St Ives

On Friday the wife and I headed off to St Ives down in the far south of Cornwall. I have always wanted to go to Cornwall. When I was young my Nan gave me a cartoon map/poster of Cornwall and told me loads of stories about how pirates used to bury treasure all along the coastline and hide stuff in caves. It was pretty exciting when I was ten. Actually compared to the spreadsheets I have been working on this morning, it's still pretty exciting. Anyhow as I don't own a car we hired a little convertible (207cc I think?) and hit the M4, M5 and A30 keeping a lookout for pirates and buried treasure. OK the pirate jokes were funny until we past the Reading turnoff where my wife was starting to be offended by the latest nickname I had given her ('Seaman Stains'). We finally pulled into the driveway of the B&B in St Ives at about 4.30pm, dumped our bags in the bed and went exploring through the old town. St Ives is a bit of a beer desert. There are a few pubs, but they are pretty ordinary. The Sloop came highly recommended by our hosts, however as we walked into the bar we were issued a reception that would normally be reserved for a black at a KKK meeting. There was no violence, but everyone stopped, stared and generally made us feel like out of towners. I think this is another case of a pub that people think is good just because it is old (circa 1316 or something). The Dove in Hammersmith is another such pub that falls into this category. They are old and have a lot of history, but the beer is usually just on standard and they are not particularly inviting. Rant over!

Anyhow, we retreated to a St Austells tied house 'The Lifeboat' which was marginally more friendly. I had a couple of pints of St Austells Tribute and a pint of HSD (the breweries strong ale). Neither was overly impressive. By default they had a sparkler on their swan necks and both beers had a subtle sulfur note on the aroma which I don't really like. Brakspears Bitter has this as well and it's off putting. Anyhow after getting a mixed grill down my neck for dinner we retreated back to the B&B for an early evening. I should also add that the surf was not very good. The banks were rubbish and the swell was just mush. I miss the beach back home, as well as the smell of sunscreen. It was nice to not be at work on a Friday though. The picture below is of Porthmouth beach in St Ives. It was taken from the top of the outcrop on the point called 'The Island'. As you can see surfing in the UK is pretty much a waste of time!

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