Cornwall or Bust

We have just returned from a fast and furious trip down in the Cornwall (SW) area of England.  We are tired, weary, dirty, and soooo glad to be back home. Really, it was like coming home to see the old Accommodation Center. After a good night’s sleep in our own beds, we are up and doing laundry and trying to sort out all the mess we have accumulated. Honestly, how can two old “coggers” like us make such a big mess? 

But first—let me tell you about the trip while Niel is sending some of the many pictures we took. Cornwall is, like all of England, a beautiful and picturesque country.  There are a lot of rolling hills, covered with pristine pasturelands and farms, but the beautiful coast-line is the main attraction. We visited many coves and beaches, saw old castles and ruins, and drove through quaint little villages on narrow and windy roads. For the majority of the time we stayed in what they call, a self-catered B & B.  It was located on a tidal river in a town called Helford. It was named, Hope Cottage. 

All cottages and most of the homes and estates have their own names. That is how the Royal Mail delivers their mail to them, which is much different than in Utah, where everything is on a grid system of north, south, east and west. Anyway, there were quite a number of little cottages located all along the hills surrounding this tidal river. For those of my grandchildren who don’t know what a tidal river is, you had better look it up, okay?

A tidal river is a river, or more typically a stretch of a river, whose flow and level is influenced by tides. 

This cottage was equipped with a nice little kitchen (ergo-self-catering), and a dishwasher and a new type clothes washer/dryer all in one, which we were afraid to use. There were 3 bedrooms for three of us couples and at the end of the hall only one bath, which we all shared. The bathroom was a big worry for me as all my family knows what it is like to share a bathroom with Dad (Niel) and Ryan Strong! Needless to say, I brought along a big box of matches to cover up odors etc. and told all how to use them. I am pleased to say it worked out well.  However----I don’t think that I’ll be getting Niel to stay in B & B’s again. He didn’t enjoy the experience.  He would always rather stay in a motel, thank you.  One luxury we had did made up for all the inconvenience, we had a HD TV!  It’s the first time we have seen or watched TV since last June. We all could hardly tear ourselves away from it. You’d have thought we were all addicted to watching TV at some point in our lives, really.

So, each day for five days we ventured out from Hope Cottage and discovered Cornwall. Some of the highlights were: Stonehenge, Lizard Point, Port Isaac (where Doc Martin is filmed), devouring Cornish ice cream and Pasties (pronounced with a short "a" like cat) and climbing up to St. Michael’s Mount. 

Port Isaac

Stone Henge

Another highlight was going to a play at the Minnack Theatre. The play was an adaptation of Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew”, which was played by an all-female cast. It got a little uncomfortable in the kissing scenes, but Niel said he’d rather watch two women kiss than two men anytime. For the most part the weather was beautiful, but we had on our rain gear for the play, which is in an outdoor theatre with the gorgeous sea as the backdrop. A little old lady built it, bit by bit and it is really amazing and beautiful.  

We attended an LDS ward in a city by the name of Helston, where there is a huge Marine Air Force base. It is located close to Helford and we enjoyed helicopters and fighter jets going overheard. Some of the time Dad and I were able to put the top down on our car and let the wind play willy-nilly with our hair (?) as we had the jets fly over us. He loved it!  But, true to form, Niel was ever so anxious to get back home, so we came home a day early.  On our way back, though, we visited the city of Bath, which is a place that I always enjoy seeing. We stopped for lunch at a little French Cafe’ and I had a great sandwich called a Croque Monsieur.

A croque-monsieur is a grilled ham and cheese sandwich with béchamel sauce. It originated in French cafés and bars as a quick snack. Typically, Emmental or Gruyère cheese is used. The name is based on the verb croquer and the word monsieur....Yum!!

It was quite the trip. We are so grateful to an English couple with whom we serve in the temple, the Curley’s, who did a lot of planning and preparing so that we wouldn’t miss a thing. Really, we couldn’t have done it without them.

Niel is getting better at driving all the time. At first, we were the ones who were passed on the narrow road ways (being in everyone’s way), but now he can almost keep up with the rest of them. In fact, we were greeted with a speeding ticket (done by camera on the roadway) when we arrived home. I can’t figure out how everyone can zip around at break-neck speed and we get the ticket. It’s not the first and probably won’t be the last ticket, though.

The prospects of not being in the temple each day are now becoming a reality to us. That will be hard, for we have such great testimonies of temple work and in “standing in holy places”.  Bro. Jay Allen, who was a high councilman in our stake once said in a talk that the church had a church-wide efficiency study done and the only thing they could find wrong, which they felt was a problem and needed to be addressed was that the church spent entirely too much money on people who were dead. He said, “It is our objective to save souls, not be efficient.”

Let me leave you with a quote from Mr. Charles Dickins: “Cheerfulness and contentment are great beautifiers, and are famous preservers of good looks.”  Keep smiling and projecting goodness in all you do.

Love, Mom, Carolee, Granny

p.s. And a very belated happy birthday to Holly Lambert. Sorry but wifi was limited and we did the best we could. Hopefully you got the email we sent. 

Dear All,

While on our trip to the Southwest, we did keep our eyes open for people we could approach about the gospel. I met one gentleman and his wife in Falmouth at the marina. His surname was Todd. He was a true English Sailor having even been the national sail boat racing champ in years past. His current vessel is 35’ long and sea worthy into the Mediterranean and European seas. He wasn’t a spring chicken but looked healthy and well. He welcomed our conversation and made some surprising comments about the LDS faith. He was aware of the huge effort to gather names of our ancestors through indexing. He asked if our church was growing and noted that the Church of England membership was falling. I told him our church was growing rapidly. He caught me by surprise when he asked “Why is that”?  I told him when people heard our message it just seemed to be right in their hearts and minds. He wanted to know what we do in our temples and I explained it has a lot to do with why we have a huge genealogy base from researching our ancestry. I told him all of God’s children deserve the right to receive the saving ordinances like baptism and that we baptize in our temples. Maybe too much but he wanted to know, and that’s what came to my mind. He said “When I was just a boy and went to church with my parents, the priest wore a tall hat, carried a wand and had a robe over his shoulders and went around swinging a pot with smoke coming out of it.” He said it gave him night mares and he refused to go back. He said he believes in a God who created all things on earth and that all things have a spirit or were created spiritually before they were put on earth. I told him his expectations of God resembled ours in many ways in terms of the creation. I told him to go to an LDS Chapel with a Family History Centre and have them type in his name and date of birth. That he might be surprised to see that they could come up with his recent ancestry which he said he knows nothing about prior to his grandparents.

Anyway, there is hardly a day that goes by that someone doesn’t ask us why we are in England and how long we plan to stay. (Many times because they know we talk like Americans) We are handing out missionary cards and hope these people will go to the church web site.

We have been on the road for two weeks in a row and I’m ready to get back into my own bed and live in our tiny little apartment. Never thought I would say that but now it is home.

Love to you, 

Dad and Granddad

Bath, Roman baths

Cornwall, Bath Abbey