As the day was forecast to be wet for the most part but hopefully getting out later, Karen had decided it was the perfect day to visit Truro which is only 11 miles away. Not necessarily because she was hopeful that it would be nice City to visit as we had given up on Cornwall in that respect, but instead because as we had driven through it several times, she had spotted a M&S store.
After breakfast we hit the road at just after 9.30am. I was quite happy with the arrangements because if Truro turned out to be nice then we could maximise our time there and if not then we may be back in time for me to watch Norwich play away at Man City.
The traffic was not too bad, and we found that M&S was joined to a car park so went and easily found a space. Our plan was to do some food shopping first and leave it in the car in a cool bag before exploring the city. First problem is that we forgot to pack the cool bag. We planned to buy one of the M&S meal deals to use tomorrow evening and had already made our choices for each course. Cornwall let us down again by only having one of those choices available so with much muttering we choose from the limited selection available.
Karen wandered around the rest of the store whilst I went and put all the food back in the car.
We came out of the store and found a rather pleasant market directly outside and had a browse before Karen got herself a free coffee from Café Nero opposite. So far Truro was just about OK but didn’t understand the sign we saw showing directing us to the Town Centre as we thought we were already in it. We followed the sign down a short alley and came out into a bustling and rather pleasant proper shopping street. It was like entering another world. There were all the usual chain stores, some upmarket stores and lots of independent ones. This was exactly what we had been expecting and looking for all week. There were local bars, coffee shops and it was not overcrowded. There were many separate streets leading off each other and all worth a wander and browse.
Eventually we ended up in the Cathedral which impressed us both. It was a bit Tardis like in that it seemed bigger on the inside than outside. It was quite ornate. I was impressed by a model that a verger had completed during lockdown of the various stages of the life of Jesus.
The cathedral had many stairs going down and up that were all off limits to visitors and it got me wondering where they all lead to and how much of it would be interesting to see.
I still am not sure where I really sit with religion. I do know that it is the cause of too much strife in the world. I’m not bothered about people having different beliefs providing they don’t believe in the extermination of me.
I do think we need a belief system of some sort. What I do like about church is the sense of belonging it brings to people who devote themselves to it. I have always thought as I get older that I might be drawn to it, but it hasn’t happened yet. I would want to sample the different variations of church first though.
Almost at the end of the route around the cathedral was their restaurant. In lieu of a cash donation for entrance to the cathedral (as we didn’t have cash on us) we decided to give them our custom for some drinks and scones and jolly nice they were to. Whilst were inside it rained hard but had stopped by the time we wanted to leave.
Outside the cathedral we came across a demonstration. They seemed to be anti everything – anti vax, anti covid, anti passports just for starters. We put our masks on to walk through them just in case.
We popped in a couple of shops and managed to buy some plastic glasses to use in the Hot Tub back at home. There were then a few very short but quite light showers which weren’t enough to stop us sitting outside another Café Nero for Karen to use my voucher for another coffee.
Just as we got back to the M&S for the car park the heavens opened, and we complimented ourselves on our impeccable timing. The traffic back to Falmouth was not good and it took a silly amount of time to do the 11 miles.
Nevertheless, we were back in time for kickoff and remarkably I found a really good stream to watch the match or rather mismatch. Am I the only Norwich fan who’s initial and constant worry in these types of games is that I don’t want to take away Ipswich’s record of suffering the record Premier League defeat? I suspect that the current Man City team is probably the best in the world. We really didn’t stand a chance on paper or on the pitch as it turned out.
As soon as the final whistle blew, we went for a walk down to Swanpools. The weather had now cleared up considerably and there was a good smattering of blue sky. When we got down to the beach it was rather pleasant, and we wished we could have lingered longer but we knew we had the steep climb back up to the annex to tackle.
Back at the annex the owners popped outside for a chat to check if we were still happy with everything which we were. They do seem like nice people.
We then had a quick turnaround as we had a booking at The Working Boat for 7pm which was the posh end of Falmouth. As ever we had trouble parking and so I had to drop Karen off to secure the table whilst I continued to look for a spot. I found one eventually, but it was 7 minutes’ walk away.
The restaurant was a turn up for this trip. It was really really good. We had a fabulous table overlooking all the boats in the harbour. It felt very safe. The service was great and the food even better (I had Caesar Salad and Karen had Haddock). It was double what we had been paying this trip but worth it.
Cornwall – well done. Today was much more like it. And the weather is changing as well. At this rate you will turn us around. Our language and thoughts are already much more positive.
