Today we went to.. St Ives!

It started (far t'wirly) at 7am, when the alarm went off. Skies were grey, and miserable.. not holding much hope for weather. By the time we got on the coach at 8.20am it was much brighter and looking hopeful for good weather. We were off! Driving southwards on the M5, then the A30, until we got to Jamaica Inn. Here, we stopped for tea; a Cornish cream tea, actually. When in Rome..

The building of the Jamaica Inn is beautiful. Some lovely stained glass, and lots of beams with pretty china. The service was (in my opinion) less impressive. A tad cafeteria-esque with a long bank of pre-cooked food. The fried eggs looked vile. Our cream tea however was quite impressive.. Homebaked scones, Roddas clotted cream and a decent strawberry jam. Mmmm.. We were there for about an hour, then back on the road to St Ives.. it was possibly the longest, most tortuous route to St Ives known to man. We passed the turning, went down into Penzance, along to St Just, and then back into St Ives via the coast road. I can understand why.. that stretch of coast road is GORGEOUS.. recommend it to anyone in that part of the world. However, it's not a wide road, and going down there in a 49 seater coach, meeting tractors and double decker buses coming the other way was.. interesting. But amusing at times. Anyhow.. into St Ives.. yay! Off coach (be back at 4.45) s-t-r-e-t-c-h legs, and de-numb the bum. Bums get very numb after four hours on a coach, let me tell you!

Into the town.. get dropped off by local bus service (is quite a walk from the coach park).. where on earth are we? Don't know St Ives well. I've only been there once before today, but I do remember.. yep, there's Subway where we had a mediocre coffee last year. Excellent, a navigation point! Find Joules - first priority - nearly walked past it. Thanks go to Mum for pointing it out.. it's strange, normally it has a magnetic attraction. Don't know how I missed it! I bought a nice something, but that can wait til 'Show & Tell' post in a little while.

From there, wander around aimlessly - which is the main point of the day - until we find Cath Kidston.. *drool*. I was so indecisive in there, I came out with nothing :( but I think I've found Mums birthday/christmas present. I'll show you the rest later. One thing - I've managed to obtain a negative strap mark. Most strap marks are a white bit in the red/brown. Mine is the other way around. I have a perfect red line where my bra strap was when I suncreamed my shoulders! Oopsie. We had a lovely paddle in the harbour, tooties looking all clean and pink, as you can see. I have many photos of our feets. I'll post again in a while with my 'Show & Tell'. Right now I've got fish & chips to eat in the back garden, and shooting stars to watch for.