WRITING IS HARD

I wish writing inspiration came more to order. Instead of poetry filling my head when I’m trying to write prose. Or line after line chasing round my brain just as I get into bed. Or art ideas surfacing when I want words.

Or nothing at all. Complete indifferent blankness.

That’s what it’s been like today. In fact, there have been elements of it all week.

I’ve had a project on the go for months for a new visual poetry collection, with a provisional title of Where The Soul Lives. It’s based on the idea that different cultures think the soul is located in different organs of the body. And I have some good (I think) ideas about how to explore that, using different art techniques and having fun with some anatomy and neurology textbooks. I’ve a specific piece I’ve been working on recently. But I can’t seem to tie the details down to put in place.

Some of the problem is lack of confidence. To just get on with doing something and not worry about getting it right first time. That can come later. (And I wonder if I’m telling you about this so it will give me some accountability, because you – hopefully – will want to see the end result).

Some of the problem is that I’ve had another idea. And the words, the thought processes are flowing more easily for that one.  I’ve been playing with erasure poems and borrowed words – where you take a text from something else, anything else really, and edit it right down to make something new, or use the edited highlights as a framework for a new piece of writing. There can be some wonderful musicality and metaphors to be found in unexpected places. And I love that.

This time it’s ornithology books and I’m envisaging a chapbook or maybe something longer, initially using descriptions of the birds that visit our garden feeder, maybe developing to others that can be found in the locality.

How do you make progress on one thing when inspiration is more forthcoming for something else? And how do you maintain discipline without being rigid and losing the flexibility that is necessary for creativity?

Having the structure of a degree held me on course. Perhaps it was because I could easily see an end product, a specific measure of achievement. And I knew I only had that year to do it in. Perhaps it was because I had weekly goals and validation in the form of feedback from colleagues and lecturers. It’s much harder to keep myself accountable only to myself, no matter how many goals or deadlines I set.

So I am left at the whims of self discipline and inspiration.

One of my favourite Instagram accounts, @inspiredtowrite, posted a picture recently that said:

I WAIT FOR NO MUSE. I AM THE MUSE.

I need to remember that.

I just need to figure out how to put it into practice.

THE GIFT OF ENCOURAGEMENT

Writing can be a lonely occupation. Especially in those times when we wonder why we keep going, when another email rejection arrives, or a competition deadline passes so your failure registers by default, when it seems like no one likes your work enough to put it out there.

But then there comes a moment when you feel seen, validated. An acceptance. And even more, a comment on the quality of your work. Someone gets you, appreciates what you have done, and wants to include it alongside work you admire.

This is what it felt like when I recently submitted two works successfully to the Harpy Hybrid Review. Not only did the editors come back to me quickly (which is amazing in itself) but they said my two pieces about my dad’s dementia were “beautiful and heartbreaking”, which is just as I had intended them to be.

A few months later and I’m excited to see the Spring edition 2024 published. And there’s THIEF and JIGSAW, in among other pieces so good they make me wish I’d written them, and with other writers and artists – visual poets in particular – who speak the same language as me. I feel at home. And it makes me want to shout out to as many people as possible, “Come and see what we’ve done! It might not be what you’re expecting but it might speak to you too.”

It’s great to feel part of this creative community.

And creatives do seem so good at community. You’d think that we would be competing with each other – for publication, for agents, for grants, for sales, for views – but actually we’re only ever competing with ourselves. Our fellow artists are (in my experience) cheering each other on, vicariously enjoying each other’s successes, and seeing other’s achievements as encouragement that we might be able to do likewise.

They are some of the most generous and encouraging people I’ve come across.

I think of the poet, Liz Berry, not only giving permission for us to use her poem on our local radio series but also offering to record it for us. Or author, Deborah Jenkins’s consistent words of encouragement on social media. Or how artist, Paul Hobbs, took the time to send detailed and supportive replies when I emailed asking for advice. Or check out Amy McNee whose Instagram account art (@inspiredtowrite) constantly reminds artists how great they are and to keep going. Or Valley Verse, my local poetry group, where new and established writers are welcomed with equal enthusiasm. Or any one of my fellow students at Plymouth University, relishing each other’s work across the genres.

We all need people who will encourage and challenge us, help us feel seen and known. The Bible talks about encouragement as a gift from God. Creatives seem to have it spades.

ORDINARY EXTRAORDINARY

We took advantage of the good weather yesterday and went to Saltram again just outside Plymouth. The grounds are beautiful, the Chapel Tearoom food delicious, and their volunteer guides are some of the most enthusiastic and knowledgeable we’ve ever met.

They are full of stories.

How an enthusiastic conservator in the family wrongly labelled – in gold leaf – some key paintings. How one Countess went off around Europe to practise her painting skills because she didn’t want to meet the Pope with her husband. How another died on her honeymoon. Even how a modern teenage visitor ignored the guide ropes and did a Fosbury Flop onto a delicate four poster bed.

The world is full of stories if we take the time to listen or look for them.

We found a new one – well, new to us – in our own family history recently. My father in law has given us two big boxes of family photos to sort and scan so that they can be saved and shared. This one is of my husband’s grandparents, Nick and Edie, his brother, Fred, and his wife, Sylvie.

“Oh yes,” said my husband, “Fred’s the one who was a Japanese prisoner of war.”

It was too fascinating not to do some research to see if I could find more details. There’s so much you can learn from forms and we hit gold dust with Fred: a questionnaire given to British and American POWs on liberation, full of detail. It proved he had been a POW, although not under the Japanese, and no Hollywood worthy story but still a moving one of an ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances.

Aged 20, he left his job as a printer in 1940 to enlist in the Royal Army Service Corps, where he served as a driver. Eighteen months later he was captured at Tobruk (in modern day Libya) in Rommel’s retaking of the city and the largest capture of British Commonwealth troops since the fall of Singapore.

Fred spent the rest of World War Two as a prisoner, initially in Bhengazi in North Africa, then Altamura and Carpi in Italy, finally in Muhlberg and Oschatz in Germany. For the final two years, he was in work camps, doing back breaking jobs in granite quarries.  At one point he caught malaria but reports that he had adequate medical care thanks to a French medical officer and a British orderly.

En route to Egypt on the troopship Nea Hellas, Fred had watched a film about what to do in case of capture but that was his only training. He was taught nothing about escape or evasion but that didn’t stop him trying. He and another soldier, John Sumner of the Kings Own Rifles, escaped once from a prison column marching between Grimma and the River Elbe. They were both fit but had no maps and were picked up by German guards only eight hours later and returned to the column. 

He did what he could in terms of sabotage though. He broke tools on a daily basis and twice poured a drum of diesel oil into a stream by the quarry.

I can’t help but admire Fred for this. He’s no Steve McQueen hero, no document forger or tunnel digger. He’s an ordinary man doing what he can to disrupt the enemy despite the risk of punishment.

Day after day. For three years.

What a story of faithfulness, of not forgetting who you are and what your purpose is, no matter the limitations of the circumstances he finds himself in.

Only months after the war ended, Fred married Sylvie.

There’s another story of everyday heroism mentioned on the form too. Under ‘any other matter of any kind you wish to bring to notice’, Fred wrote:

“I should like to state that a Polish girl helped us at Kleinsteinberg on many occasions when we were very very hungry. She stole potatoes for us from the farm she worked on in Kleinsteinberg at great personal risk. Her name is Johanna Motika. I believe she is still in Kleinsteinberg.”

I wonder who Johanna was? And what prompted her to be so kind and generous and brave? In another document, the Registration of Foreigners and German Persecutees 1939-1947, there’s a Janina Johanna Matyka living in Hof, a hundred miles south of Kleinsteinberg.  She’s listed as being born in 1923 in Tarnow, South East Poland. I wonder if that’s her and what happened to her.

But that’s another story.

IN BETWEEN TIMES AND PLACES

We’ve just come home from two weeks back in Hampshire. Back in the old family home where our boys returned to live. People laugh when I tell them our sons moved back in and we moved out! We had a lovely family time. Easter is an important time for us to be together. We cooked and ate great food, shopped and walked, gardened and read together.

We also went back to do specific things: dental appointments; visit my father in law recently out of hospital; DIY and some clearing out. I found papers related to Boys’ Brigade and my previous job no longer needed. And we’ve contacted a charity about donating my mum’s old riser recliner chair that’s still in our conservatory.

Our boys only moved back temporarily in 2022. One stored all his stuff while he went travelling around America and then moved back himself to jobhunt and then found one within an easy commute. The other returned to think through what he wanted to do next, which proved to be an MSc in Applied Meteorology at a nearby university, and is now waiting to hear back on a job application.

We were happy to provide them with a home again before they find their own and they have lived well together. I think they’ve been good for each other. And it was helpful for us, not to leave the house empty or have the hassle of finding tenants, while we made the giant move to Cornwall. It gave us wiggle room to try out living down here, to see if it suited us.

Initially we said we’d give it my MA year to decide. But, as I’ve told my sons before, there’s a difference living somewhere as a student and living there as a resident. We realised after I finished that we needed more time to make a final decision about a permanent move. We also needed to see what it was like with the Lovley Mr M retired, a new routine for both of us to work out.

So have we made a final decision now? Not completely. It’s complicated. We think we know. But it’s more of a growing percentage of sureness than a specific moment of yes or no. There are pros and cons of both places and returning to Hampshire reminded us of many of the pros of there, of what and who we miss: friends, the garden, the sound of birdsong (instead of gulls), a dishwasher!

It’s unsettling, to be honest. We are still living in an in between time. Home is now and not yet for us. While we wait for our boys to be settled in their own homes and futures. While we take the time to find our part in a new community. I’m so glad a friend who made the same move advised me that putting down roots in Cornwall is a slow process.

Sometimes I remind myself that this liminal feeling is perhaps familiar for Christians. We love this world but it’s not necessarily our forever home. When I imagine what Heaven might be like, I think it will feel like coming home. I picture arms wide open in welcome, familiar beloved faces, and what my family called ‘four ones’*: a hug circle where we all fitted together like jigsaw pieces.

I guess Lent is a similar waiting time. I’ve followed the practices in the wonderful book A Different Kind of Fast by Christine Valters Paintner this year. Coming out of it, I feel better equipped to not rush but let decisions unfurl in God’s timing. I will try to consider this time of ‘at home and not yet’ like a Celtic ‘thin place’, where secular and sacred meet and merge, where we can take our time to let go of what we need to and grow into our permanent home.

(* or ‘three ones’, ‘six ones’, etc, however many people were there)

Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost (Tolkien)

 We went exploring in East Looe this week. Away from the centre of town, away from the tourist spots. 5 miles of walking. All hill.

My goodness we gave our quads and calves a workout. Sloping roads and long flights of steps. Stopping for a chat with a woman coming down as an excuse for a breather. It made the challenge of our own steep road a mere sprint in comparison to this marathon.

Oh, but the views.

Being on the opposite side of the river was like being on the other side of a mirror. We played I Can See Our House From Here, one of Mr M’s favourite games when we’re out, as West Looe Hill became our view with the sea behind it.

Most of our walk was residential. Good if you like architecture or if you’re nosy! If you’re a writer, you can call it research! More holiday homes on the lower levels, then lots of upside down houses clinging higher up the hillside, with main entrances on their top floors. Narrow roads that would challenge many a car and driver, as well nips and opes crisscrossing the hill: narrow lanes between properties that in London I would have previously called alleys or snicketways. When we emerged from the final one of these near the top, the roads became much more estate like, less Cornish and more generic in style.

At the summit, we knew if we turned left we would come to a parade of shops where, you can find one of the best chip shops in Looe, Ben’s Plaice, and the relatively new but fabulous Barbican Pizza. Keep going and you’ll come to the secondary school and the local football club, before you eventually reach the main parish church of St Martin’s on the corner of the road leaving Looe.

But we went right, stopping at the well stocked Spar for a much needed drink, then to the Wooldown, an area of open land edged by the South West Coastal Path and with fabulous views across Looe Bay. It’s not a park but a preserved piece of Cornish countryside within the town and is protected as such. So what you get are fields with hedgerows, havens for flora and fauna.

We sat on a bench with our drinks watching Looe Island disappear under the approaching sea fret and saw Hannafore Beach from a new angle. I wondered if this is what it might feel like to be a drone. Then we made our way down a track marked only by a line of flattened grass to a stepped footpath and onto the Coastal Path.

We were back on familiar ground now, having walked this section several times in the past. The path turns to tarmac, walls lined with benches overlooking East Looe Beach. About once a year, someone drives up here and onto the track, ignoring the signs, before abandoning their car and blocking everyone’s way after realising their error and deciding they can’t reverse back.

We ended our walk with lunch at Daisy’s Café, just up from the main shopping area back in the centre of town. I had a sandwich and salad garnish big enough to constitute a full dinner. The lovely Mr M had one of the best vegetable pasties in Looe, freshly baked.  

Even though we continued to ache for some days after, I’m really glad we did this walk. It was good to get to know our town better, and make some connections about where different parts are in relation to each other. To get a better feel for Looe as town in its own right and not just the tourist destination that it is. It made me realise how many people live here.

Next time, we’re going to explore more of West Looe: the streets our own house overlooks, up to the Downs, maybe the cemetery. And if our knees are up to it, we’ll see if we can manage Chapel Steps. (And if you want know why I put it that way you can get an idea of them here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_ofXnLQLHg) .

Here’s to exploring the places we live. And finding out more about them. Understanding, learning and putting down roots.

MOTHER’S DAY – Better Late Than Never

I wrote this post for last week. Then went away to visit family and forgot to pack my laptop charger! I considered writing something new for this week but what I wrote last week matters to me so I’m sharing it with you now instead.

Dear Mum

I can’t believe it was ten years ago I was facing my first Motherless Day. I remember going to the supermarket to buy something for dinner. But the bright lights, the people, and, worst of all, the card stand imploded on me like a migraine. I couldn’t breathe for the pain.

It’s not like that now. Missing you is more of an arthritic ache, like the one I get in my knee on damp days reminding me of the surgery I had all those years ago.

I miss you. All the time. I miss you in the big moments – four graduations I haven’t been able to send you photos of, one of them mine. I miss you in the small moments – I still catch myself thinking “Oh, I must tell Mum about that”, only to realise that you’re not there to tell anymore.

I miss your phone calls. How you would tell me, in detail, about the meals you’d had, people I’d never met, the birds on the feeder, flowers you’d seen in someone’s garden on the way somewhere. All those times I’d come off the phone not knowing why you’d called.

Now I know you were weaving strong threads of connection between us. And telling me you loved me.

I miss those calls and I miss knowing you are there for me to call. To swap recipes. To offload about work. To ask for prayers, which would happen right then on the phone, much to my embarrassment. Or just to hear someone speak in whole sentences after a day of my male household communicating only in single syllables and grunts.

I wish I could make those calls again. I wonder what you would make of my life now. Leaving my profession. Moving to Cornwall. Becoming a writer. I mean, I know you would be supportive and wise in your advice, but I wish I could physically hear the pride in your voice.

I wish I could show you our new home. I wish we could take our (yet to be found rescue) dog for a walk together on the beach. I wish we could exchange stories about my new hometown, where you spent your honeymoon. I wonder if you’d let me book us on a speedboat trip to recreate that picture of you and Dad. I’d like to sit with you in the little church that is starting to feel like it might become home for me. I’d like to talk about art with you and why it matters to me. I’d like you to hear my poetry and know how much you live on in my words.

Strange, this feeling of you being so far away and yet so imbedded in me. I’m doing OK, Mum. Ups and downs – you know how life is. You don’t need to worry about me not coping without you – you taught me too well. Even when you didn’t know you were teaching me.

I just wanted to tell you that I miss you. And I love you.

Liz

GRATEFUL IN THE GREY

I’ve felt a bit out of sorts this week, nothing terrible, just not quite myself. I guess it’s down to a near miss of a migraine, menopausal insomnia, and the weather. I know this is the UK but oh the rain, the hail, the grey of it all. Work has felt dull too, effortful and with little to see for it. And my Lent discipline, still full of valuable insights, has moved past the excitement of that hopeful first week.

I still find it too easy to count my negatives than my blessings. My imperfections stand out to me like misused apostrophes to an editor. But as I struggled to get to sleep last night, I remembered something I haven’t updated you about on this blog:

For those of you who don’t know, I developed De Quervain’s, a form of RSI that causes the tendons in the wrist/thumb joint to inflame and become painful. In the past, it resolved with anti-inflammatories and a resting splint, but this time it didn’t. So I had 6 months of increasing pain and debility followed by an extremely painful steroid injection into the joint.  If that didn’t work, I would be referred for hand surgery.

There was a lot riding on this injection. I was a tangled mess of hoped for recovery and feared permanent loss. I wrote about my first week post injection here:  https://thestufflifeismadeofblog.wordpress.com/2024/01/20/single-handed/. Return to function has been slow but it has happened, is continuing to happen.

Here’s some of things I never knew before to be grateful for:

I no longer wear a splint every night.

I can do up the zip on my coat.

I can chop vegetables again.

I can put the handbrake on in our car.

I can pop pills out of their strip.

I can carry two mugs of coffee at the same time.

I can type two handed.

I’ve started knitting again, which I have missed this so much.

I even did a bit of light pruning in the garden yesterday.

And to Mr M’s delight, I can wash up without pain or dropping things.

I’ve learned a few things along the way. The importance of good positioning and support when I’m on my keyboard. To keep doing my hand exercises regularly (and I can do all of them without pain now!). To take frequent breaks and limit time on repetitive activities, however enjoyable they are. How caring and protective Mr M is – I mean, I already knew that one but it’s so lovely to be reminded. That he and I are better these days at communicating when and how we need help and when we need to do things for ourselves.

There, the last week doesn’t seem so grey now. All these sunshine moments that I just needed to stop and notice and be thankful for.

WATERCOLOUR LESSONS

While my left hand was out of action, I needed something to replace the crafts I loved but couldn’t do. An outlet for a different path of my brain, a respite of creativity that wasn’t the work that writing is for me. I decided to use the watercolours I had bought but not used since my dissertation.

A year or two I would have been so surprised to see myself both painting and enjoying it. I had always been terrible at art at school. But my recent year back at university had taught me some new things: being creative for the joy of it and experimenting for fun. So I had followed a basic drawing course, which taught me something else: there are rules and techniques that can be learned and applied for satisfying results.

Not that I’ve taken a course in watercolour. I’ve just found artists on Instagram sharing exercises and principles, simple images to copy and adapt, then see how mine turn out. People like @rebelunicroncrafts or @essoldodesign, who generously share some of their process and ideas online.

And one thing I’ve discovered is that, although there are definite ways that watercolour behaves that you can utilise, for example creating blooms by dropping water or another wet colour onto wet paint, or creating texture effects with salt, clingfilm, or sponge, there’s also a large element that you can’t control. And just as the paint dries a different tone to when it is wet, it means there is always a surprise, a discovery about the final result.

And that’s a good thing to learn, to practise: letting go, of expectations and of the need to get everything ‘right’. Allowing myself to do my bit and see what happens from that. It goes against the grain for a perfectionist, for someone like me who grew up trying to earn approval by being the best. But I find I rather enjoy not being in control. Trying something as an experiment takes the pressure off. Instead of berating myself with:

“That’s not how I wanted it to turn out,”

I can say:

“Oh, that’s what happens when you do such and such.”

It’s a discovery instead not a disappointment. Or a bit like being a Christian – doing my bit but not stepping on God’s toes, trusting Him to His bit, and waiting to see how it finally turns out.

I’m still figuring out what’s my painting style and not just copying others’, my equivalent of a writer’s voice. And I’d like to see if I can integrate it somehow into my visual poetry in some way, but not as simple illustration. I’m wondering about painting designs over printed pages or words on abstract watercolour maps, using watercolour or mixed media with previous techniques like calligraphy or Celtic symbols.

Maybe I won’t resolve these questions. Maybe there will always be something else to learn, to experiment with. Maybe I won’t stick to one technique or style and that eclectic mix will be my voice! I don’t know.

But I also don’t mind. Which is another change for me. I am so glad God led me away from my old career, not just to develop my writing skill, but also to become more adventurous, less careful (and care-full). To teach me how adversity can actually be a direction pointer – I would never have tried watercolour and found this new joy were it not for my hand injury – and to discover the wonder of trying new things. And I wonder if it was a bit like this when the ‘Word became flesh’ and Jesus got to experience for Himself all the new things about being human?

What Makes A Perfect Day

“That’s the third time you’ve checked the weather forecast today. It’s not going to change.”

It was true. Already annoyed that my graduation was scheduled for the ridiculous miserable month of February, my fears for terrible weather spoiling the day looked like they would be justified. The day before, we could barely see the houses on the hill opposite for the grey that descended, as if we were living in an actual rain cloud. And no let up was forecast for the day itself.

‘“It doesn’t matter,” said my husband. “It might be raining outside but we will be bringing so much sunshine inside.”

I smiled. He is a wise man.

“I know why you’re worried though,” he continued.  “You just want everything to be perfect.”

His turn to smile. He knows me so well.

I did want it to be perfect. It was a big deal for me. I’ve completed three lots of studies at university but this was my first graduation. On the other hand, I’ve attended all five graduations the Lovely Mr M and our sons have earned between them. It felt strange to be the focus of attention now.

Rain seemed such a silly thing to worry about. But worry I did. About my hair getting spoilt. About my dress and gown getting soaked. About the photos looking awful as a result. About dripping my way onto the platform and tripping over. I just wanted it to be perfect.

But Mr M’s comments made me think. What makes a special day perfect or not?

I’m writing this the day looking back. Was it perfect? I mean, in some ways, no. We didn’t get the group photo of everyone from our course that we hoped for in the chaos of the crowd. I wish there’d been refreshments provided. We were disappointed the programmes didn’t include everyone’s names so we didn’t get that paper memento our success. I completely missed when I was meant to doff my cap to the Vice Chancellor as I got my awards, ending up doing a weird semi wave instead. And yes, it did rain. Most of the time and I did get wet, like everyone else.

But in the end, none of it mattered. I had a whole day of celebration with my three favourite men. I am so grateful for my sons making a 400 mile round trip on a 24 hour turnaround just for me. I got to see most of my lovely friends from my course and celebrate together. I spent the whole day grinning. And the photos turned out great – helped by some strategic umbrella placement by my family.

There were some small but wonderfully special moments. When the gown hire lady slipped it over my shoulders, straightened my mortarboard and adjusted the tassel, I suddenly thought “Oh, this is it” and it felt like the morning when I put my wedding dress on. I knew this was my day and just to enjoy it.

Then there was the smile on my friend Gabrielle’s face when we first saw each other and leaned over the pew to hug. The sound of the Grand March from Aida as the platform party paraded in, another memory from my wedding day. Stopping to smile and pose for a photo as I passed my family on the way back to my seat. The excited grin and wave from our head of school as he passed our group on the solemn parade out. The looks on my family’s faces and the loud whoop as I walked onto the platform. The number of times Mr M whispered how proud he was of me and how happy that made him.

I got my perfect day. I just needed a better definition of perfect.

Writ in Stone

We took a day off this week and went up onto Bodmin Moor. The mizzle passed while we had a delicious lunch at Minions shop and tearoom. And then we headed off to see what we’d come for: the Hurlers and the Cheesewring.

There’s no actual path from the car park, just a few tracks that you can pick out, or you find the easiest route around the increasingly lumpy land. Like Stonehenge and its environs, there’s a real sense of being part of a much bigger ancient landscape here, perhaps some kind of sacred route.

There are 16 stone circles on Bodmin and here you get three in a line, the Hurlers, with two outliers, the Pipers, standing like a gateway to the site. They get their name from a legend about a group of men who were turned to stone when they were caught playing hurling (an ancient Cornish game that is a sort of cross between a whole parish game of rugby and Capture the Flag) on the Sabbath.

Overlooking them from the top of the nearby Stowe’s Hill is the Cheesewring, a granite tor, so named because the layers of rock discs look like what we’d now call a cheese press. It’s actually a natural phenomenon but it comes with its own typically Cornish legend. Local giants took umbrance at Christian saints evangelising on their territory. One of them, Uther, was despatched to chase the saints off and confronted the frail St Tue, who proposed a rock throwing contest as a means to solve the land dispute. They took it in turns, St Tue drawing miraculous strength through prayer, and their rocks landed one after another on top of each other in piles on Stowe’s Hill. But Uther’s thirteenth rock missed and rolled down the hill. St Tue picked this one up and an angel appeared who placed it on top of the pile, at which Uther admitted defeat and the giants converted to Christianity.

This whole area is riddled with history. Not just Neolithic and Bronze Age but more recent ruins. The remains of engine houses of disused mines stand like 20^th century menhirs. The impressive cliff face next to the Cheesewring is an abandoned granite quarry. Everywhere you look there are rocks too straight or too arranged to be natural, lines and patterns in the earth even if they are grown over with grass. Where the resources underground have been consumed, the surface scars remain.

But it’s also wild. The wind, straight from the Atlantic as this is one of the highest parts of Cornwall, is sharp and strong. Face the wrong way and my coat hood won’t stay up; I wish I’d brought a hat. Some of my photos come out fuzzy because it’s impossible to hold my phone still. And when we start making our way back, the wind pushes us on our way like we’ve become yachts. So much so that we get blown off course and end up walking a circular back to the car instead of a straight line.

I do love it though. Grey granite and overcast. A string of wild ponies shelter under the gorse. A few shaggy cattle stand to one side to let us past but keep watching until we’re gone. A powerful buzzard flies overhead.

And that’s Cornwall all over. Wild. Magnificent. Land of legends. Fiercely proud of its heritage. Dependent on the elements. Its traditional industries – farming, mining, fishing – reliant on the earth and the sea, its modern industry – tourism – on the weather.

I came home with tangled hair, frozen face, and a clear head. Invigorated.