Cornwall. Where do I begin? This is the county that juts out from the south-western tip of England is the essence of unique. It has its own language, its own microclimate and its own individual culture. It’s a region that has a very special place in my heart and has been somewhere, where I have had the pleasure of visiting since I was very small. When I was younger, we would build up towards a special two weeks in August where we would trundle down the motorway to this place for our summer holidays. Yes, it would no doubt take us longer to transit the M6 and M5 motorways than it would take for you to get a plane to Tenerife, but fortunately for my parents, I was always a good traveller and “are we there yet” didn’t really come into my vocabulary. The journey is part of the holiday right? We never went abroad when I was younger, mainly due to the fact that my Dad worked long hours on the railways and these two weeks were a rare occasion, but also we never had the money to go to far flung places. I suppose that’s not at all a bad thing as I was able to appreciate some of the beautiful places we have here in Britain from a young age and I never really felt that I had missed out. Falmouth was our go to place, where we would base ourselves and each and every year it would host us in both rain and shine! Back in the old, old days the entire family would come with us. We’d hire a minibus and I’d even produce tickets for each of our ‘passengers.’ My Dad would often joke that my Nana would be quite satisfied saying “just park here, Chris. Just stop here.” This would be fine if it wasn’t for the predominantly, narrow streets of Cornwall and the many double-yellow lines, we can’t just park anywhere! Later, we upgraded to a caravan! This fibre-glass house on wheels would be our own little home from home down south with the feeling of camping but with a bit more of the comfort. In recent times, I’ve solo travelled down to the county and have had the opportunity to stay with my good friends, Jaqueline and Andrew in their beautiful home, smack-bang in the centre of Cornwall. It’s a hub to explore from, plus it helps when you’ve got some nice people to be with and catch-up with.

Cornwall is very much a maritime county and there are plenty of impressive facts that embed this;

It has the longest coastline in England at 433 miles.
There are over 300 beaches.
Fishermen (and women) catch over forty different types of fish, more than anywhere else in Britain.
There are over 2000 surf related businesses in Cornwall.
There are 7,000,000,000,000,000 grains of sand on Perranporth Beach.

Now, I’m not sure who the person was that did count all the grains of sand on Perranporth Beach but, I’ll take their word for it!

Earlier this month, it was once again such a joy for me to head back down to the far south-west and stay with Andrew and Jacqueline and it gives me great pleasure to share a selection of photographs I took on my journey through this magnificent county.