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 Gardens are found in the grandest manor houses and the most modest cottages. In fact, what we call a yard, they call a garden. |
Cornwall is the peninsula that extends into the Atlantic at the extreme southwest corner of Britain. Glastonbury and Avebury lie on the chalk downs in counties just to the east.
These are lands of rustic and natural beauty, tempered by thousands of years of cultivation. The overall impression is of a culture more civilized than ours. The smallest village has at least one bed and breakfast, and a pub with home-cooked meals, including vegetarian options. Speaking of which, Susan found the food surprisingly to her liking. There's lots of curry, and many tempting sweets. Her favorites: cream tea, served in the afternoon -- a pot of tea, two tasty scones, strawberry jam, and clotted cream (tastes like whipped cream, spreads like butter); and spotted dick, a dessert she got because the name amused her, and got again because it is really good (a rich "pudding" in the British sense, a sort of dense, wet shortbread). |
 Everywhere, there are public footpaths, through pastures and woodlands, along rivers and sea. With all the other traditions the founders of our country brought with them, how were public footpaths left out? |
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This is not a garden. It's the gorse that grows on the moors. While walking across the moor Susan heard a cuckoo, which returns at this time of year. The sound was unmistakable; it sounds just like a cuckoo clock! |
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The English are as devoted to their dogs as they are to their gardens. Many shops had bowls of water outside their doors labeled, simply, DOG.
We were amused by the language, which in addition to using the same words as we, but in different ways, seems to have more words. Two of our favorites:
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For thousands of years, Cornwall has been a land of fishing and mining. The Mycenaeans traded for tin here during the Bronze Age. It is said that if you go to the bottom of a hard rock mine anywhere in the world, there you will find a Cornishman. That proud tradition is now history.
Abandoned tin mines near the village of Nancherrow, from the window of a miner's abandoned home. |
In the dining room of our modest hotel in Marazion, a retired couple was just finishing supper. He engaged us in conversation, telling us much about Cornwall and his own history.
He mentioned that his uncle had been the director of the "award-winning all -male Marazion community choir." Susan said she had noticed posters about this choir and was surprised, that she knew that there were male choirs in Wales (the next peninsula north), but not in Cornwall. He drew himself up, and exclaimed, "Wales! Yes, they have choirs in Wales, but they have tenors. WE have the basses!" |
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