slowly she turned

I slept late while my sister and friend headed down to the harbour for coffee. Once I got up, we decided that we needed a few groceries and so we walked down the Promenade to the Lidl. On the way, we stopped for a light lunch at a little cafe/bakery/ice cream shop called the Art Cafe. I had a cheese scone with chutney, and that simple lunch was one of the best meals I had. It was an absolutely gorgeous day. Even though there was still a chill in the air, people were swimming.

We took some time to noodle around on a beach and around the rock pools.

May is a perfect time to visit the British Isles if you love wildflowers. The photo below was taken looking down at the building under our patio.

We found out much later that collecting pebbles on the beach is a no-no. For this avid rockhound, that’s like offering heroin to an addict and then snatching it away. The pebbles were amazing in variety and beauty. Look at the image of a blackbird on the rock in the corner.

We had to remove the pebbles from the window sill because a very aggressive, huge seagull thought they were food and was attacking the window.

Lisa and I took a walk around the center of town around 3:30-4 and found that most of the shops closed at 3 or 4 p.m., which was a surprise on a Saturday! We did find a cute gift shop with unusual items and a nice bookshop.

That night we went out pub hopping and our first stop was the Turks Head, a 13th century pub just up the street.

We had dinner across the street at the Artist Residence hotel restaurant.

In hindsight, even though I enjoyed this day immensely, I might have done things differently. The reason I picked Penzance as the first place to land in Cornwall was so we could easily travel by train or car to nearby places in southern Cornwall such as Mousehole and St. Ives, but there wasn’t enough time. I was weary, a bit sick, and my knee still ached from my tumble in the museum several days before, so I really needed a break. Lisa helped me do the exercises to fix my vertigo (it is from ear crystals getting out of place in my inner ear, and the exercise is called the Epley maneuver.) It was a lovely day, but there were missed opportunities that we wouldn’t have a chance to do later on. They will happen on a future trip, because I will always want to go back to Cornwall.