Having been utterly lacking with regard to motivation to write anything recently I thought I might make the effort to tell a very brief story of a regression to the summers of my childhood. Not that I ever grew up or anything it’s just that those warm summer days with their soundtrack of skylarks high above the fields of ripening wheat and the hum of bees around the wild flowers feel as if they have been …
Tag: Cornwall
The Beach
You know that post I mentioned in my last post that was coming… this isn’t it. Rather this is because I apparently should share more of my incidental photography.. at least until I get around to building a picture site.. so here is some… I confess I have increasing doubts about sharing anything as the frequency with which I find my pictures being used without permission by individuals and organisations for their own gain – …
Summer Nights
Just a couple of snaps from the just past weekend local ‘adventure’ with friends. I was going to include them as part of a post I’m working on that, for once isn’t about me, ha, and that also, for a change, requires me to think a little about what I’m going to write – it’s important you see. I changed my mind however on including them in that post so, while that one sits in my …
Early Spring Lunch
Last weekend Cornwall was still very much in the grip of winter, but spring does appear to have since arrived… yesterday the sun was warm, the wind was light and the lanes were fragrant with the scent of flowers.. so a spin out for lunch with a riding buddy was in order.. it turned into an all day, slightly muddy, exploration of Penwith backroads, bridleways and tracks with lunch in the sunshine atop the granite cliffs …
Winter Palette
Have been feeling utterly uninspired to write of late – no stories to tell or anything much interesting at all to say really… just riding and stuff… I think it’s a late winter thing but with spring proper just around the corner I’m hoping that will change. I always quite look forward to winter – in October I’m thinking about winter things – the satisfaction of cold and stormy winter rides or sea kayak days …
Winter Skies West
if you’re a regular reader you’ll have noticed that I spend quite a lot of time amongst the granite of west Penwith. I feel very at home with the cliffs there. It is a magnificent place and even better to arrive amongst the towering spires by making a journey, even a small one, there by bicycle.. or kayak, as in this case. I won’t bore you with lots of words, my ideal blog post takes about …
In the West
Found myself just a little bit west of here yesterday afternoon. A favourite place to be when conditions are rough… and it is always better in the winter. So…. pictures. These, I think, make quite a nice complement to the summer time series from the same area posted here: https://www.seasurfdirt.com/2015/08/21/penwith-colour
Winter..
The last few weeks since I returned from India have seen a series of storms sweep across Cornwall (well.. not just Cornwall…), seemingly perfectly timed to disrupt the weekends.. every weekend. The one exception being that sunny Sunday a couple of weeks ago. Despite being self-employed and therefore having the freedom to go riding, kayaking etc pretty much whenever I like to make the most of spells of finer weather, the weekend as a concept still does …
Sunny metal-flake day
Time for a quick post of a sea kayak flavour while I ease myself into the new week with a large mug of coffee… After what feels like weeks of gale force winds and rain yesterday turned into a perfect winters day.. barely a breath of wind, cold, crisp and sunny. I went east of here to catch up with a friend and his spangly ‘disco boat’…
Penwith Colour
Earlier this week I had a friend visiting for a couple of days so of course a day out on the cliffs for a hike was somewhat obligatory, after all the granite cliffs of Penwith are one of Cornwall’s greatest assets. It’s not something I often do in the summer season – usually at sea level in a kayak or on two wheels… I do tend to prefer the cliffs in winter when the weather …
a spot of Penwith
It is a magical bit of coastline that has inspired writers, artists and film makers for centuries but conditions yesterday from a photographic point of view were uninteresting – the north coast of the Penwith Peninsula is one of the most rugged, wild stretches of coastline in England.. but facing northwest as it does with clear blue skies and just a lazy, small groundswell running yesterday it was very much a case of simply enjoying the …
The Manacles
The name is derived from the Cornish words Maen Eglos, meaning Church Rocks… possibly a reference to the spire of St. Keverne church which is visible from the reef, it is quite likely however that it is an allusion to the numerous gravestones of drowned sailors and their would-be rescuers that can be found in local churchyards… Centuries of shipwrecks, over a hundred, on this notorious reef are responsible for more than 1000 deaths. The wreck of the Mohegan …
a late summer weekend
Now that racing has finished for me for the season making the most of what is left of summer to catch up on some paddling. We weren’t able to get on the water until after lunch on Saturday so stayed local with a quick 17 mile dash west in idyllic conditions to pitch up for the night on Gwenvor followed by a similar distance again Sunday morning albeit into the teeth of a stiff north-easterly.
A New Beach
Last winter destruction was visited upon the coast of Cornwall by a series of storms of rare ferocity. The cockpit of a sea kayak is a perfect vantage point from which to appreciate the legacy of those storms.. whole sections of cliff tumbled into the ocean leaving fresh scars and giant boulders with jagged edges to be smoothed by decades of wave action. Even the apparently super-hard granite of the far west was not immune – calving enormous slabs into the …
A very rare day indeed
It is a very rare day indeed when the ocean has not a ripple on the western side of the Lizard Peninsula. Fully exposed to the Atlantic there is usually at least some swell to play with as it surges around and through the various rocks and gullies that characterise this bit of coast. But not today. Not a ripple. While it does not make for particularly exciting paddling it is still a fantastic place …