from France and headed to the northwest – I’d say Blackpool, but for the most part I was in the far classier surroundings of Lytham St Annes, still though possessing enough northern monkeys to make it seem like Coronation Street. One such monkey being little Hayden, nearing one years old and being mostly an angel, sometimes a pain in the butt for her parents, Ollie and Jenn. So time watching Big Cook Little Cook was interspersed with walks across the golf course and along the Prom, trips to the windmill, and chilling out ready for bedtime watching In the Night Garden. Glimpses of sun were on and off but rain was never far away, plastic anoraks at the ready for picnics at Lytham Green. It didn’t really matter though, the best thing was just hanging out in comfort with three friends for a few days and I’m sure we will keep on doing this into our old age.

If I wanted a dose of glamour, then the train ride up to Blackpool was hardly going to deliver it! This place is Britain’s number one tourist attraction, surely boosted by the number of Mancs and Scousers parading in nurse’s uniforms and fighting in the streets to celebrate impending nuptials. Maybe it’s the draw of the thousands of pound and tat shops for some; for others the stomach churning rollercoasters, or the sedate amusements on Central pier. Maybe that’s it – it has something for everyone. Which for me, was trying to spend a pound’s worth of 2p’s in the amusements before my train departed, which was threatened by what seemed a flurry of winning when down to my last ten pence.

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It was back to southern comfort before too long, a more archetypal English landscape of rolling fields and thatch roofs, of church spires and meandering rivers, all of which are captured in the town of Salisbury. Here, the cathedral and its spire dominates, and middle England oozes through the lanes like too much cream pressed between a pair of scones.

Not that scones were on the cards, room being amply saved for a mega roast carvery with Dad and Sonia in the evening, sending me on my way to the very best part of this Ashes winning nation, home of proper scones and cream, Devon and Cornwall…

Good cream comes from good cows eating good grass which requires good rain which came in good bucket loads on my first day in Plymouth. So, I did some work for a change but had a very good feed in the evening at the Chinese Water Dragon restaurant – piles of far east goodies finished with trips to the chocolate fountain. It was pretty good, but had me pining a little for a good dose of Thai Cornar (before new owners took over).

Family visits, more and more time on the trampoline with Bethany, trips to Plymco and Tesco and the market followed, but it was really on a blustery but bright Friday that delivered la crème de la crème, le poisson de la poisson and le fudge de Granny Wobbly. This was my absolutely obligatory visit to North Cornwall, this time opting for Padstow, reached by train and bus both chugging their way through masses of great green land.

This is the land of chef Rick Stein who, though undoubtedly cashing in, has certainly enhanced the culinary standards of the south west and championed the amazing fresh produce it has to offer. I didn’t eat his fish and chips, but someone else’s, and they couldn’t be faulted as I sat legs dangling over the harbour wall. Being the fit and healthy type, it was time to walk it off and where else could I go but the South West Coast Path, taking in the expansive estuary of the Camel River and meeting the stunning north coast at Stepper Point. What else can I say, apart from hey everybody, it’s a montage…

The pictures above may give you some indication as to why I felt a bit flat when the bus took me away from Padstow. The fact that it is a scenic spot is only part of the story. It’s more than that: it is home, wherever I may be and whatever else I may call home. It’ll always be that way, even if I am sat in some other place for forty years in succession. Sure, I’m not on about Padstow itself or even Cornwall, but the whole area in which I grew up in the southwest of England, from the cobbled back alleys down Ford Hill to the rainy days on Dartmoor. For richer or poorer, better or worse, in sickness and in health – the bonds are strong.

And so, paradoxically gloomy as the sun sparkled on the green pastures and leafy woods heading into Wadebridge, a pick me up was needed and forthcoming, thanks to Granny Wobbly’s Fudge Pantry, worth the hour I had to kill in the town before hitching a ride on the next bus. A little sweetener to cap yet another predictably tremendous day down in Cornwall.

There are plenty of other sweet sweeteners and savoury saviours in these parts and it seems the last day and a half was jammed with yet more of them. One of the sweeter things was spending time with my sister, brother-in-law, niece, two cats, snails, several randoms, and (in spirit at least) a new puppy. Thank gawd they still live down in this part of the world, a place I can still call from Australia, home.