Heligan and St Ives

Dear Coco

 Our next garden, just up the road from our B&B, was the Lost Gardens of Heligan. It was a started by the same chap who did the Eden Project, and we both really loved them. This hairy little British bee is quite different to our bees.

 Lots of colourful, old fashioned flowers

 and healthy-looking vegetables were growing, some for the taking,

 and Mom and I both fell in love with this potting shed.

 Mom's best fuschias

 and lots of pretty gardens to explore.

Even the shop was fun - although everything is SO expensive for us - each little packet of seed costs the equivalent of about R25.

I was keen to see St Ives, so we set off and had to park high up on the hill and catch a bus down into the town as the streets are really narrow and crowded with people. We went into the Tate St Ives, but was quite disappointed as I was hoping to see some of the well-known Cornish artists, but only found their paintings on cards in the shop.

We also found a shop with your name, Coco, with one of England's well-behaved spaniels waiting outside.

The dogs are generally in better shape than the humans here!

We drove home along the coast via Cape Cornwall, once a tin mine, which was beautiful and wild. We discovered a South African link as a chap called Francis Oates, who was the Chairman of De Beers, built a house here called Porthledden, which he modelled on Cecil Rhodes's house, Groote Schuur, in Cape Town. He planted mesembryanthemums from South Africa, which have naturalised here and are called "Sally my handsome" by the locals who couldn't pronounce mesembryanthemum. 

In the twilight and our Sat Nav led us down little narrow roads in the southern Cornwall area and suddenly announced "In 800 yards, take the ferry" which is what we did. It is called the King Harry ferry and it takes cars over the Fal River every 10 minutes.

Still missing you all terribly, but will be home very soon, 

lots of love from the Food Lady