It’s that time of year again so Mrs Sixwheeler and I are off for our annual visit to Newlyn, right down there in the wild west if Cornwall.

For any of you who haven’t been here with us before here’s a little background. Mrs Sixwheeler was born on the Isle of Scilly, an archipelago of small islands about twenty two miles further west into the Atlantic beyond Land’s End at the extreme western tip of England; she spent most of her school life at a boarding school in Penzance which is the town beside Newlyn. For my own part I love West Penwith which is the area around Penzance as I’ve climbed and walked around here for years. Anyway it’s an area we both love and we’ve been lucky enough to find a cottage we like overlooking Newlyn harbour and where we can stay and bring our Borders Terrier dog Maude.

We like to come down in November as it makes a nice break just before all the Christmas madness starts. This year we booked to travel down tomorrow (Monday) but last night we received a call from the owner who said that the cottage was ready as she was going to be away for a few days so, if we liked, we could come down today. This would effectively give us an extra day so we happily said “yes please”.

We weren’t really ready for this but with a bit if organisation this morning we were able to leave home just after midday which got us to the cottage in daylight. Just. There had been terrible storms and rain overnight but it had stopped before we left and stayed dry all the way down and we had the benefit of light Sunday traffic too. Win, win.

It’s a very easy journey for us as, once we get onto the motorway near home, it’s motorway or dual carriageway practically all the way so I can just put the car into cruise control and relax. I like that a lot.

The cottage has a sitting room, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom so is snug and once we’ve got the range going and the fire on in the sitting room it soon becomes lovely and snug; the owner always leaves a cream tea ready for visitors, a lovely gesture and delicious. We brought a casserole with us for our supper so I’m comfortably full at the moment but I’ve just taken Maude for her evening walk and it’s pouring with rain so now we’re both steaming in front of the fire.

Off to bed shortly for a good night’s sleep and read to see what tomorrow brings, more rain if the forecast is right, thank goodness for good waterproofs. Oh the joys of holidays in England in November.

20 November 2016