St Ives

What a magical name that is!  I never tire of thinking about St Ives and I don't think we will ever tire of going there.  I took so many photos that I've made a few collages to give a taste of some aspects of the town.

Over the course of 2 weeks we saw several faces of St Ives from flat calm sparkling sea to something a little more boisterous.  Having said that it was never really rough.

The photo at middle bottom above is the view we had from the sitting room of our rented cottage.  It was an upside-down house with the kitchen and bathroom downstairs and the bedrooms and lounge upstairs. 

These are just a few of the wonderful textures we saw throughout our stay.  I have many more to show and I'm hoping I will be able to use them as backgrounds in my digital art, when I ever get round to doing any! :)

These are just a few of the images that speak to me of the harbour in St Ives.  Fishing for crabs is a popular pastime around the harbour and this little pink bucket soon became full of crabs who couldn't resist the squid bait.  I think they all got put back into the water.  The seal is a regular visitor and I think we saw him every day.  The cottages in the middle photograph sit literally on the beach and at least one is a holiday let.  In this high tech age it is interesting that the shipping forecast is written on a chalk board on the pier every day (except the weekend!).

What else can I show you?  There's so much to choose!

An Open-Top bus runs around the coast until the beginning of October and we took a trip on it to Lands End, the most westerly point in England (hence the photograph of my DH looking like ET!).  It turned into a glorious day and after lunch at the hotel in the photo we had a rush of blood to the head and decided to walk (!) along the coastal path (!!) to Sennen Cove and get the return bus from there.  

We walked up several hills,

 

 Enjoyed the view towards Cape Cornwall

Eventually walked down the hill into Sennen Cove and enjoyed a welcome cuppa and some cake.

This was the window in the cafe we had our cuppa in, very appropriate.

Suitably fortified we caught the last bus to return to St Ives.  But first,

a hair raising journey passing very close to buildings in St Just and taking care to avoid any roadside hedges and overhanging branches.

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On the way we passed this ruined engine house that had once graced one of the many tin mines in the county.

  This village is only 4 miles from st Ives but may as well be in another world.  I think they are Cornish miles, twice as long as a standard mile judging by the time it takes to drive them, avoiding oncoming traffic and being careful not to scrape the roadside walls disguised as hedges ;)  If you google 'Cornish Hedge' you will find lots of images of different styles of hedge.

This lovely patchwork of fields is just outside Zennor and I hope that it will form the basis of a quilt before too long.   Zennor is home to the Wayside Museum and also to the Zennor Mermaid. You can read the story of the mermaid here.

Going back to the collages you can see how clear the water is in St Ives,

These beautiful rocks and seaweeds are alongside a jetty in St Ives,

and this is one of the crabs that didn't get away!

I'll be back soon with more images from our hols and I'm sure my DH will be adding his pics all the time.